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Presentation at GP educator conference and bursary award for doctoral study on early cancer diagnosis

BJoseph Akanuwe, doctoral student at CaHRU, was recently invited to present a workshop with Dr Sharon Black (both pictured below) at a regional primary educator’s conference organised by Health Education East Midlands at the Eastgate Hotel on 14 January 2016. Joseph who is a full time PhD student with CaHRU, continues to work as a nurse to support his studies which are supervised by Prof Niro Siriwardena, Dr Black and Prof Sara Owen.

joseph and sharon 1The workshop entitled ‘Estimating and Communicating Cancer risk in the GP Consultation’ was based on his work reviewing the literature around use of cancer risk assessment tools and a series of interviews of primary care practitioners and service users on their perceptions of risk assessment using a novel risk tool (Qcancer) and how this might be used in the primary care consultation. Participants discussed the implications for GPs of using Qcancer to quantify cancer risk; the potential uses of QCancer in the consultation; what communication issues might arise when using Qcancer; and the potential challenges to using QCancer in routine general practice. The workshop raised issues about communicating risk in general practice participants found the discussion of potential advantages and disadvantages of using Qcancer.

BJoseph also presented findings of a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews and focus groups of 19 service users and 17 practitioners on cancer risk estimation and communication. The results of the workshop will contribute to validation of the research findings. Joseph has also been invited to present his most recent study, ‘Patient and practitioner perspectives of QCancer use in primary care consultations’ at the Trent Regional SAPC conference in Leicester in March 2016. His work was recently recognised through a bursary awarded by a member of the University Court to support his studies.

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CaHRU research on measuring quality presented at the Larrey Society’s Future of EMS Conference

niro2Professor Niro Siriwardena recently presented on ‘Developing new ways of measuring the quality of emergency medical services’ on 21 January 2016 at the Larrey Society’s inaugural conference on the Future of EMS in London. The Larrey Society, the brainchild of its founder David Davis, is an international organisation of paramedics and NHS, independent and voluntary ambulance services with leaders from health and academic communities, formed a year ago. The society is named after Dominque Jean Larrey, an army surgeon in Napoloen’s army who developed field medicine and ambulances.

NThe meeting was chaired by Sue Noyes, chief executive of East Midlands Ambulance Services NHS Trust and included keynote lectures from Prof Andy Newton, president of the society, Prof Jonathan Benger, professor of emergency medicine at the University of West of England, Prof Siriwardena, director of CAHRU, and Prof Kevin Mackway-Jones, professor of emergency medicine. Prof Newton talked about the current state of ambulance services and the urgent need to innovate to improve care quality. Prof Benger described an innovative method of ambulance dispatch currently being introduced and evaluated in the South West. Prof Mackway-Jones discussed the causes of and potential solutions to emergency department blocking.

photo2italiccolourWORDSProf Siriwardena described work done by ambulance services in England over the past eight years developing new quality measures of ambulance service care and improving care for conditions such as heart attack, stroke, diabetes and asthma using methods such as largescale quality improvement collaboratives. He went onto describe the new indicators being developed through research programmes such as Prehospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation using method such systematic literature reviews, interviews of ambulance staff and patients, consensus methods and data linkage to derive risk adjustment measures, which provide potential for better measurement and improvement of ambulance service care.

 

 

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CaHRU Autumn 2015 newsletter

The latest edition of the CaHRU Newsletter (Autumn2015) was published in November. The newsletter presents the work of the research centre over the previous three months and includes articles from the CaHRU blog covering publications, conferences and funding. The newsletter is written by members of the CaHRU team and [su_document url=”https://communityandhealth.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/files/2016/01/CaHRU-Newsletter-Autumn-2015.pdf” responsive=”no”]Multi-morbidity, goal-oriented care, the community and equity[/su_document]produced by Sue Bowler, CaHRU administrator.

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CaHRU receive University of Lincoln team award for achievement in research in 2015

The Community and Health Research Unit were awarded the University of Lincoln team award for Achievement in Research at the awards ceremony in November 2015. Members of the team were Professor Niro Siriwardena (director), Dr Zahid Asghar, Dr Zowie Davy, Dr Jo Middlemass, Dr Coral Sirdifield, Ana Godoy Caballero, Fiona Togher, Viet-Hai Phung, Despina Laparidou, Rebecca Porter, Rachel Hawley and Sue Bowler. Ana Godoy has left the team to begin a new post in Spain and Rebecca Porter has started her medical studies at Durham.

Over the past year CaHRU achieved research centre status. The centre focussed its efforts on ‘making an impact on healthcare through international and world class research’ by: conducting teamachievement2015aresearch which is likely to make a difference to people’s health and well-being; promoting high quality care which enhances the experience, safety, effectiveness, efficiency and equity of healthcare by investigating how to transform the performance and function of health and social care practice, organisation and delivery; positively engaging with health care organisations regionally and nationally; strengthening its academic and health service collaborations regionally, nationally and internationally; supporting its researchers to achieve their potential through a research environment that encourages cooperation, collaboration and mutual support; and engaging with service users, carers, practitioners, health service managers, commissioners and policymakers in research activities to maximise the impact of its research by responding to service priorities, working with service users and care organisations to embed research into practice and disseminate findings.

The team’s efforts have led to an increase in the number and quality of successful research bids including funding from the National Institute for Health Research, Wellcome Trust and Falck Foundation, greater numbers of research outputs in high quality peer-reviewed journals, and continuing research impact extending regionally, nationally and internationally. Team members use a wide range of research designs and methods, but the centre is now undertaking more clinical trials which provide greater potential for future research impact.


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CaHRU team reflects on past and plans future

The CaHRU team spent a December awayday at Lincolnshire’s Branston Hall, reflecting on past and ongoing work, discussing current challenges and exploring future opportunities for the research centre. Over the past year the centre has continued to build on its strong collaborations with health service and academic partners (both internal and external to the university), which has led to increasing success in attracting external funding, achieving publications and securing research funding.

In the next year CaHRU will begin new projects on the ethics of ambulance trials (funded by the Wellcome Trust), cahru_awaydaypain management in ambulance services (funded by the Falck Foundation, Denmark) and evaluation of a new pathway for care of people with diabetes presenting with low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) to ambulance services (funded by the East Midlands Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care). The centre will continue its work on ambulance trials (RIGHT2 funded by the British Heart Foundation) and service delivery (Variation in Ambulance Non-conveyance funded by the NIHR), prescribing safety in primary care (Scaling up PINCER funded by the Health Foundation) and regional networks such as the East Midlands Network for Quality Improvement Research and Education (ENQuIRE, funded by the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network and Health Foundation).

The awayday provided an important opportunity for CaHRU staff to have their say on future developments. Next year the centre will continue to expand with the appointment of two postdoctoral staff who will join the team including a qualitative researcher and health economist. The awayday was supported by funding from the University of Lincoln team achievement award for research which CaHRU won in 2015 for a consecutive year.