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Fighting for real equality in healthcare for people on probation

coralIf David Cameron is serious about his promise yesterday in Manchester to end discrimination and “finish the fight for real equality” he should examine the way that CCGs are funding healthcare in probation.

People on probation are a deprived and vulnerable group. National guidance in England exhorts Clinical Commissioning Groups to commission healthcare for those living in the community who are serving community orders. This includes ‘approved premises’ – accommodation providing enhanced supervision for offenders and individuals on bail who may present a high risk of harm to the public.

Desk1In an article published recently in Health and Social Care in the Community, researchers, including a member of the Community and Health Research Unit at the University of Lincoln present findings from a national survey of CCGs in England. This survey, sent as a freedom of information request to all CCGs and Mental Health Trusts in England, compared the extent to which healthcare services were commissioned for probationers in 2014 with similar data collected in 2013.

Findings show that the proportion of CCGs commissioning healthcare for probation reduced from 7% to 1%, and 20% of CCGs stated that funding healthcare for this group was the responsibility of the NHS England Area Teams. It is not the Area Team’s responsibility it is the responsibility of CCGs.

There was also a reduction in the proportion of Mental Health Trusts funding healthcare for probation between the 2013 and 2014 surveys – from 70% to 61%. The prevalence of mental health disorders in probation is high, so it was of concern that only 12% of Mental Health Trusts provided a service to support approved premises and just 32% provided clinics in probation.

The present Government’s policy, in April 2015, to privatise probation for low risk offenders in the community adds yet more complexity to this highly concerning scenario.

 

Professor Charlie Brooker and Dr Coral Sirdifield

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Are you a student having trouble sleeping? Would you like to sleep better?

HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SLEEP BETTER?

oasislogo

The Oxford Access for Students Improving Sleep (OASIS) study offers an effective state of the art sleep improvement programme to all students who take part.  This involves a 6 week course and keeping a sleep diary.  The course is delivered via the web and mobile phone.  In addition you’d be required to complete online assessments.  There are no face to face appointments.

We are offering this as part of a research study to find out if improving students sleep also improves their emotional wellbeing.

To find out if you’re eligible to take part, please register your interest on the study website and you will receive a link to a short sleep test (2 minutes). 

https://oasis.psych.ox.ac.uk

The OASIS study is run by Oxford University’s world-leading Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi) in collaboration with Lincoln University’s Community and Health Research Unit (CaHRU).

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CaHRU’s REST project features in Health Foundation’s stories of outstanding impact in primary care

REST-ABOUT1The Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment (REST) project featured in the Health Foundation’s recent newsletter, ‘Stories of outstanding impact in primary care‘. The REST project is an ongoing area of research within the Quality and Outcomes in Primary Healthcare group at CaHRU led by Prof Niro Siriwardena and involving other members of the team including Fiona Togher, Viet-Hai Phung, Dr Coral Sirdifield, Dr Jo Middlemass and Dr Zowie Davy. The project was initially funded by the Health Foundation under their Engaging with Quality in Primary Care scheme to improve primary care for people with insomnia. Subsequent work has been funded by the Research Investment Fund at the University of Lincoln, the EPSRC and the East Midlands Health Innovation and Educational Cluster.

restlogoThe research seeks to improve treatment for people suffering with sleep problems by promoting a range of treatment options beyond just sleeping tablets and has led to a series of peer-reviewed and highly cited publications in journals such as the British Journal of General Practice, Health Expectations, Sleep, Biomed Central Family Practice, and the British Medical Journal. Subsequent research has also been undertaken in collaboration with other institutions including Universities of Glasgow, Connecticut and Ghent and also Harvard and Oxford Universities.2. E-learning - HOME - Rollover

The project led to its own REST project website (http://restproject.org.uk/) in 2011 and a REST e-learning programme for primary care professionals on how to manage insomnia using non-drug therapy which has been accessed almost 12,000 times by 10,000 users in over 150 countries with over 5,000 users in the UK alone. REST was showcased as one of three impact case studies submitted from CaHRU to REF2014.

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CaHRU director keynote speaker at launch of PRIME Centre Wales

cardiff3Professor Niro Siriwardena was a keynote speaker at the launch of PRIME Centre Wales on 22 September at the Preseli Room, Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. He spoke on quality improvement in primary and prehospital care covering issues such as what is quality, how can improvement be brought about through cooperation rather than competition, and what can ambulance services and primary care learn from each other. PRIME Centre Wales is a multi-university collaboration co-funded by the Welsh government to research primary and prehospital unscheduled care led by Professors Adrian Edwards, Cardiff University, director of PRIME with co-directors Prof Joyce Kenkre (University of South Wales), Prof Richard Neal (University of Bangor), and Prof Helen Snooks (Swansea University).

niro2Other key speakers included the Welsh Health Minster, Prof Mark Drakeford who spoke on Welsh government policy on prudent health in primary and emergency care; Mr Simon Denegri, Chair of INVOLVE and National Director for Public Participation and Engagement in Research in his talk, entitled ‘Whose healthcare is it anyway?’ spoke about the importance and benefits of patient and public involvement in research; Dr Ruth Hussey, Chief Medical Officer for Wales in ‘Designing primary and emergency care services for a healthier, happier, fairer Wales’ focussed on equity; Prof Jean White, Chief Nursing Officer for Wales in ‘Developing our primary and emergency care workforce in Wales’ covered workforce challenges and priorities.

cardiff1There were posters showing the work of the centre and a range of workshops after lunch covering issues such as direction setting, lay involvement, the practice research incentive scheme and study design. The final keynote was given by Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, who covered important challenges for research including open data, overdiagnosis and medicalisation, and treatment burden which the journal were championing.

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Rachel Hawley attends ‘The Value of Values in Health and Social Care Leadership’ Conference

Rachel Hawley recently attended ‘The Value of Values in Health and Social Care Leadership’ conference at the Centre for Leadership, Sheffield Hallam University on 18 September, on behalf of the Community and Health Research Unity. This inaugural event was a collaboration between the university and senior / Executive Alumni students who graduated from the MBA Medical and MSc Health and Social Care Leadership programmes including NHS England and local NHS Trusts.

At the event Rachel presented a poster presentation on the Higher Education Institution Challenge (HEI) Challenge for Patient Supported Quality Improvement and Education in Healthcare on behalf of the wider project team.

The HEI Challenge Award 2014-15 is a unique opportunity for universities in the East Midlands and beyond, commissioned to deliver education by Health Education East Midlands, to foster sustainable approaches to working collaboratively across the region’s HEIs for the benefit of our population and to drive positive experiences and outcomes for learners and local employers. The ultimate goal of the HEI Challenge is to implement a cross-university collaboration to share, develop, showcase and spread work across East Midlands and surrounding universities around the unifying topic of healthcare quality improvement.

For further information on the HEI Challenge click on the link.

Conference delegates were welcomed to the event by Professor Karen Bryan as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing. The day began with a series of keynote presentations on a range of topics that addressed the value of values in health and social care leadership including:

    The challenge of emotional labour: how organisational systems (and leaders and managers within them) support or undermine the provision of compassionate care, Dr John Edmonstone, Senior Research Fellow and Director, Keele University. This session highlighted powerful messages regarding the challenge of emotional labour, in particular the importance of context and ‘If you don’t value staff, how can staff value patients’.
    Values based leadership – does it make a real difference? , Dr Umesh Pradhu, Medical Director, Wrightington Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust. This session began with a very powerful and personal account of care highlighting in particular the personal and professional impact of this on his own medical and leadership practice – drive and motivation as well as the important balance of systems and personal failure and accountability

    Other keynote presentations included John Greatex sharing his experience of The Unipart way: efficiency with a human face and the paprelel lessons that can be learnt in health and social care. Sally Gretton from Skills for Care invited participants to consider putting ‘our values into action: considering the bigger picture’. Participants spent time networking around the poster presentations and engaging in a series of interactive workshops. For example Rachel White and George Rook on the value of patient and staff highlighting why stories matter, the key national drivers and examples of how stories are being used in practice to influence change and quality. An investment by NHS England into developing the processes and mechanisms to embed stories more systematically has led to the launce of a repository through which people can access / share stories as well as guidance and resources.

    Rachel Hawley