Community and Health Research Unit

Members of the Scaling up PINCER project team (PINCER is a pharmacist-led information technology intervention for reducing clinically important errors in medication management in general practice), Prof Niro Siriwardena, Janice Wiseman, Dr Sarah Rodgers, Chris Rye and Despina Laparidou, recently attended (on June 29th) the Scaling-Up Improvement Programme Mid-point Event in London. The event was organised by the Health Foundation, the main funder for the six participating projects. The focus of the meeting was on evaluation and sustainability of improvement.

The day was designed to be as interactive as possible and teams were asked to bring materials with them, such as information, pictures, posters, leaflets, data, etc., to put up on a pin board, with the purpose of giving a visual story of their project for other teams to view during and between sessions. This created a wonderful opportunity for teams to learn about each other’s projects and discuss issues (such as successes and challenges) around their progress.

A number of interesting talks were presented around evaluating and sustaining scaling-up improvements, such as the sessions facilitated by Tom Ling/Bryn Garrod (RAND Europe) and Kathy Elliott (NCAT) respectively. One of the most stimulating and thought-provoking sessions, “Influencing for sustainability”, asked delegates to split into two large groups and have one person from each project team ‘make a case’ for their project, facilitated by Carl Smith (Frontline) and Jamie Ripman (Practive). At the end of each brief presentation, the rest of the delegates provided feedback on their performance and suggestions on how to improve their style and adjust the context of the presentation to better fit the target audience’s agenda.

At the end of the day, Sally Williams (Frontline) and Valentina Karas (the Health Foundation) brought the event to its close by reflecting on the day and discussing future actions.

By Despina Laparidou

CaHRU members, Viet-Hai Phung, Ana Godoy and Dr Jo Middlemass all presented posters at the recent College of Social Science Summer Conference, held at the University of Lincoln Business School on Thursday 2^nd July. The purpose of the Conference was to showcase a range of work from across the College of Social Science that had been funded by its small grants scheme.

Ana was busiest as she presented four posters: Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment utilising Community Pharmacists (REST-UP), bisphosphonates and stroke and two for Quality and Costs of Primary Care in Europe (QUALICOPC)! Jo and Viet-Hai presented their work on dementia and ethnic inequalities in prehospital care respectively. All six posters generated considerable interest from attendees. Research from the wider School of Health and Social Care was also very well represented. Alongside the poster sessions were three sessions with 20 oral presentations from PhD students and staff. As with the posters, the oral presentations captured the diversity of the College’s work: from the work of the Red Cross to the future of Christmas markets; from gender identities and football through to the psychology of decision-making; from empathy in nursing to branding cities.

It is sometimes felt that students and academics rarely know what research colleagues in other parts of a School or College do. If the university is serious about raising awareness about the work of different departments, schools and colleges, then events such as this should become a permanent fixture in the academic calendar.