Quality improvement webinar series launched

CaHRU are running a series of four ‘Quality Improvement Webinars: Introduction to Quality Improvement for Healthcare Practitioners’ every Friday in January from 9 January. Click here to see the introductory webinar. These have been supported by the Health Foundation and developed from a new book by Steve Gillam and Niro Gillam7680CoverPress2750Siriwardena, Quality Improvement in Primary Care: The essential guide published by Radcliffe Publishing (2014):

Each webinar will be posted before 08:00 am on the dates above. Join us from 12:00-13:00 pm every Friday this January 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th afterwards for a Question & Answer session based on each webinar. All the webinars will be available via the QI learning website: http://elearning.ascqi.co.uk/resources

Send your questions in advance to fwood@lincoln.ac.uk using the hashtag #qilearning and including your twitter handle if you have one or alternatively post your question via twitter to @nsiriwardena

International keynote lecture and workshop in Amsterdam on interdisciplinary primary care for occupational and physiotherapy

Soemitro Poerbidipoero and students from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam

Soemitro Poerbidipoero and students from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam

Prof Niro Siriwardena presented a keynote lecture and joint workshop with a leading European community occupational therapist, Marije Bolt, to begin the ‘International seminar fur students: occupational therapy, primary care and interdisciplinary work’ at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam on 20 November 2014. Both are members of the advisory board of the European Forum for Primary Care. The workshop entitled: ‘Preparing for future challenges for occupational and physio-therapies in multidisciplinary primary care’ was given at invitation from Soemitro Poerbodipoero, International Coordinator at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and students at the institution.

VProf Siriwardena’s keynote lecture outlined the future challenges for primary and community care in Europe. This included analysis of the shift from secondary to primary care in most European countries, and the critical importance of interdisciplinary working involving primary care, community nursing and allied health professions for high quality community care for people with multiple long term health and social care conditions. The talk covered the need for integrated care to address the ever changing and complex health and social care system. Finally, he spoke about the importance of quality improvement tools and techniques for maintaining and improving the healthcare system.

Marije Bolt in Amsterdam

Marije Bolt in Amsterdam

Marije Bolt entered the auditorium in dramatic fashion on a bicycle, which is how she travels around Amsterdam to visit her clients. She went on to discuss ‘primary care in action’ discussing the international perspective, focusing on challenges for primary and community care, and reflecting on examples where care coordination could be improved. Both speakers facilitated students to apply this to a discussion of a case study.

Professor Niro Siriwardena on primary care management of insomnia at Royal Society of Medicine

CBTiRSM2014Prof Niro Siriwardena was one of the invited speakers at the Royal Society of Medicine conference on CBT for insomnia disorder: evidence base and practical implementation methods, where he spoke on ‘Applying CBT for insomnia in general practice’. This was based on work from the Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment project (www.restproject.org.uk) which is a programme of work exploring the potential for using psychological treatments for insomnia routinely in primary care instead of sleeping tablets.

Niro@RSM2014._750The event, which took place on 19 November in London was organised by Prof Colin Espie, sleep expert  at Oxford University. He introduced a number of distinguished speakers, international experts in their field, including Prof Charles Morin from Quebec who gave an overview of insomnia and CBT efficacy studies; Prof Kevin Morgan from Loughborough University who spoke on CBT for insomnia in older adults; Dr June Brown on small and large group CBT; Dr John Cape on CBT bibliotherapy for insomnia; and Dr Simon Kyle who discussed abbreviated and single component CBT for insomnia. Finally, Prof Espie presented on digital CBT-I.

REST e-learning programme: http://elearning.restproject.org.uk/

REST e-learning programme: http://elearning.restproject.org.uk/

The meeting was well attended by practitioners and academics from primary, community and mental health sectors of the health service. The CaHRU team are currently investigating the potential for community pharmacists to implement psychological treatment for insomnia instead of over-the-counter hypnotics in a feasibility study in Lincolnshire.

Quality improvement in primary care: the essential guide

A new book, ‘Quality Improvement in Primary Care: the essential guide‘ has recently been published by Radcliffe. The book is co-authored by Dr Steve Gillam (Cambridge University) and Professor Niro Siriwardena (Director of CaHRU, University of Lincoln). The content was developed from the authors’ work on quality improvement over many years and on quality improvement and implementation science research conducted by CaHRU. The text provides the foundations of knowledge for health and social care practitioners and students to improve the quality of care they provide.

Gillam7680CoverPress750The first section of the book ‘Managing for quality’ leads readers though fundamentals of improvement including patient perspectives, leadership and management, regulation and commissioning. The middle section focuses on quality improvement tool and techniques covering topics such as improvement frameworks, processes, measurement, systems, safety, spreading improvement and financial incentives. The final part of the book covers evaluating improvement, understanding evidence and applying this learning to individual and group quality improvement projects.

Quality is a watchword across the health and social care sector. Quality Improvement in Primary Care will be a text for students embarking on the new course module, ‘Quality Improvement, Implementation and Safety Science’ which forms part of the new Master’s in Social Research at the University of Lincoln. It will provide readers with the tools to convert challenges and opportunities for improvement into meaningful and useful change.[su_document url=”https://communityandhealth.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/files/2014/10/Quality-improvement-in-primary-care.pdf” height=”1600″ responsive=”no”]Multi-morbidity, goal-oriented care, the community and equity[/su_document]

Quality and Costs of Primary Care in Europe (QUALICOPC)

Funded by the European Commission, awarding €62,000. Key contact: Coral Sirdifield.

VLUU L110, M110  / Samsung L110, M110The QUALICOPC study crosses over 30 European countries and aims to investigate which aspects of the structure and organisation of primary care are the most important in promoting service quality and equity while minimising costs. A team from CaHRU are running the UK section of this study.
qualicopc_logoGP practices have been recruited from across the East Midlands and South Yorkshire region. Each practice was asked to complete a fieldworker questionnaire, a GP questionnaire, and questionnaires on patient values and experiences. Through this we hope to increase understanding of the variety of ways in which primary care is structured and organised in these regions, and to increase understanding of patients’ experiences of accessing primary care services and which aspects of care they particularly value.