Tag Archives: primary care

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Discussion paper on improving care for people with asthma through patient stories published in Chest

A new paper entitled ‘Using a narrative approach to enhance clinical care for patients with asthma‘ has been published online in the journal Chest. The paper was authored by Dr Helen Owton, previously of De Montfort University and now a lecturer at the Open University, Dr Jacqueline Allen-Collinson, Reader in the School of Sports Science at the University of Lincoln, and Professor Niro Siriwardena from CaHRU.

steth4The paper describes an approach to foster better patient self-care in patients with asthma by enabling clinicians to empower individuals to take more control of their condition by enhancing patient-clinician communication and relationship through patients’ stories. This is based on previous work from Drs Owton and Allen-Collinson on patient narratives in asthma and work on the consultation from Prof Siriwardena.

The discussion paper, published in the Topics in Practice Management section of the journal, describes the history of narratives in asthma, outlines the evidence on how narratives can provide insights into how people perceive and manage their asthma, and discusses how these ideas might be applied. The paper finally discusses how these notions might be practically implemented in the clinical consultation and how this has potential to improve outcomes for people with asthma.

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CaHRU attends regional SAPC meeting at Nottingham University

JolienposterMembers of the CaHRU team, Jolien Vos, Fiona Togher, Despina Laparidou, Viet-Hai Phung, Ana Godoy, Dr Coral Sirdifield, Dr Zahid Asghar and Prof Niro Siriwardena, recently attended the Spring Trent Regional Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) meeting at the University of Nottingham on 17 March 2015 representing the University of Lincoln. It promised to be an exciting day with CaHRU members giving three oral presentations and four posters.

Coral&AnaposterAn opening keynote by Professor Alan Ford from the University of Nottingham gave an overview of the challenges we face to innovate in teaching and learning. His talk was followed by a series of interesting parallels or the chance to attend a workshop. Parallel session captured research surrounding medical education as well as topics regarding care pathways, responsiveness in primary care and the development of a quality control framework for mobile app based health behaviour change interventions.

Fiona&NiroposterJust before lunch, time was allocated to poster viewing. Despina Laparidou presented a poster on the CADS:E3 study of dementia carers. Fiona Togher presented result from her doctoral work on the development of a prehospital Patient Reported Experience Measure. Ana Godoy and Coral Sirdifield displayed a poster on their analysis of the Quality and Costs of Primary Care (QUALICOPC) study in England, in particular on what patient’s value and what they experience in general practice. Jolien Vos presented the scoping review of her doctoral study on care navigation by older people with multimorbidity in a poster.

DespinaposterThe afternoon began with a keynote from Professor Chris Salisbury from Bristol University, focussing on the redesign of primary health care in the context of multimorbidity. Another series of parallels took place which featured research taking place within CaHRU. Ana Godoy presented a case-control study investigating the association of bisphosphonates and stroke, Coral Sirdifield presented a further analysis of QUALICOPC and Jolien Vos presented a qualitative study of telecare for patients with multimorbidity ongoing research.

The day came to an end with the announcement of the winners of the early career prizes and the CaHRU team looking back on a successful conference.

By Jolien Vos

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CaHRU supports Newham general practices in prescribing safety Quality Improvement Collaborative

ludwiggutmann1Prof Niro Siriwardena spoke at the first engagement event of a new multi-organisational general practice quality improvement collaborative at the Stratford Olympic Park this February. The collaborative led by Professor Martin Marshall and his team at University College London, under the auspices of the Guttmann Academic Partnership launched in 2014, will involve working with NHS Newham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and UCL Partners to support safer prescribing in Newham general practice.

QIlogoProfessor Siriwardena gave an introduction to quality improvement science approaches in his talk ‘How can QI methods in general help to solve these [safety] challenges?’ at the inaugural meeting together with other experts in collaboratives, including Prof Marshall and Dr Neil Houston from NHS Scotland, and local general practitioners. The talk was based on experience from regional and national quality improvement collaboratives such as the Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment project and the Ambulance Services cardiovascular Quality Initiative. Prof Siriwardena has recently been part of a team awarded funding from the Health Foundation for a new regional collaborative aimed at ‘Improving prescribing safety in general practices in the East Midlands through the PINCER intervention.’

Niro@RSM2014._750The engagement event took place at the Sir Ludwig Guttman Health and Well Being Centre situated in the Olympic Park in Stratford, originally designed as the medical practice for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. It was well attended by general practitioners, patients and academic experts supporting the initiative and is part of the impact activity of CaHRU’s new research centre.

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New implementation study to improve prescribing safety in general practice

P011354Professor Niro Siriwardena and the CaHRU team have been awarded a major grant from the Health Foundation under their Scaling Up Improvement programme. The project is led by Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust supported by the University of Lincoln, University of Nottingham, the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network and 17 of the region’s Clinical Commissioning Groups.

medication_pillsThe aim of the study is to spread an intervention called PINCER (pharmacist-led information technology intervention for reducing clinically important errors in medication management) across East Midlands general practices and then more widely across the United Kingdom using a quality improvement collaborative, a model which CaHRU have used in previous projects.

reading1The project will provide participating GP practices access to computer software that automatically reviews prescriptions together with expert support from a pharmacist who will work with practice staff to review prescriptions and drugs monitoring. This will reduce the risk of drug errors and failure to monitor, particularly in those people with more than one long term condition on a combination of drugs. Pharmacists and GPs will share learning as part of the project.

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New quality improvement e-learning programme ‘QI Learning’ launched

QIlogoA new e-learning website ‘QI Learning‘ has been launched by CaHRU as an introduction to quality improvement for health and social care professionals. The e-learning programme is based on CaHRU’s work on quality improvement and covers four main areas: managing quality, tools and techniques, evaluation and improving practice.

Gillam7680CoverPress2750QI learning was developed with the BrandFour Design Agency as part of the ImPACT-ASCQI project, with support from the Health Foundation’s Widening Improvement Programme, based on a new book by Steve Gillam and Niro Siriwardena, ‘Quality improvement in primary care‘ published by Radcliffe Publishing in 2014. Also included in the resources section of the e-learning programme are a series of webinars which build on this material. The aim of the programme is to foster a sustainable and long-term increase in quality improvement knowledge and skills to the wider community of healthcare (medical, nursing and allied health) staff .

The programme also includes an evaluation and self-assessment for learners to complete and print out a certificate of learning.