Tag Archives: research

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CaHRU contributes to Research and Innovation conference

elcock_lpft Professor Niro Siriwardena was a keynote speaker at Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (LPFT) Research and Innovation Conference which took place at Branston Hall on 8 March 2018. The conference was chaired by Dr Sue Elcock, medical director at LPFT. The event, which was attended by over 100 delegates, included keynote talks from Chris Roberts, Alzheimer’s Society Ambassador, Professor Belinda Lennox of the University of Oxford and Dr Joanna Moncrieff of University College London.

chrisroberts_lpftChris Roberts, who himself has dementia and his wife, Jayne Goodrick spoke on ‘Join dementia research ‘handing out hope’ and the importance of those with the condition and their families engaging with studies into the condition as a means of providing possibilities for future treatment and care. Professor Cox spoke on her ground-breaking work on psychosis and immunity on ‘Could psychosis be a treatable immune disorder?’ This was followed by workshops on ‘How to make a first step into a clinical academic career’, ‘Taking a stab at research’, ‘How research improved practice’ and ‘Falls prevention in care homes’.

 

niro_lpftAfter lunch there followed LPFT’s innovation bid winners and how they had developed their ideas. Another example of ‘How to develop your ideas into research’ and the importance of collaboration between the NHS and the University of Lincoln was presented by Dr Amulya Nadkarni (consultant in child and adolescent mental health), Sophie Keogh (undertaking a research secondment at the Lincoln Institute for Health), Prof Siriwardena of CaHRU. They discussed how the collaboration began, how the ideas for research emerged, progress on current work on a systematic review of ‘Effects of non-pharmacological interventions for insomnia in children with Autistic Spectrum Condition, and how this was planned to lead to future work.

The final talk was from Dr Moncrieff on ‘Get involved – research into reducing or stopping antipsychotic medication’, how drugs could we withdrawn in some patients on these drugs and the programme of research which included a randomised controlled trial of antipsychotic withdrawal.

By Prof Niro Siriwardena

 

 

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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.