Category / Health, Wellbeing & Society

Simple Guide to The Research Process in Healthcare

Guidance

The research process can be a tricky one, especially if you are navigating more than one organisation’s processes! Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) with help from RKEO and Local NHS R&D departments, have created a simple flowchart that represents the research process in the NHS and BU, with the aim of helping healthcare researchers understand the process and what they need to do when!

You can download the guide here: BU&NHS Combined Research Process. The process is always evolving so please ensure you check here regularly for the most recent version.

Impact, outcome and research methods – HSC PhD student on LSE Impact Blog

PG research, Research assessment

With working at a university and the rise of the REF, you would have almost certainly come across the terms ‘impact’ and ‘outcomes’. Whilst there might be a great deal of similarity and overlap in the use of these terms, it is important to discuss the sometime subtle differences between ‘impact’ and ‘outcome’. What consequences might this have for the design of social research?

The health and social care literature uses these terms in a rather haphazard manner. The differences are rarely discussed and it can be suggested that many use the wrong terminology. In this blog post on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, relating to the field of information and advice on welfare issues, I briefly discuss and propose that there are fundamental differences between what an impact refers to and what an outcome refers to. Furthermore, I suggest that these differences are significant and profound enough to align each to opposing research methodologies.

These thoughts relate to the key areas of my PhD project with Elderly Accommodation Counsel (EAC) in London. EAC coordinates the FirstStop service which provides information and advice to older people (and other stakeholders) on housing and care issues. My research is focused on how older people use information and advice on housing and the wider impact that this has.

If anyone has an interest in this area, do get in touch!

 

Lunchtime project invitation talk: Living Well Active – Improving the Lives of People with Cancer – 5th November & 12th November

You are cordially invited to this lunchtime project invitation talk which is open to all  staff.

Please feel free to bring your lunch.

 

                                 “Dorset Living Well Active – Improving The Lives of People Living with Cancer”

                                         Exploring Opportunities for Schools/Faculties, Staff and Students 

 

  • Wednesday  5th November 2014    13.00 – 13.50pm          P403,  Poole House
  • Wednesday  12th November 2014   13.00 – 13.50pm         B225,  Bournemouth House

Dorset Living Well Active is a flagship project funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and Sport England with an ambition to enable 1000 people living with cancer in Dorset to improve their potential for health, fitness and wellbeing.

Living Well Active is building a ‘virtual health and fitness club’ bringing together healthcare professionals, physical activity providers, educators, support groups and organisations who are passionate about helping people with cancer live the best life they can. Examples of existing organisations we are currently working with are:

  • Bournemouth University, County Sports Partnerships, Local, regional and National Cancer Charities, GP Practices, Hospitals, Local Authorities
  • Health Commissioners, Behavioural Change Support Organisations (Chronic Health Conditions), Leisure Centres/ Fitness Clubs / Countryside and Parks , Walking for Health, British Cycling, England Athletics, NGB Sports, Dorset Race Equality Council, Help and Care, Boots.

On successful completion of this project it is planned to expand its geographical boundaries to surrounding counties.

Dorset Living Well Active offers Bournemouth University a wealth of opportunities for research, partnership, product and service development, student experience, volunteering and to be part of a nationally recognised project improving the lives of people living with cancer.

Areas include:

  • Website, Social media and Engagement Tools, Service User Experience, GP Practice Development, Social Return on Investment Studies
  • Behavioural Change and Positive Psychology, Physical Activity and Sport (Delivery and Training), Nutrition, Journalism, Graphic Design.

I really welcome the opportunity to explore your potential to benefit from the Living Well Active project and make a positive difference to people, communities and health services in the process.

 

Thank you

Layne Hamerston

Visiting Associate

Centre for Wellbeing and Quality of Life

Centre of Post Graduate Medical Research and Education

Congratulations to PhD student Carol Richardson on getting a paper in The Practising Midwife

PG research, Publishing, student research

 

CMMPH PhD student Carol Richardson just had a paper accepted by the editor of The Practising Midwife.  Carol is a Bournemouth University clinical academic doctoral midwife based in Portsmouth.  She is part of a scheme jointly funded by BU and Portsmouth Hospital NHS trust (PHT).

Carol is also a Supervisor of Midwives, and her first paper ‘Chasing time for reflection’ relates to midwifery supervision.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
Bournemouth University

Interested in Digital Health research?

We will be holding a CHIRP meeting on Thursday 30th October at 1pm in P403 for anyone who may be currently conducting (or interested in conducting) research studies related to digital health.

The aims of these CHIRP meetings are to meet regularly as a group with common interests so that we can stay updated about current research/current technologies etc., potentially find areas of common interest for collaboration and generally bounce ideas around one another.

Meetings are open to anyone interested in digital technologies and health whether this focuses on digital health interventions, issues around the impact of digital technologies on health and wellbeing, how digital technologies can aid clinical training or something similar. We are particularly interested in creating a multi-disciplinary group of researchers so welcome any colleagues from Health and Social Care, Computing, Psychology, the Media School etc. etc.

We are currently working on pulling together a BU CHIRP/Digital Health research webpage and aim to share our first version with colleagues at the meeting as well as update current/planned projects and past/upcoming events of interest.

Please contact Sarah on swilliams@bournemouth.ac.uk if you would like to join our CHIRP group or would like to come along and find out more at our meeting on the 30th.

First issue Journal of Asian Midwives

PG research, Publishing, student research

CMMPH would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the newly established Journal of Asian Midwives on publishing its first issue.  Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM) is the first regional online midwifery journal launched by the South Asian Midwifery Alliance (SAMA).   Prof. Rafat Jan based in Pakistan at Aga Khan University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery is the lead editor.  JAM aims to give a voice to midwives, nurses-midwives, women’s health clinicians, and reproductive health professionals as well as social scientists.

CMMPH proudly announces that one of our Bournemouth University PhD students, Ms. Sheetal Sharma, is on the new journal’s Associate Board.  Sheetal’s research is on maternity care in Nepal.

The journal is Open Access and free.  JAM does not charge subscription fees so it is free for readers nor does it charge a submission fee so it is also free for authors!  The journal can be found at: http://ecommons.aku.edu/jam/

 

Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

Ever launched a CR@B? We did!

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Consumer Research @ BU group (CR@B) and it turned out to be a busy and energising meeting of minds from a wide variety of disciplines from across BU.  As we listened to each other’s presentations and compared notes the opportunities for working together in new ways unfolded.

Our aim in bringing the group together is to foster inter-disciplinary research, provide a platform for interaction with industry, and a forum for ideas.  Given the success of our first meeting, we will now be holding informal coffee and cake meetings every 4-6 weeks with time for CR@B research bites (short presentations about our research) and discussion.  We will also be planning a series of high profile public research talks and workshops designed with research and industry application in mind.

Anyone who is doing consumer research is welcome.  This might include researchers working in:-

  • Consumer cultures
  • Consumer behaviour
  • Retail and marketing
  • Visual cognition and consumption
  • Food consumerism and consumption
  • Consumer neuroscience
  • Advertising

and almost certainly more.

So … if you think you might be a CR@B, and are out there hiding under a stone, please crawl out and come and join us.

Our next meeting is at 3pm on Wednesday 3rd December in D234, Dorset House, Talbot Campus.  If you would like to come along or would simply like to find out more please email either Jeff Bray in Tourism who is hosting our next session or any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.

 

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk) 

£2.5m funding available – SBRI Healthcare Autumn 2014

Funding opportunities

SBRI Healthcare Autumn 2014

The National Health Service England and the NHS Academic Health Science Networks have opened multiple new SBRI competitions with a total of £2.5m funding available in Phase 1 to develop technologies and innovative solutions that can provide better health outcomes in the areas of:

  • Innovation in child & adolescent mental health
  • Improving care of diabetic foot ulcer
  • Medical imaging
  • Improving efficiency & experience of outpatient services
  • Brain injury healthcare

Phase 1 is intended to show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept. Development contracts will be awarded for a maximum of 6 months and £100,000 (inc VAT) per project.  Projects that have completed Phase 1 successfully will be eligible for Phase 2 later in the year. Phase 2 contracts are intended to develop and evaluate prototypes or demonstration units from the more promising technologies in Phase 1.

More information including briefs for the challenges can be found on the website.

Application process

For further details, including the application process click here. The deadline for applications is 9 December 2014

 

 

 

Measuring research impact – report from the Medical Research Council shows the societal reach of research

Measuring research impact beyond academia is becoming a standardised part of research.  Thanks in part to the changes to the REF, more and more emphasis is being placed on the need to demonstrate the value of research more widely.  With that in mind, the latest research outputs, outcomes and impact report from the Medical Research Council (MRC) is a useful tool for demonstrating that impact to a broad audience.  Based on research taken place over the last few years, the report gathers together impact statistics and case studies of key outcomes and explains them in language accessible to all.

It makes for interesting reading, with statistics showing:

  • 46% of MRC-funded research projects attracted further funding from more than 1,000 different funders,
  • Between 2006 and 2013, researchers took part in more than 23,000 public engagement events,
  • One fifth of researchers reported that their work had an impact on local, national or international policy,
  • 12% of awards led to the development of a product or intervention.

Statistics aside, some of the most exciting parts of the report lie in the stories and case studies identified.  For example, research about portion sizes from the MRC’s Human Nutrition Research Group went on to inform a recent ‘Portion Distortion’ campaign from the British Heart Foundation.  Not only did the research support an effective campaign, it was also used to influence public health policy in the Department of Health and prompted major food companies to re-shape their business strategies.

A further example from the MRC Institute of Hearing Research demonstrated how researchers were able to develop a new test to measure listening attention by measuring sound comparison and reaction times.  It looks at how quickly people respond to sounds, how quickly people can pick out changes in relevant information in sound and how well people ignore irrelevant information in sounds.  The test is being used in research training and testing, with versions available for both children and adults.

So what can be learned from this?  The report showcases only a few exciting and inspiring research projects funded by the MRC – clearly there is far more going on than can be reported.  However, it is an excellent example of the research work going on across the country and shows the wide range of impacts and outcomes research can have in areas such as policy, product development and industry collaboration to name but a few.  While research impact is still an emerging area, this latest report from the MRC shows why it is so important to measure it, as the contribution MRC-funded projects are making to society as a whole is clearly substantial.

You can find out more about BU’s research impact work here or by contacting the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team.

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty on latest publication

PG research, Publishing

Congratulations to Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada for the paper on financial barriers to the uptake of antenatal care in a rural community in Nepal.1   The first author (a native Nepali-speaker) conducted 50 face-to-face interviews with women and their families in rural Nepal.  These interviews were thematically analysed after transcription.

This latest paper adds to our knowledge into user costs related to maternity services in Nepal as we had already published our findings on users costs in the largest obstetric hospital in the capital. 2

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. & Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal International Journal of Social Economics 41 (8), 705-713

 

  1. Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, G., Simkhada, B., Townend, J. (2012) User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Health Science Journal 6(2): 317-334.  www.hsj.gr/volume6/issue2/6212.pdf

 

Congratulations to Dr. William Haydock

Publishing

 

Congratulations to William Haydock, researcher in HSC, for his recently published paper in Capital & Class 38 (3): 583-600. 

The paper “‘20 tins of Stella for a fiver’: The making of class through Labour and Coalition government alcohol policy” is available from: http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/38/3/583.abstract

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Desperate for uninterrupted quality time on your grant application? Come to the Residential Research Retreat!

The Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) is offering a unique opportunity to researchers in health and social care across the South West of England.

The Residential Research Retreat provides an opportunity for research teams to develop high quality research proposals suitable for submission to national peer-reviewed funding schemes. The aim of the Retreat is to provide the environment and support to promote rapid progress in developing proposals over a relatively short time period. The Retreat is open to health professionals and academic partners working within the South West. 

At the Retreat you will be supported by a range of academic experts while developing your research proposal. Away from the workplace, you will work intensively on your proposal, while learning how to maximise its chances for successfully securing a grant. You will learn how to develop your idea into a viable and first class research proposal and experience research project planning at a professional level.

A delegate from last year’s Retreat said, “This has been an extremely valuable exercise and has really helped build an understanding of what is expected from NIHR funded projects. In order to ensure that new researchers are able to make feasible, rigorous, well-designed bids for funding, this week is essential.”

The Retreat will be held at the Ammerdown Conference Centre, near Bath in Somerset from  31st May to 5 June 2015 inclusive. To win a place on the Retreat, applications should be submitted by 1pm on Wednesday 7th January 2015.  Applications will be reviewed competitively and places awarded to the most promising team proposals. The application and further information is available at http://www.rds-sw.nihr.ac.uk/rrr.htm.

Don’t forget, your local branch of the Research Design Service is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us or send us an email.

 

BU researchers nominated for national award

Professor Peter Thomas and Dr Sarah Thomas from the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) are part of a team nominated for a prestigious MS Society Award.

They were one of three research teams to reach the finals of the MS Research of the Year Award for their FACETS research. FACETS is a fatigue management programme for people with MS which incorporates ‘energy effectiveness techniques’ alongside cognitive behavioural strategies to teach helpful ways of thinking about fatigue.

They studied 164 people with MS and reported 40% of participants who received FACETS in addition to their routine care had a meaningful improvement in fatigue levels, compared with 19% who received routine care only. The FACETS programme is now being delivered by healthcare professionals across the UK and could help thousands of people manage fatigue.

The awards ceremony was held in London on Monday 6th October, and hosted by radio presenter Scott Mills. Other awards presented on the day included MS Employer of the Year, MS Volunteer of the Year, MS Young Person of the Year and MS Carer of the Year.

Although narrowly missing out on the award, they were extremely grateful to have their research recognised. On being nominated for the award they said, “Our research programme started 12 years ago so this has been a considerable journey.  We feel privileged to have had the opportunity to conduct this research and it’s been an extremely rewarding experience.

“Fatigue is a huge issue for people with MS and so we hope that recognition of our research will help to increase awareness of this very common MS symptom and will highlight the debilitating impact it has on people’s lives. It’s extremely important to expand and improve services and interventions available to people with MS as these can help people to negotiate the challenges of the condition and improve day-to-day quality of life.

“Our research has demonstrated that FACETS reduces people’s fatigue and increases quality of life and that these effects can last a long time. We greatly appreciate the backing of the MS Society and the support they have provided in rolling out the FACETS programme across the UK.”

For more information about the MS Society Awards visit http://www.mssociety.org.uk/about-us/ms-awards.

£1million in digital healthcare innovation available from Creative England

Funding opportunities

This fund is designed to stimulate creative and digital innovation in This UK healthcare.
Are you working with or know of  small creative and digital businesses (SMEs) with innovative concepts or prototypes using digital technology to improve patient care and health services?
These maybe in areas such as dementia, social care, and cardiovascular and medication management.
The South West is one of the first three regions to benefit from this funding opportunity.
Key information:
  • 5 x £50,000 investments will be made.
  • Companies must be based in the North, Midlands or South West.
  • Examples of projects could be improving quality of care; caring for people with dementia; supporting people with long-term conditions; and data visualisation.
  • Mobile apps, development of a new game for tablet or mobile are also eligible.

Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis and the fund will close on 31 October 2014.

More information can be found here.

Alternatively please feel free to contact

Jayne Codling – Knowledge Exchange Adviser

Ext 61215 jcodling@bournemouth.ac.uk

September: A good month for CMMPH publications

Publishing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health started well this September with four publications in academic and practitioners’ journal.  Starting with final-year student midwife Joanna Lake who just had an article published in The Practising Midwife.1

Secondly, BU midwifery staff Jen Leamon and Sue Way together with HSC Visiting Fellow Suzie Cro also have had an article published this month in the same journal.2

Susanne Grylka-Baeschlin, a midwife from Switzerland who spent time at BU as an international visitor (see http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/07/02/latest-hsc-midwifery-paper-in-open-access/) had her paper published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth this month.3

And last, but not least, Wendy Marsh, based in HSC’s Portsmouth office had a paper in the September issue of the British Journal of Midwifery.4

 

Congratulations,

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

 

References:

  1. Lake J., 2014. Witnessing the art of woman-centred care by and exceptional mentor. The Practicing Midwife. 17(8), 24-26.
  2. Leamon J, Way S. & Cro S., 2014. Supervision of midwives and the 6Cs: exploring how we do what we do. The Practicing Midwife. 17(8), 41-42.
  3. Grylka-Baeschlin  S., van Teijlingen,  E. & Mechthild, G.M., 2014. Cultural differences in postnatal quality of life among German-speaking women: a prospective survey in two countries. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 14:277    www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/14/277
  4. Marsh, W. 2014. Removing babies from mother’s at birth: Midwives experiences. British Journal of Midwifery. 22(9):620 – 624.