Category / Research themes

Breastfeeding research presented in Cornwall

Congratulations to Alison Taylor, senior lecturer in midwifery who presented preliminary findings of her PhD as keynote speaker last month at the Cornwall  Real Baby Milk conference.  Alison’s presentation ‘Women’s Breastfeeding Experiences – shared using video diaries’ was very well received.  Alison’s fieldwork has been supported by the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust , she received the first Tricia Anderson award in 2008. Founded in 1983, the Trust supports midwives and student midwives to undertake further education and to carry out projects designed to improve the care of mothers and babies.

More details on the conference can be found at:

http://realbabymilk.org/couldnt-make-real-baby-milk-cornwall-conference-last-month/

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

A Fishy Tale: BS Consumer Researchers visit Norway

Last week Professor Juliet Memery and Dr Dawn Birch from the Business School, supported by the Cyber Security Unit, travelled to Tromso in Norway at the invitation of the University of Tromso.  The aim of the trip was to discuss future research collaborations and funding opportunities around the areas of food security, food crime, food waste and technology with a particular emphasis on fish and seafood.

Whilst there Juliet and Dawn met with academics from the University of Tromso, including Professor Svein Ottar Olsen and Professor Kåre Skallerud, as well as Pirjo Honkanen, Director of Research (Consumer and marketing research) and Petter Olsen, senior scientist, from Nofima, one of the largest institutes for applied research within the fields of fisheries, aquaculture and food industry in Europe.  A series of research presentations revealed a number of areas of mutual interest which will be scoped out and explored further with a view to securing EU/Research Council funding.  Additionally they met with analysts at the Head Office of the Norwegian Seafood Council to discuss their role and research in the seafood industry and explore potential opportunities for them to be included in future research collaborations.

Overall it was a very successful networking trip, and a reciprocal visit to Bournemouth is anticipated in the coming months to further strengthen relationships and collaborations.

NERC Innovation Projects

 

The Innovation Projects call supports projects that are likely to generate little or no commercial return, but which will deliver impact.

The call aims to increase and accelerate the uptake and impact of NERC funded research output by supporting translational and knowledge exchange activity which delivers direct tangible and demonstrable benefits to end users.  The Follow-on Fund is for those projects that aim to be fully commercialised with a revenue stream derived from licensing, spinouts, consultancy etc.

A maximum of £125k (£100k at 80% FEC) may be requested.  Projects are expected to start in May 2015 and to last for up to 12 months.  Smaller, targeted activities of three to six months are also welcome and NERC anticipates seeing a range of requests within the £125k limit, reflecting a diverse range of potential projects and activities.

The closing date is 16.00 hrs on 18th December, 2014

For further information go to  the  website

Centre for Leadership, Impact and Management in Health and Social Care launched at Bournemouth University

A centre to provide leadership and management development opportunities and support across the health and social care sector has been launched at  BU.

The Centre for Leadership, Impact and Management in Bournemouth (CLiMB)  offers a range of development options – including leadership and management programmes; coaching and mentoring development; accreditation for in-house programmes; and consultancy, research and impact evaluation.

Director of CLiMB Professor Keith Brown said: “CLiMB is being launched to bring together Bournemouth University’s strengths of research, consultancy and education in the leadership of health and social care services.  “Never before have these services been under the level of financial pressure and public scrutiny that they are currently, coupled with increasingly high public expectations for quality services.  “These needs and demands can only be met by better leadership at all levels within the health and social care sector.”
The centre has been launched after more than five years of research and development in the field of leadership and management in health and social care.  Professor Brown was asked by the government’s Social Work Reform Board, established following the death of Peter Connelly, to develop a leadership pathway for social work managers.

This was extensively evaluated for impact and then adapted for healthcare in response to the Francis report at Mid Staffordshire Hospital.

The Centre was officially opened on 12th November by Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns, who said: “Too often in health and social work, organisations have become too immersed in process and procedure that they lose sight sometimes of the outcome.  We should be proud of what Keith and the team do in terms of outcomes for people… making a contribution emotionally and economically.”

Sue Sutherland OBE, Chair of BU’s Board and former Chief Executive of Poole Hospital, said: “The launch of this centre is really important.  It is absolutely rising to the challenges that the sector faces, helping to develop the best health and social care service that’s borne out of leadership at every point of the sector.”

CLiMB currently receives HEIF funding. Higher Education Innovation Funding aims  to support and develop a broad range of knowledge-based interactions between universities and colleges and the wider world, which result in economic and social benefit to the UK.

 

Funding Call Scoping Workshop: Invitation to inform the content of an upcoming Innovate UK UX and Data Competition

 

The Knowledge Transfer Network are running  an information day and workshop around User Experience and Data technology innovation.  This event will bring together businesses, academics and researchers working within UX and data to contribute to a discussion on the scoping of a Spring 2015 funding competition. 

Innovate UK (formally Technology Strategy Board) will be running three funding competitions in areas relating to User Experience (UX). This event is an opportunity to learn more about these funding calls, how to apply as well as influencing future activities in UX.

There are two themes to these UX related competitions: 

1. Utilising personal data to improve a user’s experience of a product or service: This competition is a feasibility study and is due to launch in March 2015. There will be an opportunity to influence the scope of this call so that it correctly addresses the issues that are affecting the UX industry.

2. Innovative technology & software to improved the interaction between human and machine: This will focus on novel approaches to UX with an innovative software element to them, essentially how to let people and machines interact better, moving beyond the traditional keyboard, mouse and screen.  

There are two competions in this theme: a feasibility study and a  Knowledge Transfer Parnership. (KTP).

Date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

Time: 10:30 – 16:30

Venue: Barbican Centre, London

Register now to attend

Examination of the Newborn (EXON) Pilot Project for under-graduate student midwives: an update.

In November last year I published a blog on the first pilot project I undertook with five under-graduate pre-registration midwifery students which was designed to enable them to qualify with the skills and competencies around examination of the newborn (EXON). The students were required to access and study the module with post-graduate midwives. Four of the students successfully completed the course in September 2014 with one student leaving early on in the project due to unforeseen family circumstances. The journey to completion was not smooth. The first hurdle was a clash of assessments. The EXON assessment (a presentation) fell in the same week as Complex Care (CC), a third year unit assessment where students are required to undergo a VIVA and manage two obstetric emergencies. It is a stressful experience and therefore three of the students requested an extension to their EXON presentation with only one choosing to present with her post-registration colleagues. As the EXON assessment took place on the Monday of that particular week and Complex Care assessments were running over three days, the student managed to negotiate to undertake her CC assessment on the Friday. The three students were re-scheduled to present later in the year with a number of other midwives who were on extensions or resits.  One of the advantages of choosing to present in January 2014 was that the student was able to choose a topic that she could use both for her learning around EXON and for her extended essay which was due to be completed somewhat later in the academic year. The student was successful in both endeavours as were all the others but at a later date.

Another hurdle students found themselves confronted with, was a lack of opportunity to undertake newborn examinations including a shortage of midwifery mentors who could support the training requirements of the project. Two of the students could not get any of the examinations done in their own trusts. Fortunately for them, the maternity unit and midwifery staff at Poole NHS Trust Hospital were extremely obliging and supported the students to work there which enabled them to complete the practical newborn checks. All four of the students have successfully qualified as midwives and have obtained midwifery posts in the local area. They remain committed EXON and have volunteered to be EXON ‘champions’ within their respective trusts. I am grateful to Jeanette Elliot, Luzie Schroter, Jenna Penhale and Bex Coleman-Moss for their hard work and dedication during the pilot and for their feedback and advice for the next intake.

Demand for places for the second pilot project remained high when the call was put out a short while ago. Unfortunately due to some of the barriers described above it was only feasible to recruit five students again and all of them based in the west. The students have commenced their studies and are enjoying the learning so far. The pilot projects are helping to inform what impact these barriers will have on the training needs for midwifery students within our local maternity units as this year we are introducing EXON theory to all midwifery students on our newly validated curriculum with the caveat that students will obtain the necessary theoretical knowledge but not all with qualify with the required skills. However by ‘fast-tracking’ students onto one of our twice yearly CPD EXON modules which has around 20+ midwives enrolled, by the time the students reach their third year there should be many more midwives qualified in EXON and in place to support our under-graduate students to gain the competencies around newborn examination.  If you require any further information please contact Luisa Cescutti-Butler on lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk    

 

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG.  Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies.    A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate.  Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham.   Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here.  The paper is Gold Open Access.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Dorset Legacy Fund – addressing health inequalities in the region

The Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Local Authorities, supported by the Public Health team, are very keen to build on the success of the 2012 Olympics in Dorset and have developed a legacy fund to provide a significant resource for investment in innovative and evidence based local projects in Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole. The aim of the legacy fund is to create a legacy and inspire communities by investing in projects that focus on the particularly vulnerable, marginalised and deprived communities in order to address health inequalities which exist in Dorset.

Project criteria:

  • Target vulnerable people or marginalised communities
  • Tackle identified health inequalities
  • Inspire people towards a healthier lifestyle
  • Have a lasting legacy

The second round of funding is due to open on 1 December with £200,000 funding available.

Congratulations to BUDI who were successful in the first round of funding.

For more information including the application process click here.

 

HSC research at RCM Conference this week

Research from staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) was well represented at this week’s Royal College of Midwives Conference (RCM). The RCM Conference 2014 held in the International Centre Telford explore the theme Better Births: United in Excellence. At this midwifery conference HSC Dr. Sue Way chaired a session on ‘Perineal Care and the Management of the Second Stage’

Dana Colbourne, Postgradute student at Bournemouth University and midwife at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust presented a poster with the title ‘PhD student Leading the way – A case study of a student midwife led postnatal clinic’.

Dr Stella Rawson, senior lecturer in midwifery presented her poster ‘Listening to Women: Exploring women’s experiences of being part of a student midwife’s caseload’.

Jan Stoziek, senior lecturer in midwifery and also Prof Doc student at the University of Portsmouth presented her poster ‘Mother’s Experience of Breastfeeding after Breast Cancer’.

Lesley Milne also presented a poster on the work around ‘Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study’  with Prof. Padam Simkhada, HSC Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland, Prof. Vanora Hundley & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen,

Fiona Kelly represents BUDI at an international dementia conference in Sweden

On 15th October, I presented at a three-day conference at Linkoping University in Sweden on Life with Dementia 2014: Relations. There were two strands to the conference: communication and citizenship and I predominantly attended the citizenship parallel sessions as this is where I am currently focused. The conference was attended by delegates from universities in Sweden, the UK, Norway, Japan, Canada and USA, all with an interest in working and campaigning to promote the rights and inclusion of people with dementia as equal citizens or partners in interaction. In the citizenship strand, there were presentations and key notes with questions and ideas on what citizenship and rights means in the context of people with dementia, with a particular challenge of what it means for people with more severe cognitive impairment. Throughout the conference, we heard, or spoke, about interdependence, human capabilities, opportunities rather than support, inclusive research methods, co-researching, parity of participation and transformative strategies to reduce social injustice. At the end of the conference, there was a separate meeting to work on capturing the enthusiasm and commitment to ensuring people with dementia remain equal citizens, so we formed the ‘citizenship and dementia international research network’, with a view to collaborating on writing, presenting at conferences, campaigning and working on research ideas. Anyone interested in hearing more, please get in touch fkelly@bournemouth.ac.uk

BUDI Orchestrat – a FIF CCCP project report

At the beginning of 2014 BUDI was lucky enough to secure FIF CCCP funding to set up the BUDI orchestra, a partnership project with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra supported by BU Music Scholars and other students. I blogged about this during the rehearsal period and after the performance at the Festival of Learning, but as the project officially comes to an end as we write our final report I am blogging a final time to give a little update. First we won a poster prize two weeks ago at the 7th International Rural Dementia Summit running concurrently with the 7th Safety and Health in Agriculture and Rural Health Populations conference in Saskatchewan, Canada and Canadian colleagues are now interested in setting up their version of the BUDI orchestra in two provinces. We also secured some further funds to extend the project and are currently rehearsing for an informal Christmas performance that will take place in the Atrium/Starbucks on 12 December, do stop and listen as you enjoy your coffee! If any member of staff/student would like to join us as we rehearse, particularly anyone with a strong singing voice do get in touch with Laura (lreynolds@bournemouth.ac.uk)who can give you more information about our rehearsal schedule, as we are missing our BU Music Scholars this time round who led the singing part of the rehearsals so well in the initial project. We also secured funding from the Dorset Legacy Fund to begin a new orchestra project and this will commence in January 2015. We have submitted a larger grant application to conduct a multi-site study but we have a few months to go before we will hear if we are successful or not. We have received extremely positive feedback from our participants, students and BSO colleagues who have been part of the initial and ongoing project extension and the idea has been favourably met at regional and international conferences where we have shown the video we created documenting the project. The BU FIF provides an excellent opportunity to conduct pilot/proof of concept work and we are grateful for the funds received enabling us to undertake this work which has been the most fun project I’ve been involved with to date.

Congratulations to Dr Sarah Hean & colleagues!

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Hean in the School of Health & Social Care and her colleagues Staddon, Clapper, Fenge, Heaslip and Jack on the acceptance of their article: ‘Improving Collaborative Practice to Address Offender Mental Health: Criminal Justice and Mental Health Service Professionals’ Attitudes Towards Interagency Training, Current Training Needs and Constraints’ by the Journal of Research in Interprofessional Practice and Education.

 

The paper is Open Access funded by BU!  A copy is available in BU’s repository BURO: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/21462/

 

Well done

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Critical Review Of Vendor Lock-In And Its Impact On Adoption Of Cloud Computing

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre for the new academic year, that will be delivered by Justice Opara-Martins.

 

Title: Critical Review Of Vendor Lock-In And Its Impact On Adoption Of Cloud Computing

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 19th November 2014

Room: P302, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

Cloud computing offers an innovative business model for organizations to adopt IT services at a reduced cost with increased reliability and scalability. However organizations are slow in adopting the cloud model due to the prevalent vendor lock-in issue and challenges associated with it. While the existing cloud solutions for public and private companies are vendor locked-in by design, their existence is subject to limited possibility to interoperate with other cloud systems. In this seminar we will present a critical review of pertinent business, technical, and legal issues associated with vendor lock-in, and how it impacts on the widespread adoption of cloud computing. The talk in this seminar will reflect on the issues associated with interoperability and portability, but with a focus on vendor lock-in. Moreover, the talk will demonstrate the importance of interoperability, portability and standards applicable to cloud computing environments along with highlighting other corporate concerns due to the lock-in problem. The outcome of this seminar provides a foundation for future analysis and review regarding the impact of vendor neutrality for corporate cloud computing application and services. 

We hope to see you there.