Category / Research themes

Free places available for BU staff – BUDI workshop hosted by Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 21st May 2014

Training

Thanks to FIF Mobility Strand Funding, Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) are delighted to be welcoming colleagues from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York to Bournemouth University from 20-23rd May 2014. As part of their visit, BU Staff are being invited to join a free workshop. In this workshop MoMA’s specially trained Museum Educators will share their successful model and established approach for making their services dementia-friendly (validated via evaluation from New York University). 

This workshop showcases MoMA’s innovative style of education delivery, providing attendees with an opportunity to hear the success of their approach and a practical demonstration in the Atrium Gallery. Staff with an interest in alternative teaching methods and those working with vulnerable groups may be particularly interested in attending. Please also pass on this information to any PhD students you feel may benefit from attending.

Date: 21st May 2014

Time: 11:00 – 15:30

Venue: Talbot Campus

There are a limited number of places available on this workshop for BU staff. To book a place, or for more information, please email mheward@bournemouth.ac.uk or call 01202 962538.

Successful Grant Application! Plaster & Boot Comparison for Ankle Fracture Surgery

Awarded & submitted bids

Despite ankle fractures requiring surgery being so common, patients are managed in many different ways and there is debate over whether patients require prolonged periods immobilised in plaster or whether being able to actively move/use the ankle might be advantageous.  £350k has recently been awarded to Poole Hospital and collaborators by the National Institute for Health Research’s Research for Patient Benefit scheme to find out!   

The Dorset office of the South West Research Design Service based within Bournemouth University’s Clinical Research Unit were contacted in late Spring 2010 about the potential study and have therefore been involved in all aspects from the outset.  Several members of the Clinical Research Unit are co-applicants and committed to the delivery of the trial. 

As the Research Design Service project lead, Zoe Sheppard helped facilitate the grant application bringing in statistical support, patient and public involvement advice, qualitative research expertise, health economic expertise, costing and research and development advice liaising with finance and research and development departments as well as the Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit.  In addition to inputting into specific aspects according to their expertise, all co-applicants also extensively commented on the overall design and proposal, meaning a wide-ranging input. 

Two previous drafts were submitted to the mock funding committee.  Six extensive written reviews were received from lay reviewers and methodologists as well feedback from the chair/panel members. 

So if you would like support with a grant application for health research, please get in contact as early as possible – we look forward to working with you!

The Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit Team!

Professor Adrian Newton in National Geographic

BU’s Professor Adrian Newton has featured in a National Geographic article ‘Apples of Eden: Saving the Wild Ancestor of Modern Apples’.

Reporter Josie Glausiusz explores the endangered wild fruit trees of Central Asia, drawing on Professor Newton’s expertise and experiences working to protect the fruit and nut forests in Kyrgyzstan.

In the article Professor Newton explains the genetic importance of the fruit there: “All of the apples that we’re eating today and cultivating originate from this area. So if we want to add genetic variation to our crops to cope with new pests or climate change, then the genetic resource is these forests. It’s true for apples, apricots, peaches, walnuts, pears. In terms of a wild genetic resource for cultivated fruit trees, there’s nothing like it on the planet.”

Read the full article, ‘Apples of Eden: Saving the Wild Ancestor of Modern Apples’, online here.

BUDI Open Public Meeting – 14 May 2014


This is a reminder that the BUDI Open Public meeting is tomorrow (14 May) there are still a few spaces available. 

This year’s event focuses on dementia friendly environments, how design helps to support people living with dementia.  The hospital environments and the philosphy of dementia friendly environments will  be covered by external speakers.

To book your free place please go to eventbrite http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/budi-open-meeting-dementia-friendly-care-environments-tickets-9876528964

 

Understanding Crowdsourcing and CCTV surveillance

 

Staff, students and members of the public are invited to join us for the next Cyber Security Seminar…

‘Understanding Crowdsourcing and CCTV surveillance’

Tuesday, 27th May

Coyne Lecture Theatre 

4pm – 5pm

 

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) has many different uses but is often considered an archetypal surveillance technology. These infrastructures generate large amounts of data; so much so that the technique of crowdsourcing has recently been applied to the problem of searching for abnormalities in live surveillance video; the premise being that many inexpert watchers are cheaper but as efficient as a small number of experienced security experts. However, the merits of crowdsourcing watchers of surveillance video are largely unknown.

In this talk Dr. Paul Dunphy will describe exemplar infrastructures of this type, and two user studies that assess the performance of the watchers of CCTV video online. The results prompt a discussion regarding the effectiveness of using crowdsourcing in such contexts, and the role such infrastructures can play in society.

Speaker Bio: Paul is a postdoctoral researcher in the Culture Lab at Newcastle University. He is interested in multi-disciplinary approaches to understand and design security and privacy technologies.

 If you would like to join us for this presentation, please book your place via Eventbrite.

Puerto Rico welcomes a new BUDI


Every year the prestigious Alzheimer’s Disease International conference welcomes practitioners, academics, people living with dementia, medical professionals and clinicians from all over the world to share their latest knowledge, experience and research about dementia careThis year I was lucky enough to attend and represent BUDI at the 29th International Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International Dementia: Working Together for a Global Solution, hosted in San Juan on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico.

Three abstracts were accepted to be orally presented, so this was a great opportunity to showcase some of BUDI’s innovative research projects to world leading dementia specialists. The three presented projects were the Technology Club (Dementia Care and Technology), Tales of the Sea (Empowering people with dementia) and (Dont) Mention Dementia (Voices of people with dementia and their families).

All three presentations were well received and stimulated discussion and many questions. The feedback I received after my presentations and during the conference was that BUDI’s projects were seen as innovative, creative and great examples of how to engage people with dementia in research and how people with dementia should be at the core of all research.

Above and beyond presenting, I had the opportunity to catch up with Peter, an Australian colleague (who I have been working on the international GRIID research project with for around two years and have never met!) Peter presented the GRIID project (Gateway to Rural International Initiatives in Dementia) at this conference. After his presentation we were able to meet and come up with some really innovative ideas to take the GRIID project to the next level.

To top off a very successful conference, I won a huge kangaroo courtesy of the Australian Alzheimer’s Association. He was unfortunately a bit too big to fit into my case so he to travelled home with another colleague…I wonder if I will ever get him back as he was very cute!

Since returning home I have started to get in touch with some of the many contacts I made at this conference and look forward to potential international collaborations. This conference highlights all the good work currently being undertaken but also emphasises the amount of work we still need to do. I invite you to check out the below clip of Richard Taylor PhD, who presented numerous times at the conference. Richard is extremely funny and has a great approach and attitude to life. It is very thought provoking as he shares his thoughts about living with dementia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHQfc3KJ9qE.

Clare Cutler, BUDI Project Manager

Progress with making music

Fusion

This week I went along to the half way point in the rehearsals for the BUDI orchestra and as promised from my first post about this work here is a link to short video clip

(this was rather difficult as I managed to record my clips upside down on my iphone (how is that possible??), as well as create huge file sizes from 30 second clips, but thanks to David Stone in M&C we now have something postable that hopefully gives a bit of a flavour of the sessions- despite my very amateur recording skills! but do come to their performance on 14 June at the Winton Life Centre as part of the BU FOL!)

My observations of the process this time centre around three things – first, the strong sense of a social group that has been created/formed by all involved, from the friendly welcomes, the catch ups over coffee and the general encouragement the group offered each other during the session. Second, I was also pleasantly surprised that carers sought me out to thank us for putting this group together and to share the positive impact they had observed themselves during the sessions on their relatives with dementia, but also how friends and family at home had also remarked on a positive visible difference in their relatives. 5 sessions and observed differences – is this the power of music? I was also struck by the questions asked of me about ‘would the group continue’ and as with any short ‘intervention’ type study feel the weight of not being able to promise to deliver again on something that is being hugely enjoyed by participants (and which we all hope will evaluate positively in a research sense – but only time will tell…). I guess this lack of being able to promise to continue with a service is kind of like service providers with limited budgets and short term initiatives… Hopefully we will secure funding to enable this work to continue, as even the community musician from the BSO with huge experience of outreach work feels this is a ‘very special’ project with amazing and fast results that everyone involved is observing.  From week 1 where participants were nervous about trying out the instruments to now being very comfortable with playing around with (lots of experimentation in terms of how to hold a violin in a comfy position) and actually playing the notes. I was also struck by carers telling me of their attempts to ‘practice’ at home – downloading or recording the pieces they have been introduced to during the sessions and singing, humming and dancing along at home – as unfortunately the violins cannot go home with the participants – and how enjoyable they are finding the sessions beyond coming along to the rehearsals themselves. My final observation is also the growth in confidence of the musicians, our students as well as those with dementia and their carers in how they relate to one another, how they try out new pieces and are no longer as hesitant to experiment as they were in the first session. The combination of body percussion, instrument playing and singing that the musicians have created by paying close attention to how everyone responds has led to a session format that is uplifting, fun, creative while also creating intense concentration amongst all participants as they learn and work together. I wish I could find time in my diary to attend all the sessions as they leave me feeling upbeat and positive; something that was clearly evident not only from what I observed but from what I was told by everyone in the session yesterday.

Latest HSC paper in Birth

Publishing

The international journal Birth published our latest paper:

Whitford, H., Entwistle V.A., van Teijlingen, E., Aitchison, P., Davidson, T., Humphrey, T., Tucker, J. (2014) Use of a birth plan within woman-held maternity records: A qualitative study with women and staff in northeast Scotland, Birth (Epub ahead of print).

The co-authors of BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen are affiliated with a wide-range of Scottish institutions: the University of Dundee; the University of Aberdeen, the University of Stirling, the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and NHS Grampian, Aberdeen.

 

This latest paper considers the use of a birth plan section within a national woman-held maternity record.  Unlike England, Scotland has a national women-held maternity record. In Poole, for example, a midwife needs to complete another maternity record for women who want to deliver in the Poole area than those who want to delivery in Bournemouth Hospital and another form for those might want to go to the New Forest Birth Centre, and again another one for the Dorchester area.   In Scotland a pregnant women receiving antenatal care in one health area and delivering in another can take her same record/notes along.  As midwives (and other staff) only have to be familiar with one set of records, this reduces the chance of errors and avoiding duplication.

This qualitative study comprised interviews with women and maternity service staff in Northeast Scotland. In our study staff and women were generally positive about the provision of the birth plan section within the record. Perceived benefits included the opportunity to highlight preferences, enhance communication, stimulate discussions and address anxieties. However, some women were unaware of the opportunity or could not access the support they needed from staff to discuss or be confident about their options. Some were reluctant to plan too much. Staff recognised the need to support women with birth plan completion but noted practical challenges to this.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Delivering healthcare in prisons

PG research, Research Ethics

A special event has been arranged at BU that will focus on health care within prisons. The session to be held on 28th May will be led by Jane Senior from the University of Manchester. Jane is a clinician-researcher and Research Project Manager for the Offender Health Research Network. Jane is a qualified mental health nurse with over 20 years of post qualification experience of working in prison and secure mental health settings.

Jane’s session will be of great value to anyone :

  • thinking about undertaking research within UK prisons
  • wanting to know more about health care delivery in prisons
  • thinking of working with or in a prison health care team

During the session Jane will outline findings from her recent prison research projects. These include studies into how to manage the health and wellbeing of older prisoners and her recent work in developing the Older Prisoner Health and Social Care Assessment and Plan (OHSCAP). She will also highlight some of the specific issues that can arise when undertaking research within a prison environment.

Staff and students are welcome to attend the session. If you would like to attend please email Holly Crossen-White (hcrossen@Bournemouth.ac.uk).

HSC paper cited over hundred times in Scopus

Publishing

The academic publisher Elsevier alerted us today that our paper has been cited for the 101st time in Scopus.  The paper ‘Factors affecting the utilization of antenatal care in developing countries: Systematic review of the literature’ was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.  The paper was part of the first author’s Ph.D. research into maternity care in Nepal.

This paper is one of the four outputs submitted to the UK REF for both Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as part of the Bournemouth University submission and for Dr. Padam Simkhada as part of the University of Sheffield submission.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH, School of Health & Social Care

HSC study focus of Independent newspaper article

Professor Colin Pritchard

Published research in the Journal for the Royal Society of Medicine Open (JRSM Open for short), conducted by Professor Colin Pritchard and Andrew Harding in HSC, is today (Friday 02/05/14) the focus of an article in the Independent newspaper.

Andrew Harding

After the Francis Report into the scandal at Mid Staffordshire lay considerable blame at the Board for failing to tackle “…an insidious culture…focused on doing the system’s business – not that of the patient…”, Professor Pritchard and Andrew Harding looked at the occupational backgrounds of non executive directors (NEDs) of 146 NHS acute trusts (n=1,001 NEDs). The NHS is modelled on corporate governance, where a board of directors are scrutinised and held to account by non executive directors.

Considering NEDs principle task is to hold the executive, and thus the NHS, to account, the study found a shocking lack of non executive directors with medical, clinical or patient representation or background. As the Independent headline indicates, only 8% of non executive board members were healthcare professionals. Instead, it was far more prevalent and common for non executive directors to be from a commercial, or financial background – with a high proportion having been employed or current employees of major financials firms such as Deloite, KPMG, Grant Thornton, Merrill Lynch, Price-WaterHouse Coopers and JP Morgan. Females NEDs and those from ethnic minorities were also found to be in short supply.

For a full breakdown of the findings the article can be found, and is openly available here.

 

Panel discussion at Conference of the Canadian Society Sociology of Health Montreal 2014

Bournemouth University Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen was invited to take part in a panel discussion at the 4th Conference of the Canadian Society of Sociology of Health.  The panel consisted of academics are long-term collaborators on a project called Birth by Design (BBD).  The meeting was made possible by fellow BBD collaborator Prof. Ivy Bourgeault (University of Ottawa).

The BBD collaboration comprises academics from a range of different scholarly backgrounds including sociology, political science and midwifery.  The group started in 1997 with international colleagues who worked originally on a collaborative project called ‘Birth in Europe and North-America’.  This work resulted in the book Birth by Design1 and many papers in major sociology academic journals including Sociology of Health & Illness and Social Science & Medicine.2-10

 

 

 

 

The panel discussion was introduced and led by BBD collaborator Prof. Cecilia Benoit (University of Victoria, Canada). Dr. Sirpa Wrede (University of Helsinki) outlined the BBD project and the new methodological insights it provided at the time of cross-national comparative research into maternity care.  Prof. Raymond DeVries (University of Michigan & Maastricht Universiteit) spoke of the difficulties Dutch midwives face in their effort to maintain the unique maternity care system in the Netherlands.   Prof. Gene Declercq (Boston University School of Public Health) presented findings of a study of US mothers.  Prof. Jane Sandall (King’s College London) spoke about the policy implementation gap and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen reminded the audience to keep a theoretical perspective in mind when conducting comparative research in general.     Prof. Bourgeault had organised that all slides were translated in the French as the conference was bi-lingual.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1.  DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E. & Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge.     Birth by Design was short-listed for the 2004 BSA Medical Sociology Book Prize!
  2. van Teijlingen, E.R., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., DeVries, R., Bourgeault, I. (2003) Comparative studies in maternity care RCM Midwives Journal 6: 338-40.
  3. DeVries, R., Wrede, S., van Teijlingen E., Benoit, C. & Declercq, E. (2004). Making Maternity Care: The Consequences of Culture for Health Care Systems. In: Vinken, H., Soeters, J. & Ester, P. (Eds.), Comparing Cultures, Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 209-231.
  4. Benoit, C. Wrede, S., Bourgeault, I, Sandall, J., DeVries, R., van Teijlingen E. (2005) Understanding the social organisation of maternity care systems: Midwifery as a Touchstone, Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(6): 722-737.
  5. Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Bourgeault, I.L., van Teijlingen E.R., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2006) Decentered Comparative Research: Context Sensitive Analysis of Health Care, Social Science & Medicine, 63: 2986-2997.
  6. van Teijlingen, E.R., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2009) Born in the USA: Exceptionalism in Maternity Care Organisation Among High-Income Countries Sociological Research Online, 14(1) www.socresonline.org.uk/14/1/5.html
  7. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Wrede, S., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E.R., Westfall, R. (2009) The reconfiguration of professional relations with clients: social service professionalism or market expert? Current Sociology 57(4): 529–553.
  8. Bourgeault, I.L., Declercq, E., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Vanstone, M., van Teijlingen E. DeVries, R. & Benoit, C. (2008) Too posh too push? Comparative perspectives on maternal request caesarean sections in Canada, the US, the UK and Finland. In: Chambré, S.M. & Goldner, M. (eds.) Advances in Medical Sociology Patients, consumers and civil society. Vol. 10. London: JAI Press, 99-123.
  9. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. (2012) Gender and maternal healthcare. In: Kuhlmann E. & Annandale, E. (eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Gender & Healthcare (2nd edn.). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 389-404.
  10. Benoit, C., Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. Maternity Care as Global Health Policy Issue. In: E. Kuhlmann, E., Bourgeault, I. (eds.) Palgrave International Handbook on Health Care Policy & Governance,  Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming).

Free places for BU staff at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) workshop 21st May 2014

Fusion

Thanks to FIF Mobility Strand Funding, Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) are delighted to be welcoming colleagues from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York to Bournemouth University from 20-23rd May 2014. As part of their visit, BU Staff are being invited to join a free workshop. In this workshop MoMA’s specially trained Museum Educators will share their successful model and established approach for making their services dementia-friendly (validated via evaluation from New York University).

This workshop showcases MoMA’s innovative style of education delivery, providing attendees with an opportunity to hear the success of their approach and a practical demonstration in the Atrium Gallery. Staff with an interest in alternative teaching methods and those working with vulnerable groups may be particularly interested in attending. Please also pass on this information to any PhD students you feel may benefit from attending.

Date: 21st May 2014
Time: 11:00 – 15:30
Venue: Talbot Campus

There are a limited number of places available on this workshop for BU staff. To book a place, or for more information, please email mheward@bournemouth.ac.uk or call 01202 962538.

Please be aware that spaces for this workshop are limited, and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

Seminars, hospitals, falls, and a cuddle with a koala

Fusion

Earlier this month I was invited back to Australia for another research visit to Monash University. I was invited to visit Melbourne last year for a research visit and to present at a one-day seminar. This was along with two other UK colleagues from Birmingham and York, who also specialise in falls prevention (one is a geriatrician and the other a nurse). The three of us were invited back and this time we presented at two one-day seminars.

The seminars

Day 1: The first day was focused on falls prevention among older people. I was invited to give two presentations, one on an area of long-term interest to me; increasing older people’s uptake and adherence to falls prevention interventions. The other was to present findings on a pilot project funded by all the RCUK’s and departments of health (led by the MRC), on the topic of outdoor falls. This led to some interesting discussions, and it was also useful to hear other presentations from leading researchers from Sydney.

 

Day 2: The second day focused on patient safety. Some challenging issues were discussed such as learning lessons from mid-Staffs. There was also some discussion of preventive medicine, and I was invited to lead a workshop on behaviour change techniques to increase participation in physical activity interventions for the prevention of falls.

 

Research visit

Before the two one-day seminars, we had some engaging discussions sharing about the research being conducted at our respective institutions. This included work that will lead to an international position paper on how to advance the science of falls prevention research. We also visited a local hospital whereby we were invited for a Question Time type meeting, with the three of us UK visitors plus our host (Dr Anna Barker, Monash University) were quizzed on falls prevention in the hospital setting(!). This proved stimulating and interesting that the same issues being tackled over here are similar to what is experienced at the other side of the world. We also had the excitement of the first participant to be recruited into the RESPOND trial in which I am a collaborator. The RESPOND trial is a multi-site randomised controlled trial that will test the effectiveness of a patient-centred programme to prevent secondary falls in older people presenting to the emergency department with a fall. The protocol paper should be published in the near future…

 

And the koala…

Before heading back to the UK I managed to get 24 hours in Adelaide to visit a colleague who visited the UK back in around 2007. We’ve kept in touch over the years as her PhD was on a similar theme to mine around the psychological barriers to older people’s participation in falls prevention interventions. We managed to get to a zoo and queue up for the much awaited cuddle with a koala. This was fab; like cuddling a teddy bear that is alive! My hosts also kindly arranged for a fish and chip meal on the beach before catching the flight home (felt a terribly British thing to do!).

 

On the whole this was a good visit to do. It led to several useful discussions that I have taken back with me that will shape my research direction, both in the immediate future with my current grant proposal writing and subsequent proposals. It was also useful to strengthen the collaboration between our institutions and engage in useful dialogue with practitioners about the issues I as a researcher am trying to help them overcome.

 

Dr Samuel Nyman

BUDI and Psychology Research Centre

More about academic writing

Publishing

Earlier this year (13th Jan. 2014) we wrote a BU Research Blog under the title ‘Writing about academic publishing’.  We can now add two further contributions this body of work.  The first article in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology offers some advice on how to construct a title for an academic article.  The authors (BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley; BU Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland and Dr. Padam Simkhada and international collaborator Dr. Brijesh Sathian) have a wealth of experience reviewing papers and all have experience as editor board members and/or editors.  The authors are associated the editorial boards of the many journals, including: Birth, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, Medical Science, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, Essentially MIDIRS, Sociological Research Online, Hellenic Journal of Nursing Science, Midwifery and Asian Journal of Health Sciences.  In our joint capacity as reviewers and editors we have seen some great and some awful titles.  The paper in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an attempt to improve the appropriateness and usefulness of titles chosen by budding authors.

Editorial Midwifery 2014

Editorial Midwifery 2014

The second addition is an editorial in the international journal Midwifery published by Elsevier.  Together with HSC Visiting Faculty Prof. Debra Bick we address the question: ‘Who should be an author on your academic paper?’   Still too often we hear about worrying stories from fellow academic s and postgraduate students about inappropriate behaviour related to authorship of academic journal papers.  The Midwifery Editorial advises academics to discuss authorship and authorship order early on in the writing process.  At the same time, it highlights that authorship ‘rules’ or ‘traditions’ can vary between different academic disciplines.  Thus when working in a multidisciplinary team, issues of authorship of any papers which arise out of the study should be discussed before problems or concerns arise.

 

We would like to take this opportunity point our readers to another interesting and useful BU Research Blog written by Shelly Maskell under the title: ‘How to design a completely uninformative title’ (7th Feb. 2014).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Prof. Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(1): 344-347.
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.

 

Highest marks for International Fellowship for Midwives research in Nepal

 

In 2013 Wellbeing of Women joined the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to offer the International Fellowship for Midwives (worth £20,000).  Their first ever recipient was BU Lesley Milne with her supporting team.  Lesley is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery based at BU’s Portsmouth Branch Campus and her proposal set out to undertake a research project to explore barriers to facility birth in Nepal.

 

Delivery bed small hospital Nepal

Apart from Lesley herself the BU team comprises Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research, and two HSC Visiting Faculty members, namely Dr. Padam Simkhada, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and Ms. Jillian Ireland, Community Midwife NHS Poole Hospitals.

 

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

At the end of March 2014 we submitted the final report on the research to Well-Being of Women and the RCM and this report gained an ‘A’ in their scoring system.  Last week at the feedback meeting in Well-Being of Women’s office in London Lesley presented some of her key findings which she illustrated with some of her photographs.  The comments from those round the table were that the topic was well researched and that the qualitative research findings could help focus the funders in their future work.

 

Having reached the dissemination stage, we are planning scientific papers as well as a feedback session in Kathmandu (in September this year). Currently we are working on two academic papers, one is in an advanced stage approaching submission and the other is just passed its draft stage.

 

 

Lesley Milne, Vanora Hundley, Jillian Ireland (Visiting Faculty),Edwin van Teijlingen & Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty)

 

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care