Tagged / collaborative research

‘Research adrenaline junkie: how clinical research energised my career’

NHS

The Royal College of Physicians have recently published a set of articles that reflect the crucial role clinical research plays in the NHS.

This article comes from a Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust in which he talks about the transformational effect that clinical research had on his career.

You can see the article here.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

Happy reading!

The Schedule of Events Cost Attribution Tool (SoECAT)

Guidance, NHS

SoECAT stands for the ‘Schedule of Events Cost Attribution Tool’ – either a SoECAT or a Schedule of Events (SoE) is required whenever you are conducting clinical research in the NHS or Social Care. Further information and clarification is provided below.

What is the purpose of the SoECAT?

  • The SoECAT is a way of providing clarity to participating NHS  organisations on the cost attributions associated with a study.
  • The template is designed to support correct cost attribution at application for Research Cost funding, to ensure that full site level Research Costs are recovered.

When is a SoECAT required?

  • A SoECAT is required by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and NIHR non-commercial partner research funders where the call relates to studies that may involve participants under an NHS or Health and Social Care duty of care.
  • In some cases, your study may be funded by an NIHR infrastructure award which does not cover Excess Treatment Costs (ETCs) – in these cases, a SoECAT would be required in order to access the ETC process for England. Further information on ETCs can be found here.
  • In cases where your study is not funded by the NIHR or a NIHR non-commercial partner, but you wish to make an application to the NIHR CRN Portfolio, you will need to complete a SoECAT.

How do I complete one?

  • The NIHR have recently released new guidance on how to complete a SoECAT which can be found here.

When is it completed and where does the SoECAT go when it is completed?

  • The SoECAT should be completed at the funding application stage.
  • The form must be authorised by an AcoRD Specialist prior to submission for Research Cost funding.
  • It should be submitted alongside your other supporting documents when applying through the IRAS system for NHS Ethics approval and/or Health Research Authority approval*.
  • The SoECAT/SoE is then sent to your participating NHS/HSC organisations as part of the Local Information Pack at the site study set-up stage.

*Where there is no external funding attached to a project, the Schedule of Events should be used instead of a SoECAT.

Where can I get further support and guidance?

  • Your research funder should have guidance you can follow if you are unsure about whether your application requires a SoECAT at the Research Cost funding application stage.
  • Get in touch with Suzy Wignall, the Clinical Governance Advisor, or your Funding Development Officer.
  • Further information about the SoECAT can be found here.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

Research Training Events – Coming Soon

Post-award, Publishing, Research Ethics, Training

Research Training Opportunities

We have some great events coming up to help support you in your research activities.

January

Friday 31st January RKEDF: Environment Narrative Writing Day

February

Tuesday 4th February RKEDF: EndNote Desktop for Managing References and Writing for Publication
Tuesday 4th February RKEDF: Good Clinical Practice ‘Lite’
Tuesday 4th February RKEDF: Building Evidence for REF Impact Case Studies
Wednesday 5th February Royal Society Visit
Wednesday 5th February RKEDF: Introduction to Impact
Tuesday 11th February RKEDF: Overview of NIHR, CRNs and NIHR portfolio
Thursday 13th February RKEDF: Writing Day – Systematic and Scoping Reviews
Wednesday 19th February RKEDF: Advanced Literature Search Techniques
Thursday 20th February RKEDF: Environment Narrative Writing Day
Tuesday 25th February RKEDF: Research Ethics @ BU
Wednesday 26th February RKEDF: Measuring the Impact of Your Research with Advanced Citation Tools

 

You can see all the Organisational Development and Research Knowledge Development Framework (RKEDF) events in one place on the handy calendar of events.

Please note that all events are now targeted, so look closely at the event page to ensure that the event is suitable for you. In addition, most RKEDF events now require the approval of your Head of Department (or other nominated approver). Please follow the instructions given on the event page and the template email for you to initiate the booking request.

If you have any queries, please get in touch!

Guidance available to support researchers attending an NHS REC meeting

Guidance, NHS, Research Ethics

Two new links have been added to the Clinical Governance blog under the ‘Useful Links and Documents’ section which give further information and guidance as to attending an NHS Research Ethics Committee meeting for your project. The links are also provided below-

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

RKEDF – Overview of NIHR, CRNs and NIHR portfolio

Guidance, NHS, Training

On Tuesday 11th February, Research Development & Support are running a 2 hour workshop to give an overview of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Clinical Research Networks and the NIHR ‘portfolio’.

This workshop is designed to raise awareness of the benefits of the NIHR’s portfolio of research studies to BU and NHS partners.  It will also explore the role of the NIHR Clinical Research Networks (CRN), with an emphasis on the set-up and work of our local network, Wessex.

The workshop will cover the requirements to be eligible for the NIHR portfolio, how to apply so that your study may be considered for adoption, and how to access the support of the NIHR CRN.

By the end of this workshop you will have an understanding about:

  • The work of the NIHR and layout of the CRNs
  • How to apply for and the requirements for portfolio adoption
  • The benefits of having a study on the NIHR portfolio

If you’re interested in attending then reserve your place via Organisational Development.

RKEDF – Good Clinical Practice ‘Lite’

NHS, Research Ethics, Training

On Tuesday 4th February, Research Development & Support are running a 2 hour workshop on the standards of Good Clinical Practice. If you’re running your own clinical research, or are planning to in the future then this workshop is for you.

This workshop is designed to ensure that Researchers are equipped to conduct clinical research in accordance with the international standard.

The workshop will cover other standards and regulations, roles in clinical research, participant eligibility and data collection, safety reporting and closing down your study.

By the end of this workshop you will have an understanding about:

  • The importance of protecting the rights, safety and wellbeing of research participants
  • The importance of ensuring that research data are reliable
  • The roles and responsibilities of those involved in clinical research
  • The different stages of the clinical research pathway

If you’re interested in attending then reserve your place via Organisational Development.

Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships internal expression of interest

Funding opportunities

The Leverhulme have launched their Doctoral Scholarships scheme offering UK universities funding of 15 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships in a priority research area for that institution. As a university we may submit one application only and therefore the university will be coordinating expressions of interest from Academic Staff.

Those who are interested in making an application to the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships are invited to submit the following expression of interest – Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships EOI  to Alexandra Pekalski by 11th February 2020.

Further information about the scheme is available from the Leverhulme Trust. Applicants are advised to check the eligibility criteria very carefully.

Purpose of funding

The Leverhulme will fund 15 doctoral scholarships in a priority research area for that institution. Each award funds 15 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships at that institution, with 5 scholarships to be offered in each year of the first three years of the grant.

Each scholarship is for a fixed sum of £90,000 for each student for up to 48 months of full-time doctoral study. This covers:

  • maintenance (at research council levels)
  • tuition fees

Any remaining funds are to be used for the Leverhulme Scholar’s research and training expenses.

While the scholarships may be held by students of all nationalities, the Trust has a particular interest in supporting UK or EU students.

Process for selecting applications to be submitted

Should you be interested in applying, please note that your expression of interest application will be assessed by Doctoral Funding Panel. Further details of the assessment criteria can be found within the  Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships EOI . Candidates can expect feedback by 25th February 2019.

Timetable

21-01-2020 RDS advertise Expression of Interest (EoI)competition for call
11-02-2020 EoI deadline (EoIs to be sent to RDS)
13-02-2020 Papers (applications) sent to Doctoral Funding panel (RDS to administer)
20-02-2020 Doctoral Funding panel meeting (virtual)
25-02-2020 Doctoral Funding panel decision and feedback disseminated to applicants
25-02-2020 RDS to contact Leverhulme to provide the Trust with the principal applicant’s name, departmental affiliation and email address. Access will then be granted to the Leverhulme Trust Grants Management System
March/April/May-2020 Applicants develop proposals with the support of RDS and Doctoral College
22-05-2020 Application finalised for APF financial sign-off by UET
05-06-2020 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Deadline

If you have further questions or queries please contact Alexandra Pekalski (apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk) and/or Lisa Andrews (andrewsl@bournemouth.ac.uk  ). For queries relating to Doctoral colleague support please contact Fiona Knight (fknight@bournemouth.ac.uk) and/or Julia Taylor (jtaylor@bournemouthac.uk).

NIHR resources – Patient and Public Involvement and Social Media Toolkit

Guidance, Knowledge Exchange, NHS, Research Ethics, Training

Two resources are now available on the NIHR Learn website for researchers –

  • Patient and Public Involvement: Inspiring New Researchers – an online course developed by the Department of Health and NIHR. It is intended to help researchers to understand the benefits of good Patient and Public involvement into their research.
  • Social Media Toolkit – a combination of practical resources on how to get started and real case studies from how colleagues across the NIHR Clinical Research Network are currently using social media to support their work.

To access the above resources you will need to have access to the NIHR Learn website. Once you have an account select the tab ‘Health Research Innovations’ and then click on ‘NIHR Endorsed Learning’. Both courses are free and do not require an enrolment key.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

Community-Based Research Event – register your interest

Knowledge Exchange, Training

An exciting opportunity to attend a workshop, please see below for further details –

‘A team from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) are working on a project looking at how we recruit research study participants from commercial High Street health care providers (e.g. Boots, SpecSavers etc), or organisations that support health in some way (e.g. gyms, slimming clubs etc).

The project is titled Community-Based Research and we are looking to answer two specific questions:

  1. How can people with known health issues being seen only ‘on the high street’ access research?
  2. How can people with known health risk factors, who are pre-disease diagnosis, access research?

These two groups could miss out on research opportunities currently because they don’t come into the standard health system until they are either considered to be too severe for High Street treatment (in the case of group 1) or they already have a health problem (in the case of group 2).  We are looking to develop a process by which we can actively recruit participants at scale for trials before they need to access the health service, thus enabling better recruitment of milder disease and pre-disease phenotypes.  We are aware that research is happening in these two groups and would like to pull together researchers who have this experience in order to learn from their successes and challenges.

To support this ETI we are running a workshop on January 31st, 10.30-3.30, at The Wesley Euston Hotel & Conference Venue, London, which will bring together the research community to discuss:

a)      Examples of how we currently recruit from these settings, identifying successes and challenges

b)      Based on these, identifying the key elements of a recruitment strategy that the Clinical Research Network could use

We would like to invite researchers to attend if this would be of interest. Please could nominated representatives complete this Eventbrite registration page (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nihr-crn-community-based-research-event-tickets-83954384825) including indicating which Specialty they are representing.’

Nepal’s migrant workers & risk at the workplace

international, PG research, Publishing, writing

For nearly a decade BU researchers have published widely about the hazards and risk of Nepali migrant workers in Asia and the Middle East [1-9].  Despite the fact that most migrant workers end up in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs in their host countries, only a minority report poor working environments.  For example, in Pratik Adhikary’s PhD study in FHSS only just over a fifth of migrant workers reported that their work environment in the Middle East or Malaysia was poor or very poor [4].  This relatively high level of satisfaction appears to seems contradict reports in local media on the risks associated with Nepali migrants working abroad, especially focusing on the football world cup in Qatar [7], official reports that many hundreds of bodies of dead Nepali migrants return home every year [10], and the fact that many of these Nepali migrant workers end up doing the jobs the local populations finds too dirty, dangerous and demeaning (colloquially referred to as 3D-jobs).  Why do so many who travel abroad take to do risky, dirty and otherwise undesirable jobs, but still assess their working environment as not too bad?

More theoretical papers on the drivers of migration have referred to many interconnected factors and links [11-12].  Local drivers in Nepal include poverty, lack of employment opportunities, having a history of work-related migration, a growing culture of migration (i.e. it becomes more or less an expectation) and many more.  One local element that is perhaps too easily ignored is that many Nepali migrant workers would have ended up in dirty, dangerous and demeaning jobs at home too.  And the risk, on for example building sites in Nepal might be even greater than that in Qatar or elsewhere in the Middle East as some of the photos below illustrate.  These photos of an accident involving an external building lift were taken today on a building site in Kathmandu.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

  1. Adhikary P., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2011) Health Issues among Nepalese migrant workers in Middle East. Health Science Journal 5: 169-75. www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue3/532.pdf
  2. Adhikary, P, Sheppard, Z., Keen, S., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Risky work: accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar & Saudi Arabia, Health Prospect 16(2): 3-10.
  3. Simkhada, P.P., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Aryal, N. (2017) Identifying the gaps in Nepalese migrant workers’ health and well-being: A review of the literature. Journal of Travel Medicine, 24 (4). https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v9i3.25805
  4. Adhikary P, Sheppard, Z., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2018) Health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers abroad, International Journal of Migration, Health & Social Care 14(1): 96-105.  https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-12-2015-0052
  5. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Mahato, P., Aryal, N., Jadhav, N., Simkhada, P., Zahiruddin, Q.S., Gaidhane, A. (2019) The Health of Nepali Migrants in India: A Qualitative Study of Lifestyles and Risks. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16 (19). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193655
  6. Aryal, N., Regmi, P.R., Faller, E.M., van Teijlingen, E., Khoon, C.C., Pereira, A., Simkhada, P. (2019) Sudden cardiac death and kidney health related problems among Nepali migrant workers in Malaysia. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 9 (3), 788-791. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v9i3.25805
  7. Adhikary P, van Teijlingen E., Keen S. (2019) Workplace accidents among Nepali male workers in the Middle East and Malaysia: A qualitative study, Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health 21(5): 1115–1122. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10903-018-0801-y
  8. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Mahato, P., Aryal, N., Jadhav, N., Simkhada, P., Syed Zahiruddin, Q., Gaidhane, A., (2019) The health of Nepali migrants in India: A qualitative study of lifestyles and risks, Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health 16(19), 3655; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193655.
  9. Regmi, P., Aryal, N., van Teijlingen, E., Adhikary, P. (2019) Nepali migrant workers and the need for pre-departure training on mental health: a qualitative study, Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10903-019-00960-z.pdf
  10. Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of Nepal. (2018) Labour migration for employment: a status report for Nepal: 2015/2016 – 2016/2017. In. Kathmandu, Nepal: Ministry of Labour and Employment.
  11. Van Hear, N., Bakewell, O., Long. K. (2018) Push-pull plus: reconsidering the drivers of migration, Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 44:6, 927-944, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384135
  12. Iqbal, M., Gusman, Y. (2015) Pull and Push Factors of Indonesian women migrant workers from Indramayu (West Java) to work abroad. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(5): 167   https://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/7893

Hear about NIHR Wessex Applied Research Collaboration – 13th January 09:30 to 12:00

Applied Health and Care research is essential in our region if we are to improve the care and operation of our health and care systems.

Professor Alison Richardson, Director of the NIHR Wessex Applied Research Collaboration (ARC), will be talking about the newly formed ARC Wessex, which is working across the region with its partner organisations to bring the best research into practice.

ARC Wessex aims to address the immediate issues facing the health and social care system. The research programme focuses on four areas:

  • Ageing & Dementia.
  • Healthy Communities.
  • Long Term Conditions
  • Workforce and Health Systems.

There are a number of initial projects underway – for further information see our website.

This event is open to everyone across Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and South Wiltshire – Our Wessex community. Please book your place: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nihr-arc-wessex-skills-and-implementation-in-health-and-care-research-tickets-86901836733 

Community-Based Research Event – register your interest

Knowledge Exchange, Training

An exciting opportunity to attend a workshop, please see below for further details –

‘A team from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) are working on a project looking at how we recruit research study participants from commercial High Street health care providers (e.g. Boots, SpecSavers etc), or organisations that support health in some way (e.g. gyms, slimming clubs etc).

The project is titled Community-Based Research and we are looking to answer two specific questions:

  1. How can people with known health issues being seen only ‘on the high street’ access research?
  2. How can people with known health risk factors, who are pre-disease diagnosis, access research?

These two groups could miss out on research opportunities currently because they don’t come into the standard health system until they are either considered to be too severe for High Street treatment (in the case of group 1) or they already have a health problem (in the case of group 2).  We are looking to develop a process by which we can actively recruit participants at scale for trials before they need to access the health service, thus enabling better recruitment of milder disease and pre-disease phenotypes.  We are aware that research is happening in these two groups and would like to pull together researchers who have this experience in order to learn from their successes and challenges.

To support this ETI we are running a workshop on January 31st, 10.30-3.30, at The Wesley Euston Hotel & Conference Venue, London, which will bring together the research community to discuss:

a)      Examples of how we currently recruit from these settings, identifying successes and challenges

b)      Based on these, identifying the key elements of a recruitment strategy that the Clinical Research Network could use

We would like to invite researchers to attend if this would be of interest. Please could nominated representatives complete this Eventbrite registration page (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nihr-crn-community-based-research-event-tickets-83954384825) including indicating which Specialty they are representing.’

CoPMRE Visiting Faculty bi-annual event

Knowledge Exchange, NHS

Yesterday CoPMRE welcomed 30 colleagues to our Visiting Faculty bi-annual event showcasing the exciting medical developments at BU from the new Bournemouth Gateway Building to the Institute of Medical Imaging and Visualisation. The key priorities to support delivery of BU2025 were presented by Dr Clare Wedderburn, Interim Head of Department of Medicine & Public Health presented.  Juan Campos-Perez, Clinical Research Co-ordinator, BUCRU spoke about Biobanks which were highlighted in Professor Emma King’s research presentation on immunotherapy.  Professor Jeffrey Wale, Lecturer in Law encouraged innovative medical cross faculty collaboration demonstrated by his recent research collaboration with Professor Sam Rowlands, Visiting Professor resulting in four co-authored papers. The main focus of the meeting centred around Visiting Faculty engagement in research and education to help us achieve our aims.  The audience reported that they were ‘very excited’ about these new developments at BU and were keen to support this vision.

CMMPH represented at The European Midwives Association (EMA) conference

BRIAN, conferences, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

EMA held its 6th triennial education conference in Malmo, Sweden from the 28-29 November 2019. Dr. Luisa Cescutti-Butler and Professor Sue Way had three abstracts accepted, two of which highlighted units of learning in our midwifery undergraduate programme (Evaluating the student experience of introducing newborn infant physical theory into a pre-registration midwifery programme in the UK and An evaluation of the student experience of peer facilitated learning) and a further one which was focused on a national collaborative project on grading practice (Developing a set of key principles to achieve consistency in assessing pre-registration midwifery competency in practice in the UK). The opening keynote speaker at the EMA Conference was Fran McConville – Midwifery Expert at WHO.  Fran presented on ‘Strengthening Quality Midwifery Education for Universal Health Coverage 2030’. Our takeaway message from her presentation was the following important statement: “When midwives are educated to international standards, and midwifery includes the provision of family planning……more than 80% of all maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths could be averted”.

On the social side we were privileged to a hear a woman from the Sammi tribe in Sweden sing three traditional songs and a tradition adopted from Syracuse in Sicily which was the ‘Santa Lucia’ group of singers celebrating the start of Christmas who sang  Xmas Carols in Swedish. We were also able to network with some significant and contemporary midwifery leaders such as Gill Walton (CEO of the Royal College of Midwives), Fran McConville (WHO) and Grace Thomas, Reader and Lead Midwife for Education (Cardiff University).

Talk/session with the Wessex Clinical Research Network Study Support Service

Info Days, Knowledge Exchange, NHS, Research Ethics

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and care research – the NIHR oversee 15 Clinical Research Networks (CRN) and these CRNs work alongside NHS Trusts, primary care providers and Universities. Each CRN has a dedicated Study Support Service.

The NIHR have a portfolio of research studies that are eligible for consideration for support from the CRN in England.  Portfolio status is usually vital to participating NHS Trusts when considering undertaking a proposed study.

Information on the NIHR portfolio is present on the research blog, but at this session our local CRN’s Study Support team will provide you with an opportunity to hear about and discuss the network and the service, and how it could benefit you.

This session is aimed at those planning on conducting clinical research.
It is also designed to raise awareness at BU about the benefits and importance of the NIHR portfolio, so if you’re just interested in learning more, please book on.

The session will take place next week on Tuesday 10th December at 2:30pm until 4:00pm on Lansdowne Campus.

To register your interest or if you have any queries, please get in touch with Research Ethics.

Checklist now available to support researchers undertaking clinical research

Guidance, NHS, Research Ethics

Suzy Wignall (Clinical Governance Advisor – Research Development & Support) and Juan Campos-Perez (Clinical Research Coordinator – Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit) have compiled a checklist (PDF and word formats) that can be used to support researchers through the process of applying for and conducting clinical research.

The document contains links to various documents and further resources to guide researchers through areas such as applying for external approvals, running the study and closing the study. The checklist clearly sets out what tasks are required, the support/resources available to complete this tasks, a space to write your own notes/how this task was resolved and the date it was completed. Using this document will help you ensure that all the required tasks are completed during your research journey.

The document is also here on the Clinical Governance blog.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – contact details for Suzy and Juan are on the checklist, and you can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.