Tagged / Health

NCPQSW’s New Mental Capacity Toolkit Launch 2021!

A lovely day by the river Stour on Friday 24th saw around 40 delegates and Bournemouth University staff come together to celebrate the launch of the National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work’s new Mental Capacity Toolkit- mentalcapacitytoolkit.co.uk.

Funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing, the toolkit aims to provide easily accessible learning materials and information for nurses and other professionals and is a web-based tool which can be accessed wherever a professional has access to the internet.

The project team, led by Professor Lee-Ann Fenge, Director of the NCPQSW and the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and Principal Investigator Dr Sally Lee, undertook an 18-month long research project investigating the issues that professionals encounter in using the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and what could help to increase knowledge and understanding of the legislation and practice requirements.

The day started with an introduction into the NCPQSW and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices wider work and resources by Professor Fenge before Mike Lyne, Programme Lead for the MCA 2005 at BU and a member of the project team took delegates through the context of past and current mental capacity work at BU with a short tour of future developments. Dr Lee and Dr Debbie Slate then introduced delegates to the research themes and the detail of the project.

Dr Mel Hughes, co-director of the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and Stevie Corbin-Clarke from the project team followed by discussing a project that they have been working on with the charity National Voices, looking at how the introduction of remote service models during the Covid-19 pandemic has affected vulnerable people and those without internet access.

After a light lunch and a warmup quiz, Emily Rosenorn-Lanng introduced the online toolkit and encouraged delegates to log on and have a “play”, and to provide the project team with immediate feedback. Comments included, “I like the visual aspect of the tool” and “I really like the reflective nature of the tool and the questions it asks” and “the quizzes are great!”

Suggestions for further developments were also made with the addition of a search function being a particular desire, which the project team hope to be able to provide this week. Another item on the wish list was the ability to print out a certificate of completion for CPD purposes. The toolkit is very much a work in progress and will be added to over the course of the next few months. The project team are happy to receive feedback and suggestions via the “contact us” details on the NCPQSW website. The toolkit can be accessed at mentalcapacitytoolkit.co.uk.

Here are some example pages of what is included in the tool:

Health Research Authority – new final report requirements

Please see below for an update from the HRA –

Changes to the way you submit your final report

The Health Research Authority has implemented changes to final study reporting requirements. The changes apply to all studies across the UK which require ethics approval and which have not yet submitted a final report.

The Make It Public strategy set out our commitment to make transparency easy, make transparency the norm and make information public. We have now developed a standard dataset on research transparency which will be collected in the study final reports. Coupled with changes we have already made to help you plan at the start of a study how you will inform participants at the end, these changes are steps towards fulfilling that commitment.

In the future we will be able to see more clearly what proportion of studies are fulfilling transparency requirements, including information about study registration, publication of results, informing participants of the outcome of the study and the sharing of data and tissue (if applicable).

In standardising the information we request from you and the form for collecting this, we hope it will be easier for you to know what is expected.

If you have any questions, please email research.transparency@hra.nhs.uk

NIHR Research Design Service – Starting Research Workshop

Please see below for the following training opportunity:

Date: 15 September 2021
Time: 09:15-13:30
Location: Online

Funded and hosted by the NIHR Research Design Service (RDS) South Central, discover how to move from thinking about doing research to taking your first steps in the getting support, dedicated time and funding to actually do it. Sign up to the workshop on Eventbrite.

Health Research Authority’s new student research eligibility criteria – live from today

New eligibility criteria for standalone student research go live today (1 September 2021). These changes are designed to ensure that students’ experience of research reflects how modern health and social care research is conducted.

This new criteria encourages innovative approaches to student research like group research, mock Research Ethics Committees (REC) or shadowing a range of people in an existing project.

The changes mean some master’s students will now be eligible to apply for approval to carry out their research.

To help students plan their research we have created a new student research toolkit. The toolkit has been designed to pull together the resources a student will need to understand what approvals are required and whether they are eligible to carry out their research in the UK.  It contains links to existing decision tools as well as some new ones developed especially for students. It uses a simple question and answer format and will provide answers to the following questions:

  • Is my study research?
  • Is my research taking place in the NHS and will it need NHS approval?
  • Do I need NHS REC review?
  • What type of NHS ethics review do I need?
  • Can I carry out my research?

Completing the tool will provide students with an understanding of what activities they can do and ensures that they do not waste time applying for approval for research that they are not able to carry out under the new student eligibility criteria. Through completion of the toolkit, students can access supplementary declarations that need to be completed by their academic supervisor, confirming that they meet the criteria for the type of approvals they need for their research. There are three separate declarations depending on the approvals needed – the toolkit guides the student to the right one based on their responses.

Please share this update and new resource with colleagues and students who might benefit. Further details about the new eligibility criteria can be found on the HRA website.

Please see our question and answer section for further information. If you have any other queries about the eligibility criteria, please contact queries@hra.nhs.uk.

Please contact Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor in RDS if you have any queries or concerns.

Risk of kidney problems in migrant workers

Congratulations to Dr. Pramod Regmi, Lecturer in International Health & Global Engagement Lead, Department of Nursing Sciences, and Dr. Nirmal Aryal, formerly of the Centre of Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), whose editorial “Kidney health risk of migrant workers: An issue we can no longer overlook” has been published today in Health Prospect [1].  Further co-authors (Arun Sedhain, Radheshyam Krishna KC, Erwin Martinez Faller, Aney Rijal, and Edwin van Teijlingen) work in India, Nepal, the Philippines and at BU.  The study was funded by GCRF.

This editorial highlights that low-skilled migrant workers in the countries of the Gulf and Malaysia are at a disproportionately higher risk of kidney health problems. The working conditions are often Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult (referred at as the 3Ds) include physically demanding work, exposure to a hot environment, dehydration, chemical exposures, excessive use of pain killers, and lifestyle factors (such as restricted water intake and a high intake of alcohol/sugary drinks) which may precipitate them to acute kidney injuries and subsequent chronic kidney disease.  

References

  1. Aryal, N., Regmi, P.R., Sedhain, A., KC, R.K., Martinez Faller, E., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E., (2021) Kidney health risk of migrant workers: An issue we can no longer overlook. Health Prospect 21(1): 15-17.

Health Research Authority Releases Question and Answers: Student Eligibility Criteria

The Health Research Authority have published some questions and answers in relation to student research – this is in relation to the recent update regarding the upcoming changes to eligibility criteria.

You can find the Q&As here.

If you have any queries please contact Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor in Research Development & Support.

Dorset Integrated Care System (ICS) Innovation Hub: Open call for priority support

Dorset Integrated Care System (ICS) Innovation Hub: Open call for priority support

Dorset ICS Innovation Hub

To help improve health and social care outcomes, equity and accessibility across Dorset, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust is implementing a Dorset Innovation Hub. It will seek to address the unique challenges of caring for the population of Dorset, and the need to innovate and transform care.

The Hub will support adoption of proven innovations across the Dorset ICS. It will coordinate horizon scanning approaches and prioritise which innovations to bring to Dorset for rapid adaptation and adoption, at scale. A core project team of innovation multidisciplinary professionals will be assisted by a wider well-established network of subject matter experts.

Details of the Call

The Innovation Hub recognises that there is a plethora of improvement, transformation and innovative workstreams being undertaken and it has therefore been agreed that an open call would be made to partner organisations such as Bournemouth University so that each could made one request for priority support.

Priority Support Available

The Innovation Hub is seeking to support a range of local priorities across health and social care in the process towards implementation and adoption via the following ways:

  • Project management and oversight
  • Horizon scanning
  • Implementation
  • Training and education
  • Benefits realisation including evaluation
  • Finance, commission, and procurement advice
  • Quality and risk advice
  • Patient, public engagement advice

Therefore, if you have a health or social care related project that supports these local priorities and which would benefit from additional priority support to speed its implementation and adoption, you are strongly encouraged to submit your project for nomination.

 

 

Eligibility

Bournemouth University will nominate one project to go forward for priority support consideration by the Innovation Hub core project team.

Nomination assessment criteria

All projects submitted before the deadline will be evaluated using the following scoring criteria:

  • The project provides a solution to a problem in one of the following areas: Health inequalities/Population health management/Place based interventions/Workforce/Winter planning/Implementing clinical services review/Digital/COVID recovery
  • Novelty (Score 1-5): Projects should be novel and highly innovative in their support of local health or social care priorities.
  • Alignment with SIAs (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate alignment to the scope of one or more of the SIAs.
  • Interdisciplinarity (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate how they will secure interdisciplinary working that will achieve stronger outcomes than disciplines working in silos.
  • The potential for medium/long-term development and impact across Dorset (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate potential to secure societal impact with extensive reach and/or significance.

Application Process and Timescales

To apply, please complete and submit the application form to Lesley Hutchins (Research Commercialisation Manager) at innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk by 17:00 Friday 20 August 2021. Applications submitted after this time will not be considered.

Completed applications describing eligible projects will be reviewed by BU members of the Dorset Innovation Hub and the DDPPRs after the application deadline.

The nominated project will be informed and announced on the BU Research and Faculty blogsBU’s nomination will be submitted to the Dorset ICS Hub for consideration on or before Tuesday 31 August 2021. 

The Dorset Innovation Hub core project team will then approve which projects will be taken forward in their Tuesday 28 September 2021 meeting. If selected by the Innovation Hub, the BU nominated project’s Principal Investigators will be notified shortly thereafter.

Important: The Dorset ICS Open call for priority support may be promoted elsewhere. Please do not submit your application to any of these other portals as it will not be eligible for nomination. BU applications should only be submitted to innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk

Find out more

If you have any questions, please email Lesley Hutchins (Research Commercialisation Manager) at innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk

BU conference presentation on migration and COVID-19 in Nepal

Yesterday Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhikari, Dr. Nirmal Aryal and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, all based in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, presented at the tenth Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal & the Himalaya.  Their paper ‘Moral panic and othering practices during Nepal’s COVID-19 Pandemic (A study with returnee migrants and Muslims in Nepal)’ was co-authored by Dr. Sharada Prasad Wasti from the University of Huddersfield and Shreeman Sharma (Department of  Conflict, Peace & Development
Studies, Tribhuvan University, Nepal).  The presentation was partly based on research funded by the British Academy.

 

Pilot studies paper reaches 90,000 reads

Today ResearchGate informed Prof. Vanora Hundley and I that our paper in the Nursing Standard of 2002 had reached 90,000 reads.  This short methods paper called ‘The Importance of Pilot Studies’ [1] was one of our earlier attempts, nearly two decades ago, to publish more of our work in practitioners journals.  This approach has been highly successful in terms of reaching a wider audience.  We have written longer, more sophisticated research methods papers on pilot studies over the years, including in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Social Research Update, and the SAGE encyclopedia on research methods [2-6], but none of these has been read or cited as often as our short paper in the Nursing Standard. 

The term ‘pilot studies’ refers to mini versions of a full-scale study (also called ‘feasibility’ studies), as well as the specific pre-testing of a particular research instrument such as a questionnaire or interview schedule. Pilot studies are a crucial element of good study design. Conducting a pilot study does not guarantee success in the main study, but it does increase the likelihood of success. Pilot studies fulfill a range of important functions and can provide valuable insights for other researchers. There is a need for more discussion among researchers of both the process and outcomes of pilot studies.

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2002) ‘The importance of pilot studies’ Nursing Standard 16(40): 33-36. Web: nursing-standard.co.uk/archives/vol16-40/pdfs/vol16w40p3336.pdf
  2. van Teijlingen E, Rennie, AM., Hundley, V, Graham, W. (2001) The importance of conducting & reporting pilot studies: example of Scottish Births Survey, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 34: 289-95.
  3. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2001) The importance of pilot studies, Social Research Update Issue 35, (Editor N. Gilbert), Guildford: University of Surrey. Web:  http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU35.html
  4. Hundley, V., van Teijlingen E. (2002) The role of pilot studies in midwifery research RCM Midwives Journal 5(11): 372-74
  5. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2005) Pilot studies in family planning & reproductive health care, Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 31(3): 219-21.
  6. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2003) Pilot study, In: Encyclopaedia of Social Science Research Methods, Vol. 2, Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. & Liao, T. (eds.), Oregon, Sage: 823-24.

New FHSS nutrition publication

Congratulations to Faculty of Health & Social Sciences’ PhD student Karim Khaled and supervisors Prof. Vanora Hundley and Dr. Fotini Tsofliou on the acceptance of your manuscript ‘Perceived Stress was associated with Poorer Diet Quality among Women of Reproductive Age in the UK’.  This paper will appear in the international journal Nutrients.
All three are associated with our research unit CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health). This paper is supported by BU’s Open Access Fund will be freely available online soon.

Well done!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH