Welcome to the community e-newsletter for the NIHR CLAHRCs, bringing you news from across the thirteen collaborations and the health services research community.
Newsflash! East Midlands: The next round of the CLAHRC East Midlands’ PhD / MD Travel / Research prize is now open for applications; Greater Manchester: Check out our Capacity Building Video; North Thames: 'Introduction to Evaluation' course goes online; North West London: NWL's Collaborative Learning and Partnerships theme is approaching its 10-year anniversary. Keep an eye on their twitter for highlights. Peninsular: the PenCHORD Team have developed a website which provides open access training in R, and R Studio, for healthcare services.
CLAHRC East Midlands Nurse awarded prestigious clinical academic award
A Nottingham nurse has spoken of the “tremendous opportunity” to further his clinical academic career thanks to support from CLAHRC East Midlands.
Dr Joseph Manning, who works at Nottingham’s Children’s Hospital at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, has become the first paediatric nurse in the country to be awarded a prestigious Clinical Lectureship Award from the Department of Health and Social Care. The Charge Nurse in the Paediatric Critical Care Outreach Team at Nottingham Children’s Hospital is also the first registered nurse in the East Midlands to receive this accolade.
It means he can continue to improve care for children and their families experiencing critical illness by further building the evidence base. Dr Manning has previously won the Gold Scholar Award funded by CLAHRC East Midlands and Health Education England (HEE). Read more
Clinical Academic post development fellowship award East Midlands Clinical Academic Careers Advisory Group, a partnership of NHS and HEI organisations across the East Midlands region is supporting the development and growth of clinical academic careers for non-medics.
Chaired by CLAHRC East Midlands, we are pleased to be able to announce a funding call for a post-doctoral clinical academic post.
Up to £30,000 is available for a non-medical/dental clinical academic working in the East Midlands to apply for, which is to be used to create and embed a clinical academic post within their clinical service organisation. Applicants must have been awarded their PhD. The successful applicant must commence the post no later than 1st July 2019. Applications close 23.59pm on 6th May 2019. Read more or apply here.
CLAHRC East of England How do we define success in research capacity building? A path with many destinations
There is no single destination for success in research capacity building. At CLAHRC EoE we have been working with a wide range of health and care professionals, supporting them in identifying their own destinations and map their path to success. This also entails linking our work with other CLAHRCs nationally and seeking international impact.
The Research Capacity in Dementia Care Programme, funded through EoE, PenCLAHRC, Greater Manchester, and Wessex, has been a multiplier of successes, with twelve nurses and AHPs completing their PhDs in Dementia Care.
Following from this successful scheme, CLAHRC EoE have championed the development of an international workshop in dementia care research, funded by University of East Anglia (part of CLAHRC EoE) and Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. This international workshop will take place in Brazil (July/2019), bringing together junior researchers (UK and Brazil) and supporting their career development.
Success in capacity building has no single destination – and travels beyond borders. Contact: ProfessorEneida Mioshi e.mioshi@uea.ac.uk
Building capacity for clinicians to develop services for children with acquired brain injuries (ABI)
Acquired brain injury (ABI) is a leading cause of disability in the UK, especially amongst children and young people (CYP), yet before 2010 there was no rehabilitation service to meet their needs. CLAHRC EoE has supported 4 clinicians with fellowships to develop acute and specialist community services for children with ABI.
This has facilitated the funding and development of a pathway for over 180 children and families with ABI to be supported in the East of England. This means that up to 120 children and young people can now be seen each year to identify needs early and prevent later problems. Mum Kat said of the service, "My son has made such great strides…it has helped my son have a brighter future" .
The development is ongoing thanks to this CLAHRC supported culture and publications have put the service on a national and international platform.You can see more about this in the BBC's short video. Contact: Dr Suzanna Watson suzanna.watson@nhs.net Read more
CLAHRC Greater Manchester CLAHRC GM research interns work in clinical practice and conduct small scale projects with direct impact.
Two examples are:
What factors are considered when nurses grade pressure ulcers?
Led by: Edith Bartrop, Nurse Practitioner, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Project: Framework analysis was used to analyse routinely collected pressure ulcer incidence data, and accompanying narratives, from one area of Greater Manchester.
Incidence data: ‘unstageable’ ulcers were the second most reported category. It is unclear why this is, but may include difficulty using grading scales, lack of staff training or concerns about reporting other grades of ulcer. Narratives however demonstrated a high level of skill and knowledge when assessing the multiple factors that contribute to pressure ulcer development. Further research is needed into nurses’ confidence with staging, and application of their knowledge of risk factors to practice.
What impact would a post discharge follow up clinic have on patients after an acute kidney injury (AKI) episode during a hospital admission?
Led by: Prasanna Hanumapura, Acute Kidney Injury Specialist Nurse, MRI.
Project: A literature review of the post discharge outcomes of patients with an AKI, and a national scoping exercise of the current status of AKI services and follow up. He found: follow up of AKI survivors is poor, and there are no published papers about the outcomes of follow up clinics; only seven hospitals in the UK have follow up clinics. A business case has been submitted to the Trust board for establishing an AKI follow up clinic. An abstract has been submitted to the British Renal Society Conference, and application made for an MRes.
CLAHRC North Thames Taking learning online to build capacity
Since 2014 the CLAHRC North Thames Academy has trained over 700 staff in frontline services at NHS Trusts, CCGs and Local Authorities, arming them with research methods they can use in their practise. To extend the accessibility of our training offer, we have developed our online 'Introduction to evaluation' course incorporating the latest evidence and adding new interactive aspects. The course, updated in line with recent accessibility legislation, is inspired by the content of our popular face-to-face evaluation course, which equips staff in frontline services with the skills and knowledge to undertake their own evaluation of a local programme or service. It is ideal for staff who may undertake a service evaluation and would like to learn flexibly, and at their own pace. This four-week course opens on May 7th. Registration will be open until Friday 3rd May. Contact: Dr Jennifer McGowan j.mcgowan.12@ucl.ac.uk
CLAHRC North West Coast Stroke nurse Alison’s research journey
Alison McLoughlin, an Academic Research Nurse, joined CLAHRC NWC for a research internship tackling health inequalities in stroke care provision. Motivated by this, she has since secured a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Doctoral Fellowship.
Alison explains: “My initial role as a stroke research nurse involved recruiting to, and working on, a range of clinical trials and academically sponsored research studies. Over the years my role had developed and was more generic with an overall aim of increasing research capacity and capability at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTHTR). I have showcased my fellowship research plan to colleagues at the Trust and will be working in collaboration with both them, and neighbouring NHS organisations during my research. Having that link with frontline colleagues makes the research grounded in the ‘real’ world. I’m very grateful to CLAHRC NWC.” Read more
Capacity Building for Partners
The CLAHRC NWC Partner Priority Programme (PPP) has been supporting projects that address the current needs of the partner organisations through evaluation and implementation of new models of care. Interns are supported with a structured programme of training that includes evaluation and implementation science methods, which have been delivered in collaboration with other CLAHRCs.
Interns have also been supported to complete a module in Implementation Science at Masters Level, providing a formal qualification that contributes to their personal and professional development.
Examples of implementation and evaluation projects supported in this programme include: early supported discharge of pre-term babies; rapid access clinics for back pain and for radicular pain; a food and drink strategy for cancer patients. All projects must consider health inequalities and interns are provided with the Health Inequalities Assessment Toolkit (http://www.hiat.org).
CLAHRC North West London Building Capacity in Quality Improvement Using Bite-Sized eLearning
NIHR CLAHRC NWL offers an alternative way to build capacity in individuals via an eLearning resource called QI4U (Quality Improvement for You). Quality Improvement (QI) methods in healthcare are normally delivered through classroom-based education. This traditional way of training creates an abundance of barriers such as financial outlay, geographical spread of learners, suitable time and venues for hosting training sessions etc. for educating multi-professional groups who need to work together on a single improvement project.
QI4U is a flexible eLearning resource that has engaging bite-sized content that fits learning around the schedule of the learner. Developed by QI experts, with an international reputation for leading QI work and education in healthcare, there are currently 8 modules filled with interactive activities, downloadable templates and videos to support a journey of QI exploration while having the peace of mind of repeated access to the learning content and additional support from expert instructors. Read more
10 years building capacity in patients, carers and the public
10 years ago, the NIHR CLAHRC NWL PPEI (Patient and Public Engagement and Involvement) theme was launched and began a journey to end tokenism in patient and public engagement and involvement. The theme has grown in strength by investing in people, collaboration and communication. Our learning with patients is embedded in the key principles of our Successful Healthcare Improvement from Translating Evidence in complex systems (SHIFT-Evidence) framework. We build capacity in patients, carers and public alongside healthcare professionals and support co-design and patient/public led initiatives. Visit our twitter link highlighting some of the key work driven by patients. See more
CLAHRC Oxford Capacity building in the Thames Valley
CLAHRC Oxford see’s capacity building as an integral part of its day-to-day running, embedded throughout its research themes. In addition to clinical and research training, CLAHRC Oxford early on worked to identify un-met needs with our clinical partners.
This highlighted that many moving through a healthcare career path find themselves in demanding leadership positions, managing multidisciplinary healthcare teams, with little leadership training. CLAHRC Oxford recognised this gap in support and knowledge led to the development the successful ‘High Impact leadership Skills for Healthcare’ programme, run in collaboration with Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.
Additionally, CLAHRC Oxford also supports three regional ‘clinical networks’ (Anxiety and Depression, Dementia, and Respiratory) in partnership with Oxford AHSN. These networks identify and tackle unwarranted variation in patient outcomes, spread best practice and raise the standard of care by encouraging and facilitating adoption of new clinical interventions, and train the clinical leaders of tomorrow. Read more
PenCLAHRC Increasing capacity to use and generate research evidence PenCLAHRC worksacross the South West to increase capacity to use and generate research evidence through a range of training opportunities for clinicians and researchers. We believe that better health care can be provided to patients by making evidence-based decisions and run regular Making Sense of Evidence (MSE) workshops, modelled on those at the Centre for Evidence Based Practice in Oxford and designed to illustrate how to find and use evidence to make effective health and social care decisions. See all our Capacity Development Opportunities
PenCLAHRC’s Evidence Synthesis Team develop capacity by providing clinics, workshops and support to enable others to undertake evidence based research. They run a series of ongoing systematic review clinics for academics or NHS professionals wanting direction with where to start on the systematic review process or designing a research strategy.For details of all PenCLAHRC events and seminars please see our Events page.
PenCHORD support decision making with Operational Research PenCHORD are specialists in helping healthcare professionals, commissioners and patients make informed decisions about change in the NHS using Operational Research (OR). Research projects use advanced quantitative techniques to model healthcare services and predict the impact of change. The team have extensive experience in communicating the results of modelling research in an engaging and understandable manner, as well as delivering an extensive suite of OR training and capacity building initiatives. Watch a video showing how PenCLAHRC researchers are helping NHS teams to make more informed decisions.
PenCHORD also run a Health Service Modelling Associates programme. Working directly with staff from NHS organisations across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, it aims to support the increased use of operational research in health service development and decision making. Plans for a new cohort for the HSMA Programme are afoot – keep an eye on the website for updates.
CLAHRC South London Implementation Science Masterclass 16 – 17 July 2019
The Implementation Science Masterclass is a two-day course for health and social care professionals, researchers, patients and service users who aim to ensure health services routinely offer treatment and care that is based on the most recent research evidence and quality improvement principles.
It includes lectures from world-renowned experts in the field, small group workshops facilitated by leading researchers, and advice on how to work more effectively on your own implementation projects. The Masterclass has grown significantly from 45 attendees in 2015 to 102 in 2018. Its faculty consists of international experts from the UK, USA, Canada and Sweden.
This year's Masterclass will feature a new advanced track for those with more experience or who have previously attended the course. Watch a short film about the Masterclass. Read more
2nd UK implementation science research conference – Thursday 18 July 2019
This one-day conference will showcase the latest research in the field of implementation science applied to health and social care. This year’s conference will explore the theme: 'Advancing the science of scaling up: Improving efficiency and effectiveness of implementation strategies in healthcare'.
Building on the themes explored in our Implementation Science Masterclass, the conference is an opportunity for applied-health researchers, health professionals, policymakers and service user researchers to come together and share how best to implement evidence-based practice and clinical research within health services and systems. The conference will feature presentations from leading international researchers working in the field, oral and poster presentations, and parallel sessions.
The deadline for submitting abstracts is Friday 26 April 2019. Read more
CLAHRC Wessex Qualitative Research boost
Our work on capacity building has included supporting a 'grass-roots' group of early and mid-level researchers interested in developing their skills as qualitative researchers. The CLAHRC Wessex Qualitative research network has had a series of meetings beginning in September 2018. The group is very much a peer-support network sharing ideas and learning, drawing on expertise within CLAHRC Wessex. At the request of the group we hosted a skills masterclass' in November at which Professors Anne Rogers and Catherine Pope talked about ‘credibility’ and ‘adequacy’ in analysis, and writing research bids to include qualitative methods. We were joined by Dr Sarah Brien, NIHR Research Design Service South Central who also spoke about what funders need to see in grant applications. The group has continued to meet and has compiled a valuable list of resources. Read more: Qualitative Research - Where to Start!? - Here's some help; Learning from failure: lessons from the checklist project
Springboard
Another capacity building activity in CLAHRC Wessex this year was the Springboard women's development programme. As part of our Athena SWAN and Diversity commitments we wanted to focus on women staff in the CLAHRC and to support their career and personal development with this programme comprising workshops, a handbook and coaching resources over 4 months. Women from the CLAHRC and wider university participated and the programme, which received excellent evaluations. Participants said 'Springboard provided time for reflection and discussion with others in a supportive, well-facilitated, encouraging, inspiring environment" and they valued 'having the allotted time and space to think about personal development with others who are doing the same" Read more
CLAHRC West Paper in Public Health journal outlines successes of NIHR CLAHRC West training programme
A new paper in the journal Public Health shares the Training and Capacity team’s story of setting up the highly successful CLAHRC West training programme.
The paper highlights the innovative features of the team’s approach. The team’s first activity was a wide-ranging analysis of skills gaps in the workforce, as well as a review of the courses already on offer in the region. This meant that the CLAHRC West offer was tailored very precisely to fill these gaps.
The free courses are open to everyone who works in CLAHRC West partner organisations such as the NHS and universities. But another unique feature is that they are also open to the voluntary sector, who have more limited access to training and smaller budgets. The team have developed courses specifically aimed at voluntary sector staff. Read more
Overcoming Barriers film will help professionals working with Somali families affected by autism
A new film, Overcoming Barriers, produced by NIHR CLAHRC West, Autism Independence and Therapeutic Media, will be used to train professionals working with Somali families, and others from different ethnic backgrounds, who are affected by autism.
The film was launched at the Watershed cinema in Bristol on 3 April, to a 120 strong audience of people from the Somali community, professionals working with children with autism and others. People had come from Cardiff and Leicester to see it, which is now available on YouTube.
The English version will form part of a special training course offered by Autism Independence, Intersectional Autism Competence Training. This course can be tailored to an organisation’s needs, and one of the first clients for it is the University of Bristol Medical School. Watch the films: English version and Somali version
CLAHRC West Midlands
Developing Healthcare ‘Practice-Savvy’ Academics
Capacity development in CLAHRC-WM focuses upon knowledge-brokering arrangements to link research and practice. This has three dimensions: developing clinical practitioners’ understanding and practice of evidence-based innovation through the research themes; developing patients’ and carers’ influence upon both academic research and service development through CLAHRC structures and processes; and developing academic capacity to engage with and influence clinical practice and service improvement. In CLAHRC-WM, researchers from Warwick Business School (WBS) are embedded in the NHS and local authority settings within which they research implementation issues around evidence-based service improvement. We are working with Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire and Coventry City Council, while NHS partners have co-funded fixed-term, academic posts in WBS. Such arrangements have generated additional research funding, e.g. from the Health Foundation. We hope to continue such knowledge brokering as we move forward in pursuit of ‘healthcare practice-savvy’ business school academics
CLAHRC Yorkshire and Humber Impacts of a Community of Practice in NIHR CLAHRC Yorkshire and Humber
NIHR CLAHRC YH are delivering on a research capacity strategy that maximises the potential of both NHS organisations, and the individuals within those organisations.The ambition is to enable and strengthen the NHS as a context that creates and supports clinical academic careers in all professional groups. This article focuses on the work linked to the Community of Practice of 12 NHS organisations called ACORN (Addressing Capacity in Organisations to do Research Network) which is integral to our research capacity strategy.
CARDINAL (ClinicAl Doctoral Nurses and ALlied Health Professional): A regional clinical doctoral training network for NMAHPs. A Memorandum of understanding (MoU) for CARDINAL was signed by the five collaborating Trusts and Universities. The cohort includes seven students: one speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist and five nurses. CARDINAL was launched by Lord Willis in November 2018, and has a focus on developing a joint approach to supervision through close contact between the student and the clinical and academic supervisors.
VICTOR (Visible the ImpaCT Of Research) A recent realist review of research capacity building (Cooke et al 2018) highlighted that research that ‘makes a difference’ in teams and organisations, can act as a mechanism to build research capacity within them. At the request of ACORN a project has been completed that makes visible the impacts of conducting research in an organisation. Jointly funded by NIHR CLAHRC YH and NIHR CRN Yorkshire and Humber, the project seconded two senior NHS managers to work with Jo Cooke. The team coproduced an impact tool with the ACORN organisations to make visible the impact of conducting research in NHS organisations. The areas of impact incorporated into VICTOR include changes in workforce; skills and knowledge; service delivery; patient and carer experience; economic benefits and changes in culture. Contact beth.stevenson@sth.nhs.uk for a VICTOR pack.
