A message from ARC NWC Director, Professor Mark Gabbay
 Thank you for taking the time to read our latest Newsletter. Firstly, I hope you and your friends and family are keeping well during these unprecedented times.
I am pleased to report that we have had a positive response from the NIHR regarding feedback to our annual report we submitted earlier this year. With an overall green rating it means our key funders are happy with the progress we are making against our submitted bid targets and current outputs including theme workstreams, publications and changes we have implemented since our last report.
During November I was delighted to hear of updates from our PhD students during the ARC NWC Doctoral Fellow Network Annual Review and Showcase – Cohort 1 - about their research and progress. It was particularly pleasing to hear how health inequalities and public engagement have become embedded in all of these studies and really does reflect why we invest in future researchers and the impact their findings will make. We are currently preparing their presentations to add to our website for wider dissemination to our members.
Can I encourage you all to register for our next ARCFEST which is on 14 th December? A virtual event during which we will be offering an insight into the new FOREquity website, a new tool which is a refresh and update of the current health inequalities online tool we use. This will be in addition to our usual theme meetings and project updates.
This edition features our latest collaborative work with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation and our MIDAS / PCCC themes, conducting a review of the literature on in-hospital early seizures and epilepsy in acute stroke. The review will aim to identify current knowledge on recognition, diagnosis and management of early post-stroke seizures and epilepsy. This work is intended to be the first step in a programme of research aiming to identify current barriers to the recognition of early post-stroke seizures, opportunities to improve treatment approaches, and to improve education and training of healthcare professionals.
A lot of dissemination has taken place this month and I would like to thank our PhD Students, Member Staff, Public Advisers and Theme teams who have been presenting at numerous conferences as well as publishing a raft of research-related articles. All of these are regularly tweeted about from our handle @arc_nwc.
Can I also take this opportunity to urge all of our members to consider our ARC NWC Internship opportunities for their staff? Details feature in this edition and it really is an excellent opportunity for research capacity building within organisations.
As the landscape within which we operate continues to evolve I am pleased to see new leadership appointments for the planned Integrated Care Systems (ICS): Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS has appointed Kevin Lavery as its integrated care board chief executive designate. He has most recently been chief executive of Wellington City Council in New Zealand. Prior to this he led Cornwall Council, and was also chief executive of outsourcing giant Serco for two years in the mid-2000s. And in Cheshire and Merseyside, NHSE’s North West regional director of performance and Improvement Graham Urwin has been appointed chief executive designate. He has a local government finance background and worked as the North West regional incident director throughout the pandemic. We look forward to working with both organisations.
Finally, there are several opportunities for research participation in this edition. Please do consider taking part in our research as it's only through participants being supportive that we can deliver findings to implement into practice and improve services across the region.
Thank you for your continued support
Professor Mark Gabbay
Director, ARC NWC |
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Register now to attend our next ARCFEST
Our next ARCFEST is taking place on Tuesday 14th December 2021. Please register using our Eventbrite page which also contains a running order of the event:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/arcfest-tickets-212599218987
During 2022 the dates of our ARCFEST events, which will be in a hybrid format of face-to-face and virtual attendance, are:
8th March 2022
21 June 2022
13 Sept 2022
Any queries please contact us at arcnwc@liverpool.ac.uk.
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MIDAS & PCCC themes investigate Early Post-Stroke Seizures
Dr Clare Gordon, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire and Nurse Consultant at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is leading the review. She offers an insight into the work.
Electrical activity is happening in our brain all the time, as the cells in the brain send messages to each other. A seizure happens when there is a sudden burst of intense electrical activity in the brain. This causes a temporary disruption to the way the brain normally works, so the brain’s messages become mixed up, resulting in an epileptic seizure. Stroke disrupts the blood supply to the brain, causing damage which can lead to epileptic seizures.
Post-stroke seizures occurring soon after a stroke can complicate a patient’s stroke diagnosis because the signs of a seizure can be similar to those of a stroke and can cause new or seemingly unexplained symptoms. Post-stroke seizures can often go undiagnosed and can complicate the management and treatment of a stroke patient. Some patients will also go on to develop epilepsy as a long-term complication of their stroke.
One stroke patient said, “My epilepsy started during a speech therapy session. I didn’t know what it was or why it was happening. Then I went unconscious. I would have liked to have been warned that this may happen. My aphasia [impaired ability to understand or produce speech] made it more difficult to describe the symptoms to the doctor.”
It is important that post-stroke seizures are recognised as soon as possible so they can be treated and managed effectively. However, a lack of education, training, and clinical guidelines to support healthcare professionals around post-stroke seizures has led to inconsistent approaches to recognition and management.
As part of the ARC-NWC Person Centred Complex Care (PCCC) theme, researchers at University of Central Lancashire and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are conducting a review of the literature on in-hospital early seizures and epilepsy in acute stroke. The review will aim to identify current knowledge on recognition, diagnosis and management of early post-stroke seizures and epilepsy. This work is intended to be the first step in a programme of research aiming to identify current barriers to the recognition of early post-stroke seizures, opportunities to improve treatment approaches, and to improve education and training of healthcare professionals.
ARC-NWC colleagues from the MIDAS (Methodological Innovation, Development, Adaptation & Support) theme are providing support for the review. This includes support to develop a research protocol, developing and running searches to identify relevant literature, the design of tools to help select relevant studies and collect the study data needed, and support to analyse and summarise the findings.
A patient and public involvement group of local stroke survivors and their families and carers will be involved in shaping the direction of this research. They will review the research questions, analysis, and findings in the context of their lived experience of post-stroke seizures. This will ensure the research outcomes reflect patient and carer experience, supporting the development of evidence that works best for them as well as for healthcare staff.
For further information please contact ARCNWC-MIDAS@uclan.ac.uk.
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January 2022 Forum
Wed, 26th January 2022
13:00 – 14:00 GMT
Online Event – Register Below
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/liverpool-dementia-ageing-research-forum-january-2022-tickets-211786849167
In the first (virtual) Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research Forum of 2022, we will hear from Dr Aida Suarez-Gonzalez about her work into rare dementias.
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Date for the diary!
The 23rd June 2022 is a date for your diary if you are interested in entering the North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards 2022.
That is the date of the awards ceremony itself with invitations for applications and categories/criteria for awards being revealed in January 2022! The awards are a collaboration between the Innovation Agency, ARC NWC and the Clinical Research Network North West Coast.
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National news from all ARCs
The November 2021 edition of the national ARC newsletter is now available to read.
Features latest work from ARCs around the country including blogs, news and events.
If you haven't subscribed yet (!) you can do so here.
Well worth a read to find out about the impact they are having across the UK.
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Register for UK Stroke Forum 2021
The UK Stroke Forum is the UK's largest multidisciplinary conference for stroke care professionals.
Its aim is to provide opportunities for all stroke professionals and researchers to come together so they can learn from each other, share ideas and ultimately improve standards of care for stroke survivors.
Registration / more info. here.
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Give staff / patient / public audiences a voice in research
ARC NWC is establishing a Public Involvement and Engagement Sub-Group as part of its Methodological Innovation, Development, Adaptation and Support (MIDAS) theme.
We think it is important for the work of this sub-group to be of value and meet the needs of those working in health research across the North West Coast; whether as a researcher, health professional, member of the public, charitable organisation or engagement worker.
We would love to hear your ideas, in this 5 minute survey below, about what you think the sub-group should focus on, areas of good practice and what barriers you think there are to meaningful Public Involvement and Engagement across the region.
Share your views here https://forms.office.com/r/87DkT5bvyH
Any questions please contact a member of the team Prof. Lucy Bray brayl@edgehill.ac.uk ; Rebecca Harrison r.harrison@ljmu.ac.uk ; or Dr Ridwanah Gurjee rgurjee@uclan.ac.uk.
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RECRUITING: Remote consultations in Primary Care Study
This study aims to examine the changing experiences and attitudes to both healthcare professionals and patients to remote consultations. Remote consultations, although provided in many practices previously, are now essential in order to keep physical distance wherever possible to reduce the spread of the virus. COVID-19 has changed the way primary healthcare staff in general practices provide care.
We are in a unique situation of now having to provide remote consultations in all primary care practices, implementing changes to their approach to delivering care at extreme speed. We, therefore, want to determine whether COVID-19 has created a catalyst for change in primary care in relation to remote consultations and assess if this will be embedded in future clinical practice and patient expectations.
The views and experiences of healthcare professionals, public and patients on remote consultations in primary care are valuable to us and invited. Participation involves a survey questionnaire outlining your experience and views related to the changes in access to consultation in your general practice before and during Covid-19. This will take about 20 minutes, followed by a shorter survey in three- and six-months’ time. You will also be invited to participate in an optional and more detailed telephone interview, should you wish to join.
Contact Dr Jennifer Downing j.downing@liverpool.ac.uk if you have any questions about the survey or the information provided.
https://arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk/person-centred-complex-care/overview/study-recruitment/
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Internship opportunities for member staff at ARC NWC
We are pleased to invite applications for ARC NWC Research Internships. These internships are designed to support individuals within our member organisations to undertake a small research project under the supervision of experienced researchers from one of the ARC universities. Interns must submit their own research idea for consideration, but it must align with their organisation’s priorities, focus on addressing health inequalities, involve patients and the public in coproduction of the research, and fit within one of the ARC NWC Themes. Information about our research themes and cross-cutting themes is available here: https://arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk/
The internships are open to individuals employed within our Member organisations who have an interest in research and are looking to begin the next stage of their research career. Individuals with research skills at all levels will be considered. Interns will be expected to dedicate up to one day a week to their research project for a period of up to one year. Salary back-fill will be provided to assist with time release.
During this time, interns will receive supervisory support and formal training sessions covering the steps required to undertake research. Interns will also have the benefit of working alongside other interns throughout the programme. The employing organisation of the intern will be offered a payment of £6000 as salary backfill to release their member of staff from their duties to complete the internship. Applicants for the internship programme do not require any formal research training. However, they will require a strong interest in research, commitment to the programme (including presentation of their work at the end of the year), full managerial support, and ability to attend the supervisory meetings and training sessions.
The internships will commence in February 2022. Interviews will be held in late in December 2021 and early January 2022. For informal enquiries or application form, please contact George Georgiou or Colette Miller at arcnwc@uclan.ac.uk. Deadline for applications is 5pm Monday 6th December 2021.
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Helping deliver the Adult Social Care and Social Work national initiative
NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) is leading the national consortium on Adult Social Care and Social Work (ASCSW) across England.
The consortium have just launched a report 'Developing consensus about the implementation priorities for Adult Social care and Social Work '. It sets out the approach to prioritisation, the topics considered, and the four topics selected to take forward as a priority nationally, which include:
• Digital technologies and social care
• Using community resources to improve wellbeing
• Outcomes and need indicator tools
• Integration: families experiencing intimate partners violence and abuse.
ARC NWC will be co-leading one of these 4 proposed projects above.
Adult Social Care and Social Work is one of eight priority areas being worked on nationally by ARCs.
An event on 6th December will explain more about the initiative. Register below:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-priorities-for-adult-social-care-tickets-200760830047
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Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) Consultancy Packages
The British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Collaborative is offering UK researchers the opportunity to consult with a leading CTU to address questions in, and refine the design of, research projects. Eligible projects must be towards the later stages of development (rather than conceptual) and be of sufficient scale or merit that they will attract the support of one of the established Research Groups.
Researchers can choose the CTU they would like to work with from the list of partnered CTUs.
Aim of the initiative is to enable researchers to:
- Establish a relationship with a premier CTU, best suited to their proposed study
- Promote CTU involvement at the appropriate stage in study design
- Provide answers to key questions in methodology, statistics or practical design to further study development.
Complete the application form and send this along with your trial protocol to enquiries@bhfcrc.org
https://bhfcrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Expression-of-Interest-Form-CTU-Consultancy-Package.pdf
List of CTUs https://bhfcrc.org/clinical-trials-units/
This initiative provides capacity building opportunities for staff in ARC NWC member organisations.
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Theme puts spotlight on social prescribing at conference
On the 11th November researchers from the ARC-NWC Equitable Place Based Health and Care (EPHC) theme were invited to present at the 14th European Public Health Conference virtual workshop ‘Social prescribing what has been learned in developing evidence, challenges and solutions?
The workshop was coordinated by the NOVA National school of Public Health in Lisbon and staff from ARC NWC presented alongside researchers from across the UK and Europe (Kerryn Husk, Marcello Bertotti, Wolfram Herrmann and Sonia Dias, Megan Elliott, Carolyn Wallace).
40 conference attendees including academics and practitioners joined to hear about ARC NWC research on social prescribing and evidencing impacts on health inequalities. Koser Khan (Senior Research Associate) and Joanna Goldthorpe (Research Fellow) highlighted some of the challenges in trying to evidence the impacts of social prescribing.
Koser said: "We found that data collected by organisations delivering social prescribing did not consider the wider determinants of health and pre and post outcome measures were not always complete.
As a result of the workshop we have strengthened our existing links with this international collaboration of researchers around social prescribing and made new links with the Wales School for Public Health Research. We hope to build on these collaborations to develop impactful future research."
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NIHR Research Design Service (RDS) Research for Social Care (RfSC) Residential Grant Development and Writing Retreat
23 to 25 March 2022- Castle Green Hotel, Kendal
The NIHR Research Design Service (RDS) is offering a unique opportunity for research teams across England to attend a three-day residential Grant Development and Writing Retreat in March 2022. The purpose of the Retreat is to give busy professionals dedicated time to rapidly progress their social care research proposal to be submitted to the NIHR RfSC Research Programme in January 2023.
The Retreat will provide a supportive environment for teams of two or three people, to develop high quality NIHR RfSC research proposals. It is encouraged (but not essential for attendance at the Retreat) that a member of the wider research team is a social care professional employed in England. Successful applicants will be offered a free place at the retreat which will include food and accommodation*. More details can be found here.
For anyone interested in applying to the Retreat please complete an expression of interest by 7 December 2021.
Deadline for receipt of application forms 14 January 2022.
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Latest ARC NWC research published this month
Giebel, Clarissa, Sarah Robertson, Audrey Beaulen, Sandra Zwakhalen, Dawn Allen, and Hilde Verbeek. 2021. "“Nobody Seems to Know Where to Even Turn To”: Barriers in Accessing and Utilising Dementia Care Services in England and The Netherlands" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 22: 12233. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182212233
Giebel, C., Hanna, K., Cannon, J., Shenton, J., Mason, S., Tetlow, H., Marlow, P., Rajagopal, M., & Gabbay, M. (2021). Taking the ‘care’ out of care homes: The moral dilemma of institutional long-term care provision during COVID-19. Health & Social Care in the Community, 00, 1– 10. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13651
Simpson, S., Furlong, M. & Giebel, C. Exploring the enablers and barriers to social prescribing for people living with long-term neurological conditions: a focus group investigation. BMC Health Serv Res 21, 1230 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07213-6
Lowther, H.J., Harrison, J., Hill, J.E. et al. The effectiveness of quality improvement collaboratives in improving stroke care and the facilitators and barriers to their implementation: a systematic review. Implementation Sci 16, 95 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-021-01162-8
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Peer Support networks under the spotlight
We are a group of researchers, clinicians, and service users, led by Lancaster University, who are interested in understanding how peer support works in mental health. Specifically, we are interested in how peer online forums work in mental health; why some work better than others; and why some people find them helpful and others do not. We have received funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), to conduct a large study across the UK and we are looking for partners to work with us.
We are particularly keen to hear from you if you meet the following criteria
• You are a Health or Social care related organisation
• Focused on improving mental health / wellbeing (can be specific to a particular group of people or not)
• UK based
• Aimed at adults 16+
• Currently host / are considering setting up a forum / have previously run an online mental health forum.
If you know of any organisations/charities/forums that potentially like to get involved, please contact Professor Fiona Lobban – f.lobban@lancaster.ac.uk Maybe you have been a forum moderator, or regular user, or you are doing related research?
We’d be happy to hear from you too!
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New Heseltine Institute Policy Briefing from ARC NWC Research Fellow Dr Clarissa Giebel and Dr Kerry Hanna of University of Liverpool
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented Liverpool City Region with arguably its greatest public policy challenge in decades.
As society reopens, the question of how the city region will recover from the health impacts of the pandemic as well as its economic and social aftershocks will dominate local and regional policy over the coming years.
This policy brief assesses how the pandemic has affected the care home sector in the UK, specifically with a focus on families of care home residents living with dementia and care home staff. In October and November 2020, we conducted 42 remote interviews with family members and care home staff, 20 of which were followed up in March 2021. During the interviews, we asked participants about their experiences of care home visits and the effects of the pandemic on care home residents, as well as the impact of the pandemic on working in a care home. In the time between baseline and follow-up interviews, increased testing and vaccinations were implemented.
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ARC NWC Public Adviser Peter Lloyd on Health and Wellbeing Inequalities in Seaside Resort Towns: A Window on Policy Interventions in an Unequal Society
Having volunteered to write a think piece on health and wellbeing inequalities in the English seaside resorts, it turned out to be an eye-opener.
The Secretary of State for Health had suggested that “structural factors” need to be taken into account for these places as part of his commitment to deal with their health inequalities. So, we looked. It was the realisation that health rarely figured in the local area economic development copybook that made things interesting. “Trickle down” through the jobs created by investment seemed good enough to make people better off and healthier.
A decade ago, Marmot emphasised the complex roots of multiple deprivation - health, education, early years experiences, housing and so on – but it was Covid-19 that showed us just how closely connected all these things are on the ground. A “whole system” policy approach is needed and Seaside Resort Towns can provide an ideal context for experimentation.
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Public Adviser Sandra Smith, of the ARC NWC Health Equity Mainstreaming Strategy (HEMS) Public Adviser Team, offers a perspective on embedding health equity
Being a member of the Health Equity Mainstreaming Strategy (HEMS) Public Advisers team, I am proud to say we work collectively to inform, discuss, communicate and implement change. As a Public Adviser, I bring a voice of the public into the discussions and, more importantly, dissemination and implementation.
I contribute to a variety of health research projects across ARC but in particular I am proud to be a member of HEMS, championing the HEMS strategy itself which describes the systematic approach ARC NWC is taking towards integrating social and economic determinants of health in all stages of its research study developments and subsequent implementation of findings. As a team we are constantly learning and working at different ways to educate, train or, as we say, "upskill" the public, researchers, ARC NWC Member organisations etc. on the importance of health equity. We believe that with a positive approach we can be more effective and ensure it reaches all corners of the ARC NWC portfolio.
The amount of passion, energy commitment, integrity and time that has been invested by the HEMS PA team fills each of us with confidence! We believe that we will achieve what we set out to do, which is not only to tell everybody about health equity but to show how PAs can be effective in the co-production – and delivery – of such a powerful message.
By adopting a Health Equity lens and engaging with ARC NWC's stakeholders, we aim to demonstrate significant progress in mainstreaming Health Equity in all areas of research through a culture of expert knowledge, awareness raising, capacity building, competencies, capabilities & co-production to influence health policy and decision makers. To enable this to happen the HEMS group will produce resources to support all and work across all ARC NWC theme workstreams to monitor its embedding progress.
Health Equity is everyone’s responsibility- to understand, disseminate and implement to improve quality of life for all.
More about the ARC NWC HEMS Strategy
#ImplementEquity
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Health Services Research Conference 2022
Health Services Research UK’s 15th annual conference will be held from 5 to 7 July 2022.
After two successful online conferences in 2020 and 2021, next year's event will be at the University of Sheffield.
For those who are unable to join in person, conference organisers will be offering an online option allowing access to the conference platform, on-demand content, and certain live streamed sessions.
The call for contributions is now open and you are warmly encouraged to submit a research presentation, a proposal for a workshop, or (new for 2022) a proposal for a learning and development session. Full details can be found on the conference website, and the deadline for all submissions is Friday 7 January 2022.
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Webinar and priorities in multiiple long term conditions
The NIHR's Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) and Research Design Service (RDS) are hosting a webinar about the PGfAR highlight notice for varied research approaches to address NICE and NIHR priorities in Multiple Long-Term Conditions (MLTC).
Attendees will hear from PGfAR Programme Director Elaine Hay and representatives from the RDS and Clinical Research Network.
The webinar will take place on Thursday 9 December 2021 from 10am-12.30pm.
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NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research funds collaborative, multidisciplinary programmes of applied research to solve health and social care challenges.
Programme Development Grants (PDG) are available for researchers to carry out targeted preparatory work to strengthen a future full PGfAR application and to enhance the outcomes of existing PGfAR awards
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