‘The Lived Experiences of People Bereaved by COVID-19’
1st March 2023, 12pm – 2.30pm
NHS R&D North West in partnership with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Liverpool
Would you like to take a couple of hours out of your day to take part in a highly interactive online workshop that will provoke you into new ways of thinking? Learning and innovation happens when we are disrupted, when we are introduced to something that we haven’t come across before.
“Every time I come to any of these sessions or have anything to do with
R&D NW, my brain just goes into overdrive and it really does make me think outside of my box” (Seminar participant)
The Provocations Seminar Series was launched in July 2021 with the first of six seminars, which looked at Racialised Consciousness using literary texts. Some of the participants from this seminar are now developing projects with an English literature academic to explore the use of stories in enabling conversations between patients and clinicians. One project is focused on stories as a way for patients from underserved ethnic minorities to talk about their experiences of pain.
Since then, we have held three more seminars – looking at Public Health messages using Linguistics, and Music and Mental Health. You can see more about these workshops here. Outcomes from these seminars have included:
Ideas for exploring the impact of language used during treatment on health outcomes
Access to linguistic tools for assessing the ‘readability’ of text used in clinical practice and/or research.
The Lived Experiences of People Bereaved by COVID-19 is our next seminar in the series and will take place on 1st March 2023, 12 - 2.30pm. The session, which includes extended time for conversations driven by participants, invites us to explore the topic in relation to people's NHS experience and knowledge of clinical practice. It will be led by Professor Lynn Sudbury-Riley from the University of Liverpool’s Management School. This session will explore two of the findings from their recent research with people who lost relatives to COVID-19. Lynn is a service researcher who for almost a decade has specialised in palliative and end of life care services. The research has been focused on what makes a difference to policy, procedures and how systems can be shaped for positive change for people.
While there have been several important investigations into the handling of the pandemic, too many omit the voices of the bereaved. This research collected narratives from 28 people who lost 30 relatives to COVID-19. Results found experiences to be extremely arduous, with the clear message that a COVID-19 death is different to other deaths. This seminar will focus on two (of many) areas which made these experiences particularly difficult: the lack of suitable information technology and the almost total exclusion of families from end-of-life care and decision making.
To learn more about this research and what we will be looking at during the provocations seminar please click here to watch a film prepared by the University of Liverpool.
We hope the discussion will lead to specific outcomes around the following:
How can the NHS better harness technology to enhance communication between dying patients and their families?
What can be done at a local level to improve communication between clinicians and the families of patients?
How can participants embed the principles of person-centred care so that carers are identified, supported and involved in decision making?
We aim to identify some clear actions to take forward from each seminar, which might include, but is not limited to, continuing these conversations beyond the lifespan of the sessions - what these actions might be is up to you!
We hope you can spare us some time to share your thoughts with us on the
1st March 2023. It's FREE to attend and can be used to help build your CPD portfolio. If you know of colleagues who may be interested in this session please forward them this information and ask them to register below.
This is aFREE ONLINE EVENT and will be delivered via MS Teams and to attend the event please register your interest through Eventbrite. Click hereto register.
If you require any further information regarding this event please contact joanne.simpson@researchnorthwest.nhs.uk. Further details regarding the session and how to join will be sent out once you have registered.
SAVE THE DATES
The final seminar in this series of six will be on Multi-Media ‘home-making’ in the NHS. It will be led by Dr Jacky Waldock from the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences and Prof Lisa Shaw, Professor of Brazilian Studies, Department of Language, Culture and Film, University of Liverpool, and this session invites you to explore the topic in relation to people's NHS experience and knowledge of clinical practice. Further details will be circulated in due course.
