Past Events

Ana Lucia Estrada Jaramillo - Is this an Ethnography? Exploring Current Debates
During the Covid 19 pandemic, I conducted document analysis, interviews, Online Asynchronous Focus Groups and diaries through mobile phones and WhatsApp to understand Congenital Syphilis prevention in Colombia. Some reflections from my online fieldwork experience help to ignite and illuminate current debates around ethnography. What counts as an ethnography? What counts as a site? Is it fundamental to be present as an ethnographer to observe a practice? Can ethnographies be limited only to observation and sight? Can other senses also provide possibilities for ethnographies? I explore and discuss these questions to enrich avenues for ethnography, especially in health research.

Jim Reeder -What are the Barriers to Empowerment for Parent Carers of Children with Neurodisability? A Qualitative Study
Supporting parent carers to become empowered - to have greater agency and control over the decisions and actions regarding the care of their child - is a central tenet of global contemporary health and social care policy. This study explored how and where barriers to empowerment exist for parent carers of children with neurodisability accessing health care services. We used focus groups and semi-structured interviews to collect data from 28 participants (Fifteen parent carers, nine children’s health professionals, three service managers and one commissioner). Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and data were analysed using a process of reflexive thematic analysis.

Abdul Ghani Amin - Diaspora and Homeland Peacebuilding: A Comparative Study of Afghan and Iraqi Diaspora Engagement with External Support amidst Post-9/11 Peacebuilding
In the lead up to the peacebuilding in Iraq amidst post-9/11 events, the Iraqi diaspora has demonstrated a strong mobilisation. In contrary, the Afghan diaspora's engagement is viewed as a weak mobilisation. Despite several similarities, Iraq and Afghanistan have undergone markedly different peacebuilding experiences, with Iraq's initiative remaining ongoing while, Afghanistan's ceded, following the withdrawal of the US in 2021. This disparity prompts an inquiry as to how and why these two diasporas interacted with US support in distinct ways, as well as their varying durations of peacebuilding experiences. This thesis examines the divergent ways diasporas from these two countries engaged with the US support for peacebuilding and examine its implications for the peacebuilding processes.

If you would like to attend please complete this form.

Health and environment through space and place: a health geographer’s journey in 10(ish) maps

Professor Ben Wheeler, Public Health and Sport Sciences
Health

Ben Wheeler is a health geographer and environmental epidemiologist whose research focuses on the complex interconnections between the environment and public health, particularly relating to geographical health inequalities. Since joining the European Centre for Environment and Human Health in 2010, his work has primarily been on the health and wellbeing benefits of natural environments. He is co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Natural Environments and Health and collaborates widely to help inform strategies and policies that enhance human health, while protecting and improving our environments.

Adapting interventions to new contexts

A one-hour online meeting for researchers and others interested in implementation issues.

The NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula (PenARC) Implementation Science Team runs a monthly implementation science forum, usually on the last Wednesday of the month.  Each one is a standalone session, so just come to any that you like the sound of.

The format is a one-hour online meeting for researchers and others interested in implementation issues. Each meeting focuses on a topical issue in implementation science and involves discussion based around a relevant article. There is no expectation to read the article beforehand, although it is circulated in good time for those who are interested. There will be opportunity within the meeting to raise implementation issues that you are experiencing for discussion.

Upcoming topics include intervention adaptation, service user engagement, spread/scale-up and implementation support practitioners. There will also be an opportunity to share information about other implementation science resources and events.

The article we will be discussing at this meeting is:
Moore G, Campbell M, Copeland L, Craig P, Movsisyan A, Hoddinott P et al. Adapting interventions to new contexts—the ADAPT guidance BMJ 2021; 374 :n1679 doi:10.1136/bmj.n1679

If you would like a Teams link and calendar invite, please contact Charlotte Hewlett.

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below.

Professor Obi Ukoumunne

Please submit an appointment request via https://bit.ly/4c85rGd

This questionnaire will be passed to stats advice clinic host, to enable us to direct you to the best advice.

Understanding the causes of epigenetic dysfunction in human disease
Duncan Sproul

We are pleased to invite you to this CBS Seminar with Duncan Sproul from the MRC Human Genetics Unit and Institute of Genetics and Cancer at the University of Edinburgh. This will be a hybrid seminar with the speaker presenting live in-person in South Cloisters, room 3.06.There is also the option join virtually via Zoom Meeting ID: 931 3596 5723 Password: 121700. A drinks reception with alcoholic drinks and nibbles will also be provided at the seminar. Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues and networks.

Bio:
Dr Duncan Sproul is a programme leader at the MRC Human Genetics Unit and Institute of Genetics and Cancer.  Duncan studied Genetics at the University of Edinburgh before being awarded an MRC pre-doctoral fellowship to undertake a PhD on the regulation of gene clusters with Prof Wendy Bickmore at the MRC Human Genetics Unit. During his postdoctoral training at the Edinburgh Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Unit with Dr Andrew Sims, Duncan applied emerging epigenomic technologies to understand the role of epigenetic dysfunction in breast carcinogenesis. He joined the MRC Human Genetics Unit in 2013 as a research fellow and was awarded a Career Development Fellowship from CRUK in 2016. He is also an alumnus of the Scottish Crucible.

Abstract:
Our work focuses on using interdisciplinary approaches to understand the role of epigenetic dysfunction in human disease, particularly cancer. Alterations in the levels of epigenetic marks, are an intrinsic hallmark of many human diseases. However, we do not currently understand the role of epigenetic dysfunction in human disease and how it can be targeted to treat patients. Our main focus is on understanding the molecular mechanisms underpinning the widespread alterations in the distribution of the repressive epigenetic mark DNA methylation observed in cancer. We combine computational analysis of large datasets, mathematical modelling and focused experiments in the laboratory. While we principally work on DNA methylation in cancer, we have also examined DNA methylation in aging and Mendelian disorders in collaboration with other research groups. In this talk, I will focus on our recent work to understand why cancers lose DNA methylation from their genomes. This hallmark of cancer was first described in 1983 and has been proposed to promote carcinogenesis by causing genomic instability. However, its causes remain poorly understood.

Unravelling the Complexity of Psychiatric Disorders: The Role of Polygenic Score
Cathryn Lewis

We are pleased to invite you to this joint SEGEG meeting and CBS Seminar with Cathryn Lewis, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology & Statistics at King’s College London. This will be a hybrid seminar with the speaker presenting live in-person in the Xfi Lecture Theatre on the Streatham Campus. There is also the option join virtually via Zoom Meeting ID: 957 5822 0648 Password: 443987. Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues and networks. 

Bio:
Cathryn Lewis is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology & Statistics at King’s College London, where she leads the Statistical Genetics Unit. Her academic training is in mathematics and statistics, and she has been involved in genetic studies since her PhD. She co-chairs the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Major Depressive Disorder Working group and is Co-Deputy Lead of the Trials, Genomics and Prediction theme at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. Her multi-disciplinary research group identifies and characterises genetic variants conferring risk of disease, including depression, schizophrenia, and stroke. A major focus is a risk assessment, determining how the polygenic component of mental health disorders can be measured accurately and used in clinical care.

The PenARC Implementation Science Team runs a monthly implementation science forum on the last Wednesday of the month. The next one is on 26th June, 12.00-13.00pm. If you would like a Teams link and calendar invite please contact Charlotte Hewlett (c.hewlett@exeter.ac.uk). Each one is a standalone session, so just come to any that you like the sound of.
 
The format is a one-hour online meeting for researchers and others interested in implementation issues. Each meeting focuses on a topical issue in implementation science and involves discussion based around a relevant article. There is no expectation to read the article beforehand, although it is circulated in good time for those who are interested. There will be opportunity within the meeting to raise implementation issues that you are experiencing for discussion.

Upcoming topics include intervention adaptation, service user engagement, spread/scale-up and implementation support practitioners. There will also be an opportunity to share information about other implementation science resources and events.
 
The article we will be discussing at the next (June 2024) meeting is:
Brownson, R.C., Shelton, R.C., Geng, E.H. et al. Revisiting concepts of evidence in implementation science. Implementation Sci 17, 26 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-022-01201-y

The organising committee in HLS is pleased to invite you to the first Decolonising Medicine and Health Conference 2024, on the 12th of June at the RILD Building, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. This full day conference will be an opportunity for staff, students and healthcare professionals from the faculty to discuss decolonising healthcare and chart a bold path forward.

The website includes details of speakers, panels and workshops taking place during the day and details of the organising committee. Please register your attendance and select your preferred workshop on the registration form via this link:

https://sites.google.com/exeter.ac.uk/dmhc?usp=sharing

There is also an opportunity for staff and students to submit an abstract for poster presentations on their EDI work within Medicine and Healthcare.

The conference is open to both the faculty and external academics/practitioners within the fields.

Researcher-led Initiative Workshop: Fostering Cross - Discipline Early and Mid-Career Collaboration

Join us for a 2-day in-person event (Monday 22nd April 2024 and Monday 20th May 2024)  aiming to help Early and Mid-Career Researchers across the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences collaborate, prepare and submit funding applications. The workshops will involve discussion of ideas, talks around patient and public involvement, funding sources, processes and timelines to consider before submission, and group work. You will preferably have a research idea to work on during the workshops, however, the event also offers an ideal opportunity to network, develop ideas, discuss plans and collaborate with other attendees.

Read more and Register

Supporting Autistic people through pregnancy and the fourth trimester. What does the evidence say?
Dr Aimee Grant -
 
The CYP Wellbeing @Exeter Research Network are pleased to invite you to the next seminar in our seminar series with Dr Aimee Grant, Senior Lecturer in Public Health at Swansea University & Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow. This will be an online presentation which will be live streamed to locations on Penryn, Streatham and St Luke’s Campuses. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available at all three venues.
 
Bio: Aimee Grant is a Senior Lecturer and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow at Swansea University Centre for Lactation, Infant Feeding and Translation. She has researched marginalised pregnancy and early motherhood for the past decade, including those living in poverty, stigmatised locations and Disabled women. Aimee's current research is an 8 year Wellcome Trust funded longitudinal study using visual methods to understand Autistic experiences "from menstruation to menopause". She is the author of two Documentary Analysis texts (Routledge, 2019; Policy Press, 2022), and is currently writing The Autism Friendly Guide to Pregnancy (and the fourth trimester), Managing Your Research Project, with Pat Thompson, Helen Kara and Inger Mewburn (Routledge), and is editing Using Documents in Research, with Helen Kara (Policy Press).

Abstract: Autism is a normal part of cognitive diversity, and around 1 in 125 of births in the UK are to those with a diagnosis of Autism. In this presentation, I will discuss my research on Autistic people’s experiences of maternity care, and the entirely Autistic-developed resources “Autistic pregnancy, birth and beyond: your questions answered.” I will end by arguing that good maternity care for Autistic people follows the principles of universal design, and would benefit all service users.
 
Please register to attend here or email cypwellbeing@exeter.ac.uk for more information. Please feel free to forward this to your colleagues and networks. Please note these events are open to all students as well as staff. Thank you.

Please note the deadline for the poster competition has been extended until Friday 26th April.

We are pleased to inform you that registration is now open for the third Annual Symposium of the Children and Young People’s Wellbeing Research Network. The event is open to everyone with an interest in research into children and young people’s wellbeing, so please share it with your departments, forum’s, classes and networks. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

It is a great opportunity to network with other researchers with different backgrounds and methodologies but the same central interest and many interdisciplinary collaborations have started here. The programme includes progress and discussion on our key Themes: meaningful involvement of children and young people in research, bio-psycho-social-cultural mechanisms of mental health, mental health and education and adverse childhood experiences and hear more about work funded directly by Network. Please register to attend via EventBrite

NEW THIS YEAR is our ECR Poster competition and there are prizes available!

This is a chance to display your work relating to CYP’s wellbeing and for discussion with other researchers and people interested in this field. The Network will cover the cost of poster printing and there are £50 Love2shop vouchers available for the top two posters. Posters will be displayed and prizes awarded during the day.
 
To enter please complete THIS form and email your poster design to cypwellbeing@exeter.ac.uk.  There are limited places available and these will be awarded on a first come first served basis. The deadline for applications and receipt of posters is Friday 26th April.  

Please spread the word through your networks and forum.

Antagonism of muscarinic receptors drives peripheral nerve repair to reverse neuropathic disease in rodents and humans
Paul Fernyhough, from the St Boniface Hospital Albrechtsen Research Centre and Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba.

Bio:
Paul performed PhD in biochemistry in the department of Biochemistry at University of Sheffield. Then carried out postdoctoral research at Colorado State University, Kings College London and as a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at St Bartholomew’s Medical College and then Queen Mary and Westfield College. He subsequently worked as a tenured lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester. Dr. Fernyhough moved to Winnipeg in 2004 and contributed to setting up a neuroscience research group at St Boniface Hospital Albrechtsen Research Centre and holds a tenured professorship in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at University of Manitoba. Dr. Fernyhough’s research interest is in the cell biology underlying neurodegenerative disorders of the peripheral nervous system with a focus on the impact of diabetes. A biotech start-up, WinSanTor Inc, has been established and is directing phase 2 clinical trials in diabetic neuropathy and chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

Abstract:
Distal dying-back of nerve fibers is observed in many diseases including diabetic neuropathy, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated neuropathy. The impact on human health is significant and rising. There are no therapies for any of these neuropathies. Our recent studies have revealed a novel therapeutic target for preventing and even reversing neuropathy-induced nerve loss. We have found that muscarinic acetylcholine type 1 receptors (M1Rs) regulate sensory axonal plasticity. We have discovered that antimuscarinic drugs selective or specific for the M1R can drive axonal outgrowth and prevent/reverse neurodegeneration in rodent models of peripheral nerve disease. I will discuss the multiple mechanisms triggered by antimuscarinic drug action at the M1R to modulate ion channel function and enhance neuronal metabolism and axonal outgrowth. Furthermore, I will present data from a recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved phase 2 clinical trial in persons with type 2 diabetes and mild-moderate diabetic neuropathy revealing significantly improved quality of life (Norfolk-QOL-diabetic neuropathy total score) and raised nerve fiber levels in skin in response to 6 months of topical delivery of the M1R selective drug, pirenzepine.

Join Zoom Meeting

A drinks reception with non-alcoholic drinks and nibbles will also be provided at the seminar. Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues and networks. 

******** Cancelled *************

Investigating the impact of schizophrenia risk genes on learning and plasticity
Jeremy Hall

We are pleased to invite you to this joint BRC and CBS Seminar with Jeremy Hall, the Hodge Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Cardiff University.

A drinks reception with alcoholic drinks and nibbles will also be provided at the seminar. Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues and networks.  

For more details on previous CBS seminars please see the CBS Seminars SharePoint

Bio: Jeremy is the Hodge Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Cardiff University. His overarching interest is in the role of genetic and environmental risk factors in the development of serious mental illness. In his work he employs a translational approach spanning human and laboratory studies. He is particularly interested in how identified genetic risk factors affect learning processes in the brain; abnormalities in which underlie key symptoms.Overall he believes that understanding how genetic risk factors influence the brain and how these responses are modulated by environmental stimuli is crucial to the development of new treatments for psychiatric symptoms. In addition to his research work he is also clinically active and conduct clinics in neuropsychiatry. In addition to his pre-clinical work he also conducts clinical work and research in the fields of adult neurodevelopmental disorders and early psychosis.

Abstract: Ever since it was first described by Bleuler, schizophrenia has been considered to potentially be a condition defined by altered associative learning. Recent years have seen major advances in psychiatric genetics which have highlighted genes involved in learning and plasticity, as well as immune pathways, as being implicated in psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia. In this talk I will review evidence of altered association formation in schizophrenia and examine the effect of specific genes, especially voltage gated calcium channels, on plasticity and risk for psychosis. Finally, I will present recent data suggesting unexpected convergence between different pathways of risk for schizophrenia.

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 947 4325 9107
Password: 536081

A Framework for the Fair Pricing of Medicines

Mike Paulden
Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Alberta

As high-cost medicines put increasing pressure on public health care budgets, the need to identify ‘fair’ prices for medicines has never been greater. This paper proposes a framework, built upon fundamental economic principles, that allows for the consideration of ‘fair’ prices for medicines. The framework incorporates key considerations from conventional supply-side and demand-side approaches for specifying a cost-effectiveness ‘threshold’, including the health opportunity cost borne by other patients (k) and society’s willingness to pay for marginal improvements in population health (v). The costs incurred by manufacturers in developing and supplying new medicines are also considered, as are the incentives for manufacturers to strategically price up to any common price per unit of benefit (cost-effectiveness ‘threshold’) specified by the payer. The framework finds that, at any ‘fair’ price, a medicine’s dynamically calculated incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) lies below k. When pricing medicines collectively, the framework finds that a common price below k is required to maximize population health (consumer surplus) or to maximize total welfare (consumer and producer surplus). This framework has important policy implications for payers who wish to improve population health outcomes from constrained health care budgets. In particular, existing approaches to ‘value-based pricing’ should be reconsidered to ensure that patients receive a ‘fair’ share of the resulting economic surplus. (DOI: 10.1007/s40273-023-01325-z)

Please register your attendance at http://ex.ac.uk/dNv

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

The PenARC Implementation Science Team runs a monthly implementation science forum on the last Wednesday of the month. The next one is on 24th April, 12.00-13.00pm. If you would like a Teams link and calendar invite please contact Charlotte Hewlett: c.hewlett@exeter.ac.uk. Each one is a standalone session, so just come to any that you like the sound of.
 
The format is a one-hour online meeting for researchers and others interested in implementation issues. Each meeting focuses on a topical issue in implementation science and involves discussion based around a relevant article. There is no expectation to read the article beforehand, although it is circulated in good time for those who are interested.
 
Upcoming topics include intervention adaptation, service user engagement, spread/scale-up and implementation support practitioners. There will also be an opportunity to share information about other implementation science resources and events.
 
The article we will be discussing at the next (April 2024) meeting is:
Santos, W.J., Graham, I.D., Lalonde, M. et al. The effectiveness of champions in implementing innovations in health care: a systematic review. Implement Sci Commun 3, 80 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43058-022-00315-0

Researcher-led Initiative Workshop: Fostering Cross - Discipline Early and Mid-Career Collaboration

Join us for a 2-day in-person event (Monday 22nd April 2024 and Monday 20th May 2024)  aiming to help Early and Mid-Career Researchers across the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences collaborate, prepare and submit funding applications. The workshops will involve discussion of ideas, talks around patient and public involvement, funding sources, processes and timelines to consider before submission, and group work. You will preferably have a research idea to work on during the workshops, however, the event also offers an ideal opportunity to network, develop ideas, discuss plans and collaborate with other attendees.

Read more and Register

Get Three for the Price of One: Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of Multi-Outcome Interventions

Hernando Grueso
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Social Policy & Intervention, University fo Oxford
 
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) is a widespread method among policymakers due to its intuitive way to estimate the cost of an intervention per unit of outcome improvement.

In the case of interventions with multiple outcomes, we show that this standard approach tends to underestimate the programme’s efficiency considering that total costs are assessed from a single-outcome perspective and not considering the full range of programme benefits. We propose a method to discount cost-effectiveness ratios (CER) based on multiple benefits, providing a more accurate assessment of interventions with multiple outcomes. Using RCT findings from a violence reduction programme in Liberia, we illustrate the advantages of this discounting approach. For example, a standard CER calculation indicates that $518.2 is the cost to improve in one standard deviation the economic performance z-score among those who received a cash transfer. However, this assessment does not report the simultaneous improvement of 0.3 standard deviations in identity and values, and 0.17 in quality of networks. Our discounting approach shows that $50.1 is the actual cost to improve in one standard deviation the economic performance z-score, once accounting for improvements in the other two outcomes. This example focuses on private benefits to participants so, lower costs are even expected if considering hard-to-measure positive externalities in crime and violence reduction. Accounting for multiple outcomes helps to identify synergies between government sectors, and to compare the efficiency of different interventions achieving similar results.

Please email PenTAG@exeter.ac.uk for further information.

Development, diversity and data science: A transdiagnostic approach to understanding neurodevelopment

Professor Duncan Astle is Professor of Neuroinformatics, within the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge

Bio: Duncan is the Gnodde Goldman Sachs Professor of Neuroinformatics at the Department of Psychiatry, and a Programme Leader at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow and Director of Studies at Robinson College. He is the Chair of the University of Cambridge's LGBT+ Staff Network, and a member of the MRC's Neuroscience and Mental Health Board.

Abstract: Macroscopic brain organisation emerges early in life, even prenatally, and continues to change through adolescence and into early adulthood. The emergence and continual refinement of large-scale brain networks, connecting neuronal populations across anatomical distance, allows for increasing functional integration and specialisation. But this gradual process of network emergence is incredibly variable across individuals, and it is not clear why the diversity exists, what consequences it holds for cognition, or what factors might shape it over time.  
 
This talk will showcase the application of different AI-inspired computational models to address three crucial challenges that we face as developmental scientists. Firstly, how do we capture the incredible heterogeneity that exists across childhood and adolescence, and do these differences map to established diagnostic categories? Secondly, can we build developmental models that formalise simple biological principles in order to capture complex developmental phenomena? Thirdly, can we use these models to bridge scales and species to establish fundamental and causal mechanisms that shape development?
 
Please register to attend here or email cypwellbeing@exeter.ac.uk for more information. A Teams link will be circulated after registration. Please feel free to forward this to your colleagues and networks. Please note these events are open to all students as well as staff. Thank you.

Let’s Celebrate… caring women – and caring men

Event Information
To provide care for close relatives has traditionally been seen as a female responsibility and this has extended to what it means to be a woman: cooking, cleaning and nursing are typically considered female traits and interests. This has in turn extended into working life, where women are more likely to choose caring careers, such as nursing and social care. Women are also more likely to be juggling paid work with unpaid caring responsibilities, through choice, societal expectations or both. In this seminar, to mark March as the month of international women’s day, we will celebrate women who care. We will also hear from male colleagues about their perspectives and experiences of caring. Caring is a social practice but also a necessity – without people caring our societies would collapse. Join us in celebrating carers and people (men and women) who care!

Speakers
Dr Amad Al-Azzawi – Senior Lecturer in Advanced Clinical Practice
Dr Alison Pearson – Research Fellow and Co-Director of EDI
Dr Enrico De Luca – Senior Lecturer in Nursing
Mary Fredlund – PhD Student with the NIHR
Chaired by Associate Professor Kristin Liabo, Co-Director of EDI

Get involved with Let’s Celebrate
To mark March as the month of international women’s day we invite you to get involved with not only attending this special hybrid event in the Let’s talk about…series, but to give an opportunity to celebrate the amazing women in our Faculty. We look forward to seeing as many as you as possible get involved with our celebrations through the options below.

• Submit a poster – we will be displaying the fantastic work around the Faculty all day on both St Luke’s and Streatham on the 27th March, so if you would like to take part in our great work by great women showcase, please contact k.mushing2@exeter.ac.uk
• Nominate inspiring women in your workplace - do you know someone that goes the extra mile to support others, is there someone you want to show your appreciation to that inspires you and those around you, or do you get the opportunity to work alongside someone who is quite simply incredible? We are certain there are many fantastic women who fit these descriptions and this in an opportunity to throw the spotlight them on and share our collective thanks through the nomination form.
• After attending the seminar in person, do sign up and join us for a celebratory and networking lunch whilst taking the time for an inspiring read of our poster showcase. Lunch will be available from 1230 – 1330 on the third floor of South Cloisters, St Luke’s Campus.

Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer, mobile app or room device

Age-related dysregulation of micro-circuit homeostasis
Samuel Barnes, Interim Deputy Director of the UK DRI Centre at Imperial

Bio: Simon Barnes graduated from Oxford University in 2006 and was awarded an M.R.C. Capacity Building Ph.D. studentship at King’s College London (KCL), to investigate the functional signatures of synaptic connection loss in the cortex. He then completed a post-doc investigating homeostatic plasticity in mouse visual cortex at University College London (UCL). In October 2015, he won the internationally competitive Safra Fellowship, an award which supports early career researchers as they tr¬ansition to independence. In April 2018, he was awarded a UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) Fellowship and became a lecturer in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London (ICL). In September 2022 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Neural Plasticity and in April 2023 successfully underwent UK DRI renewal, providing long-term funding support until 2028. In March 2024, he was appointed Interim Deputy Director of the UK DRI Centre at Imperial.  

His group focuses on homeostatic plasticity mechanisms that regulate neural firing-rate activity within a stable dynamic range, preventing prolonged periods of hyper- or hypo-activity. The group’s central hypothesis is that homeostatic control is neuroprotective but may fail in ageing and the early stages of neurodegeneration, leading to pathophysiological neural-circuit activity. To test this hypothesis, the Barnes Lab use a combination of electrophysiology, 2-Photon calcium imaging and 1-Photon brain-wide imaging. The group combines these approaches with molecular measures such as transcriptomics and spatial proteomics to probe the mechanisms involved in homeostatic control, as well as behavioural testing to measure the consequences of destabilized neural-circuit activity.

Abstract: One approach to promote healthy neurological ageing is to target disease specific mechanisms involved in age-related neurodegenerative disorders. An alternative, and less well understood possibility, is to boost cellular processes supporting endogenous resilience to negative ageing effects in the brain. To address the latter, we determine molecular mechanisms underpinning homeostasis of neuronal activity across brain regions and life-stages in mice. We do this to inform development of interventions that may promote homeostasis and have positive consequences for age-sensitive cognition. We focus on in-vivo mechanisms guarding against neuronal hyperactivity, as these are poorly understood, and their age-related dysregulation has been linked to cognitive impairments.

Recently, we identified the adult cortical plasticity response to elevated activity driven by sensory overstimulation, and then tested how plasticity changes with age in mice. We used in vivo two-photon imaging of calcium-mediated cellular/synaptic activity, electrophysiology and c-Fos-activity tagging to show control of neuronal activity is dysregulated in the visual cortex in late adulthood. Specifically, in young adult cortex, mGluR5-dependent population-wide excitatory synaptic weakening and inhibitory synaptogenesis reduced cortical activity following overstimulation. In later life, these mechanisms are downregulated, so that overstimulation results in synaptic strengthening and elevated activity. We also found that overstimulation disrupted cognition in older but not younger animals. Boosting mGluR5 function protected cognition against overstimulation in older animals. Our work suggests that specific plasticity mechanisms fail in later life dysregulating neuronal microcircuit homeostasis and that the age-related response to overstimulation can impact cognitive performance.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/j/93773230301?pwd=VUZHTzlWRWZPREcrcGYzREFaZm5SZz09

Meeting ID: 937 7323 0301
Password: 361793

17.15-18.15

A drinks reception will follow

Seeing the wood from the trees: Cos’è la multimorbilità?

Prof. Kadam's research focus is on multiple health problems that people experience at the same time, how such problems impact on patients, and how care might be organised in new ways. He pioneered this research programme over 20 years, and this seminar will provide key highlights and thoughts on where we are, but where we should be.

Please contact K.Mushing2@exeter.ac.uk with any accessibility requirements.

Please could you complete the registration form if you plan to attend the inaugural lecture for Professor Umesh Kadam.

NC12 St Lukes Campus

Why is think-adult, think-child such an important concept for children and young people?
Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green-

The CYP Wellbeing @Exeter Research Network are pleased to invite you to the next seminar in our seminar series with Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the first Children’s Commissioner for England, former president of the British Medical Association, and first National Clinical Director for Children in government. Refreshments will be provided and staff and students from all disciplines are welcomed.

Please sign up to attend here or email cypwellbeing@exeter.ac.uk for more information.

South Cloisters 3.06.

Live Streamed to Streatham Campus, The Forum Seminar 04 or via Teams.

17.15-17.45

with Q&A and drinks reception to follow

AID-Spine
Professor Margreth Grotle, Oslo Metro University

Join us for a seminar with Professor Margreth Grotle, Professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Health Technology / Director of Center for Intelligent Musculoskeletal Health (CIM), Oslo Metropolitan University who will briefly present ongoing activities in CIM (see Projects - Center for Intelligent Musculoskeletal Health (oslomet.no)) before presenting the largest project in detail. The AID-Spine project (Applying Artificial Intelligence in Developing Personalized and Sustainable Healthcare for Spinal Disorders (AID-Spine, part I) - OsloMet).

Professor Grotle started as a professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Health Technology (previous Department of Physiotherapy) (Faculty of Health Sciences) in 2013, as head of the Master Programme in Physiotherapy at OsloMet. She established the MUSK Health research group in 2015 (www.muskhealth.com), which has had rapid progress with several internal and external funded research projects. She has more than 20 years of experience in musculoskeletal pain research (epidemiological and randomised controlled trials), in particular spinal disorders, but also osteoarthritis and rheumatic diseases. The research has been carried out both in primary and secondary care.

Professor Grotle is visiting from Oslo, and this is a fantastic opportunity to hear her speak in person. Places are limited so please register as soon as possible to guarantee your place.

For further information and to register for this event please click here

Healing and Medicine: A Doctor’s Journey Toward Their Integration.
Professor Paul Dieppe

As part of the Health Professions Education and Wellbeing Research Group Seminar Series, Professor Dieppe will be talking about his recently published book, Healing and Medicine: A Doctor's Journey Toward Their Integration. This book examines the relationship between healing and medicine through the eyes of an academic physician who changed his interests from biomedical research to healing late in his career in medicine. It is based on his experiences and stories of his encounters with patients, practitioners and others for whom healing has had a particular significance, as well as his rigorous research into the subject.

Healing is on many people’s minds today. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a host of other disruptions and disasters, many of us feel that we need healing – in our personal lives, for the environment and for our planet. But healing is rarely defined and is not an accepted part of medicine in the West. This book examines the relationship between healing and medicine through the eyes of an academic physician who changed his interests from biomedical research to healing late in his career in medicine. A central theme of the book is that modern medicine needs to be more pluralistic in its approach to health and accept that spirituality and healing techniques have roles to play alongside scientific medicine, which currently has its base in materialism alone.

Paul Dieppe is Emeritus Professor of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Exeter Medical School. His research interests stem from his dual professions as a physician and as a health services researcher. Key work includes research into chronic illness in an ageing population, creativity and healing. He qualified as a doctor in London in 1970. He specialised in rheumatology and became ARC professor of rheumatology in Bristol in 1987, and Dean of the Bristol Faculty of Medicine between 1994 and 1997. He then switched to health services research and was the Director of the MRC Health Services Research Collaboration between 1997 and 2007. He was honorary Professor of Health Sciences at The University of Oxford before moving to the Peninsula Medical School to work in clinical education research. With the formation of the University of Exeter Medical School, he took on the role of Professor of Health and Wellbeing.

Please register your place to attend in person or online via the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/healing-and-medicine-a-doctors-journey-toward-their-integration-tickets-765617822517?aff=oddtdtcreator

• Welcome - meet the mastermind behind HSMA - Dr Daniel Chalk!
• Learn more about the HSMA programme with a live Q&A session.
• HSMA5 projects: see the projects creating impact in health and social care & policing orgs.
• Hands on workshops: experience HSMA or find out what PenCHORD are up to!
• See the full itinerary here!

Incorporating Prior Beliefs Into Meta‐Analyses of Health‐State Utility Values Using the Bayesian Power Prior

Anthony Hatswell will present on meta‐analysing utility values, and a recent paper showing how this can be done including weightings for beliefs on which study is more relevant – an approach known as the Bayesian Power Prior (BPP).

The method is illustrated using 4 case studies, with the only prerequisite being a vague understanding of the aims of cost-utility analysis/evidence based medicine. The case studies are then analysed using the ‘preferred’ value, fixed‐ and random‐effects meta analysis, and the BPP, with
comparisons made, and time for discussion on the subject more generally.

Anthony Hatswell is a health economist and statistician. After his education at the University of York, he worked at Sanofi and GSK, as well as in consulting where he now runs Delta Hat.

Online

Please contact ESMI@exeter.ac.uk for further information

Shame - its role in the professional medical identity
Dr Sandy Miles

Biography
Dr.Sandy Miles is a GP and Medical Educator in Devon. Alongside her clinical role she works in Postgraduate GP training, was Clinical Director of Eastleigh Primary Care Network and, together with Dr Sam Powell, established popular retreats for doctors. She achieved distinction in the MSc Medical Humanities at King’s College London in 2018 and has subsequently published about Shame in medicine and the role it plays in the formation of the medical identity. She speaks with doctors and other healthcare professionals to explore how to understand and minimise the causes and effects of shame in healthcare settings.

12.00-12.30 (Refreshments)

12.30-13.30

13.30-14.00 (Questions)

The Pharma Pollution Hub: finding solutions to reduce the environmental impact of medicines used in UK healthcare
Dr Kelly Thornber

11.00-12.00

Ageing Research - DREAM study programme

This month Vicki Goodwin and Aseel Mahmoud will be talking about the results of our DREAM study programme of work to develop an intervention for the assessment and management of older people in the community.

Further information can be found here

14.00-15.00

Imposter participants  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hex.13724.

Further details and registration information to follow. For any accessibility requirements please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk.

1-2pm

Making Collage-art with Women affected by Gender Based Violence: The affects of emotional research and understanding the challenges and possibilities for supporting researcher-health

Catherine Cartwright, PhD Researcher, Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy

www.catherinecartwright.co.uk

As a community artist, my PhD research explores the practice of community artists who work with individuals and/or communities affected by trauma. Different to art therapists who are trained in the psychotherapeutic discipline, community art aims to be an empowering and inclusive practice driven by the art making, rather than a psychotherapeutic lens. In this QRF session I focus on the effects of working with people affected by trauma and reflect on the ways we can support ourselves when the work is emotionally challenging.

Please register here

Lunch 1.30pm

Seminar 2-3.30pm

Developing Impactful Research

Professor John Campbell – Professor of General Practice and Primary Care
Professor Rupert Payne – Professor of Primary Care and Clinical Pharmacology

The aim of the session will take the opportunity to review our overall approach to developing Impactful research. In particular, we will review the nature and content of some of the (primary care based) Impact cases submitted to REF2021 and review the Impact submission made to REF2021 for Exeter under UOA2.

APEx Seminar

Initial findings from the SPOtting Cancer among Comorbidities (SPOCC) programme: mapping the disadvantages of multimorbidity in the cancer diagnostic process

Professor Gary Abel, Dr Luke Mounce and Dr Bianca Wiering

Please register via Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-professor-gary-abel-dr-luke-mounce-and-dr-bianca-wiering-registration-514886438197

This event is being presented by Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Researchers:

Keira Pratt-Boyden is a qualitative health researcher and medical anthropologist by background. Her thesis (2022) explored mental health service survivors' rejection of and response to the biomedical mental health system through activism, mutual support and indeterminate ways of being. She will use this research to reflect on stubborn and important questions about polyphonic perspectives in knowledge production.

Hannah Mortimer has a background in socio-cultural anthropology, archaeology and sociology. She is a postgraduate researcher based in the Centre for Rural Policy Research (CRPR). Her PhD involves ethnographic fieldwork on livestock farms in Devon, investigating the feeding of, and caring for, beef cattle within regenerative systems. Her presentation is about: Caring and Feeding with Cattle: An Ethnographic Investigation.

Amy Hancock is a Therapeutic Radiographer working as a Senior Lecturer in Medical Imaging. She is a qualitative researcher interested in lived experience. She will be talking about: Co-production: working together to create a shared sense of compassion.

Please note that these events are only open to members of staff and students at the University of Exeter.

To book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/qualitative-research-forum-tickets-529473528577?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

Refreshments 12:30-13:00
Seminar 13:00-14:00, Questions until 14:30

Development of a new shared decision-making intervention ‘VOLITION’ for older people living with multiple long-term conditions and GPs
Jo Butterworth
Academic GP, University of Exeter

Intervention Mapping (IM) was a means of systematically applying existing literature, new data and relevant theory in the development, refinement and planning for the evaluation of VOLITION. Patient and public involvement was central alongside the opinions of expert stakeholders. Three core studies informed IM:

A Cochrane review of similar interventions enabled the drafting of a prototype intervention, focus groups with patients and GPs enabled the refinement of behaviour-change objectives, and a mixed-methods sequential-explanatory study informed plans to implement VOLITION in the context of remote vs. face-to-face consultations.

The two components of VOLITION adhere to NHS England’s universal personalised care plan, to empower patients in the management of their healthcare and to train clinicians in shared decision-making. A feasibility trial is planned.

Please register via Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-jo-butterworth-registration-483011609727

1-5pm

APEx is hosting a workshop on Tuesday 21st February, 13:00-17:00, and we’re inviting people whose research interest is around Multiple Long-Term Conditions to come along and share what they are doing.

The aim of this workshop is:
1) Make people aware of MLTC work going on in Exeter and who is doing it
2) identify opportunities for streamlining and learning from each other
3) identify potential areas to work on together going forward

The programme will involve the SPOCC team presenting some of their work, the Gemini team doing the same, and others with MLTC interests given the opportunity to also share, followed by elicitation of potential future work capitalising on what is happening now. A working lunch will be provided at 13:00.

If you are interested in attending or presenting, please email a.l.coombe@exeter.ac.uk by end of day on 14th February, with the following information:
•    If you plan to attend the workshop
•    If you would like to attend for lunch & any dietary requirements you have
•    If you wish to present & what you would plan to present on

Seminar 11:00-12:00, Questions until 12:30

Going Back to the Future: Evolving holism of multiplicity
Professor Umesh Kadam
Professor of General Practice and Public Health Research, University of Exeter

The way we practice medicine is changing with increasing collection of data and use of these data in joining up care. The fundamental role of general practice in thinking of the ‘whole’ person, which had been replaced with a focus on individual diseases, has the potential to reinvigorate in this new data landscape. The science of multimorbidity will crystalise the relevance of holistic and preventative care roles underpinned by futuristic innovations in data use. This seminar will use examples from Umesh’s research programme, which has supported developments in primary care, hospital and public health, to highlight these concepts and issues.
 

Please register via Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-professor-umesh-kadam-registration-477188442477

12.30-1.30pm

Transdiagnostic Approaches to Neurodevelopment (working title)
Speaker: Dr Silvana Mareva, Postdoctoral Research Associate - Peninsula Mental Health Research Initiative

In this seminar, Silvana will present her PhD work on transdiagnostic approaches to neurodevelopment, with the aim of understanding how and why children may struggle at school and how to best support the wellbeing of neurodivergent young people.

Please note that, on this occasion, the seminar will not be recorded.

Book your place here

9am-12pm

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

All clinics will be held by video call or telephone.

Dr TJ McKinley
Email: T.McKinley@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

3.30-4.30pm

The QALY is Ableist
Paul Schneider, University of Sheffield

Paul is currently finishing his PhD in public health, economics, and decision science at the University of Sheffield, UK. In his research, he tries to figure out how to value things that are invaluable (health, well‐being, life, etc). Occasionally, he also develops health economic models and interactive user interfaces.

Paul’s background is in clinical medicine and health service research: he initially trained as a medical doctor; and got a doctoral degree from the Institute for Health Systems Research, University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany.

Paul also holds a Research Master’s degree in health sciences from Maastricht University, the  Netherlands.

1-4pm

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

All clinics will be held by video call or telephone.

Dr Beverley Shields
Email: b.shields@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Three clinics:

10-10.30am, 10.45-11.15 am, 11.30am-12pm

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research study related queries from within PenARC and Health & Community Sciences. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the Department of Health & Community Science with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors.

Personalised modelling for Precision Healthcare
Professor of Mathematics for Healthcare, University of Exeter

In this seminar Krasimira will discuss mathematical modelling approaches to personalised and precision medicine. Specifically she will present several ongoing projects in this space carried out as part of the EPSRC Hub for Quantitative Modelling in Healthcare at Exeter and beyond.

Please register via Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-professor-krasimira-tsaneva-atanasova-registration-444634201867

Survival extrapolation with external data: a new Bayesian model and R package
Chris Jackson, MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge

Health policies are often informed by survival or tme‐to‐event data with limited follow‐up. Examples include health economic evaluations of drugs based on clinical trial data, and health service resource
planning early in an epidemic given data on hospital stays. Parametric survival models are commonly used to "extrapolate" short‐term time‐to‐event data, but results can be sensitive to the choice of parametric
model. A range of methods are available for including additional information about the long term, but previously there has been no straighforward tool to implement them.

This talk introduces the `survextrap` R package for survival extrapolation. It uses a flexible parametric model, designed to fit the data as well as possible. Bayesian evidence synthesis is used to incorporate transparent assumpsions about the long term, while fully expressing uncertainty. It has an easy‐to‐use R interface. While it is a
work in progress, it can deal with a useful range of situations, and documentation and examples are available at https://chjackson.github.io/survextrap

Online seminar

Please email ESMI@exeter.ac.uk for further details

Healing Matters
Professor Paul Dieppe will outline his own exploration of the world of healing and healers, related to his background in biomedicine.

Healing is being talked about a great deal at the moment. We are told that we need to heal ourselves and heal our world. But what is healing?

How can we investigate something so varied, nebulous and experiential? And why do science and medicine mostly reject healing?

Paul Dieppe is part of a group of academics exploring these questions. People who investigate healing come from a variety of different subject areas, including anthropology, religious studies, sociology, medicine, psychology and many arts and humanities disciplines.

The group aim to help break down the ‘silos’ of academia to develop a genuinely trans-disciplinary consortium to take the subject forward – and develop an academic discipline called ‘healing matters’. They may need to focus on specific issues to begin with, such as ‘dying healed’, or the development of ‘healing spaces’.

Please register via Eventbrite

Innovations and interventions for detecting cancer earlier
Professor Richard Neal
Professor of Primary Care, University of Exeter

In this seminar Richard will discuss how cancer outcomes may be improved by step-changes in how we may detect cancer earlier. Specifically he will discuss three very different but complementary approaches that he is working on with international academic partners and industry. These are:

• The NHS-Galleri trial, evaluating the impact of a novel Multi-Cancer Early Detection Test, in an asymptomatic screening population (and aiming to complete recruitment and randomisation of 140,000 participants within the first year of operation)
• The development, validation, and service evaluation of the PinPoint Test – a machine learning algorithm able to stratify risk of cancer based upon routine blood tests for patients being referred down Urgent Suspected Cancer pathways
• The ThinkCancer Trial – A cluster RCT of a psycho-educational intervention that has been developed to get clinicians to think about the possibility of cancer more, and more often with the intention of better targeting of investigations and referrals

Please register via Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-professor-richard-neal-rescheduled-from-may-registration-424986805977

Mobile Methods: What are they, why use them and how?
Dr Sarah Bell, The European Centre for Environment & Human Health
https://www.ecehh.org/people/sarah-bell/

A growing number of studies in health and wellbeing research are adopting and developing mobile methodologies, such as walk/run/bike/swim-along interviews, geo-narratives, and mobile and video ethnographies. Many of these methodologies are presented in the literature in a relatively unproblematic way. Yet more critical insights regarding the practical and ethical logistics of performing – and analysing the data generated by – such methods have considerable value for new and emerging researchers working in this area. This QRF session will encourage honest and open discussion about these challenges.

Please note that these events are only open to members of staff and students at the University of Exeter.

Please click here to register.

Precision rehabilitation in primary care research: past, present, future
Professor Helen Dawes
Professor of Clinical Rehabilitation, University of Exeter

We are currently in a global crisis, outlined by the World Health Organisation, whereby 1/3 of adults will need rehabilitation at some point during their lifespan, whilst there are not enough skilled professionals to meet this need. Current services cannot address this unmet need. I will discuss current innovation in primary care precision rehabilitation research.

Please register via Eventbrite for in-person or online attendance: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-professor-helen-dawes-registration-412921829307

Society for Social Medicine & Population Health 66th Annual Scientific meeting

On behalf of the Local Organising Committee, we are looking forward to welcoming you to the University of Exeter for the 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting.  We are optimistic we will be able to hold this event in person on our beautiful Streatham campus, 7-9 September 2022, with pre-events on 6 September.

You can expect a lot of what makes the ASM such an exciting event every year: cutting-edge research, opportunities for networking and professional development, and a slate of expert panellists and speakers.  However, we are aware that as we ease back into a routine, a few things will need to be different.  So we are working hard between the scenes to make the ASM an inclusive in-person experience, with plenty of outdoors activities and modifications to the social programme.

The abstract deadline is Monday 7th of March 2022, so do get those abstracts in (submission link here).

Check our website or Twitter for further details and regular updates.

Deciding what to do with predatory journals in systematic reviews
Dr Zachary Munn is a director of Evidence Based Healthcare Research, JBI, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health and
Medical Sciences at The University of Adelaide.

Dr Zachary Munn will be talking about his 2021 paper ‘Should I include studies from “predatory” journals in a systematic review? Interim guidance for systematic reviewers’

Intergenerational practice is the beginning of an inclusive society; collaboration and engagement, evidence mapping, and insights from a current project

Speakers: Jo Thompson Coon, Rebecca Whear and Morwenna Rogers (PenARC/University of Exeter), Ellie Robinson-Carter (Only Connect-Cornwall) and Fiona Campbell (SCHARR - University of Sheffield)

This talk will introduce the IGEN project which is a collaborative project between the universities of Exeter and Sheffield and a wide range of stakeholders including intervention providers to co-produce an evidence gap map of the research literature on intergenerational interventions.

The speakers will discuss the key role stakeholders had in developing the project and present examples of intergenerational projects and activities. There will also be an opportunity to see and interact with the evidence gap map (in order to do this access to a laptop or a desktop would be useful but not essential) and discuss the role of intergenerational interventions in society.

To register, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/seminar-intergenerational-practice-the-beginning-of-an-inclusive-society-tickets-313222836937

Please note the seminar will be recorded for sharing publicly.

Using patient/reported indicators of health system performance: development of the OECD PaRIS Survey for people with chronic conditions
Professor Chema Valderas
Head of Department of Family Medicine & Director of the Centre for Health Services & Policy Research, National University of Singapore & APEx Affiliate

Please register via Eventbrite to receive your e-ticket: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminar-prof-chema-valderas-tickets-274775620277

The NIHR Academy: A vision to offer equality of opportunity for all
Professor Waljit Dhillo, Dean of the NIHR Academy

Professor Dhillo will provide an overview of the ambitions of the NIHR Academy, as well as future challenges and opportunities. The session will be suitable for those with clinical and/or academic background, in particular those interested in applying for or supporting an NIHR Fellowship application.

There will be opportunity to submit questions via the Zoom chat function during Professor Dhillo's talk, and we will get through as many of these as possible during the session. The session will be recorded.

Please register via Eventbrite to receive your e-ticket: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-nihr-academy-a-vision-to-offer-equality-of-opportunity-for-all-registration-250113314657

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.
All clinics will be held by video call or telephone.

Dr Fiona Warren
Email: F.C.Warren@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

How to consider health equity in systematic reviews: tools and examples.
Dr. Vivian Welch, interim CEO and Editor in Chief, Campbell Collaboration and Associate Professor, School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottowa

Dr. Vivian Welch will be talking about equity in systematic reviews with a focus on methods in general and applying them to rapid reviews.

Developing a framework based on early economic evaluation to inform Target Product Profiles for new diagnostic tests
Paola Cocco
University of Leeds

Target Product Profiles (TPPs) are strategic documents, targeted at test developers, summarising in advance the desirable features new (or existing) test should possess to address a given unmet clinical need. TPPs are increasingly of interest to global and national health policy-makers as a means to accelerate the development process of new diagnostic tests.

During this seminar, key findings from a systematic review on the current methodology for developing TPPs for medical tests will be presented, followed by a discussion on how early economic evaluation (EEE) methods could improve the TPP methodology framework for tests. Using EEE methods to inform TPPs provides a more objective, evidence-based and transparent approach to defining test specifications based on cost-effectiveness considerations.

During her PhD, Paola has applied the EEE methods to a case study example – a new rapid point-of-care test for Clostridium difficile infection – to back-calculate desirable performance specifications for new rapid tests. A discrete event simulation (DES) model was built in SIMUL8 to reflect the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust care pathway for patients with suspected CDI. The seminar will then conclude with an overview of the DES model, including a discussion of the model structure, analysis and main results

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/3K6k0w8

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Exploring ethnic differences in primary care diagnosis of cancer
Dr Tani Martins
Tani will present a brief overview of the evidence on the subject and share early findings from his ongoing work.

and

Pragmatic use of Artificial Intelligence with Big Healthcare Data

This session aims to provide a balanced perspective on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods in healthcare, balancing their huge potential with the very real challenges that are associated with such models. The use of such models is becoming increasingly popular across the spectrum of healthcare research, but the limitations are rarely discussed. We will touch upon issues including data access, model generalisability, and the interpretability of predictions.

The session consists of invited talks from three experienced researchers, each with a different perspective on the topic, followed by a panel discussion focusing on improving the utility and teaching of artificial intelligence amongst the health community.

Agenda:
Time              Session
13.00-13.20    Prof. Else Guthrie (Psychiatrist, Univ. Leeds)
13.20-13.40    Prof. David Hogg (Comp. Sci., Univ. Leeds)
13.40-14.00    Dr. Laura Bonnett (Statistician, Univ. Liverpool)
14.00-14.30    Panel Discussion

Please use the following link to register your interest in the webinar https://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=13382815

Any queries please email abby.scott@ncl.ac.uk

Preventing falls – what works?

Professor Sallie Lamb
Mireille Gillings Professor of Health Innovation and Associate Dean for Research, University of Exeter

Qualitative Research Forum: an informal group for staff and students doing qualitative research

About this event
The Qualitative Research Forum, based in the Institute for Health Research, for staff and students doing qualitative research in some capacity, was launched in September 2020, organised by Julia Frost, Jo Day, Cornelia Guell, Sarah Bell and Sarah Morgan-Trimmer. It will meet once every two months, alternately hosted by Exeter and Truro.

Rigour in Qualitative Research
The sixth meeting will be on Friday, 26th November 2021 from 13:00 to 14:30 hours by Zoom, with a focus on Rigour in Qualitative Research, with our fantastic guest speaker, Professor Brett Smith, Durham University.

Brett Smith is a Professor of Disability and Physical Activity in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University. He currently leads the ‘Moving Social Work’ project that is funded by the NIHR and Sport England. He also is the Chair of the Disability and Physical Activity Expert Working Group for the Chief Medical Officers’ (CMOs) Disability and Physical Activity Guidelines. Brett is the President of the International Society of Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise. He is also the founding and former Editor of the journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health.

Rigour in qualitative research: Qualitative research needs to be held to high and difficult standards. It needs to be rigorous. But how might we understand rigour? What can researchers do to enhance the rigour of their research? What criteria might researchers and peers use to judge the quality of the research and hold it to difficult standards?

This talk grapples with such questions. The argument is presented that rigour needs to considered not in foundational or checklist ways but instead as part of a non-foundational list of characterising traits. Different criteria for supporting rigorous qualitative research is offered as part of an ongoing list and to support the practical application of judging qualitative research.  

Please note that these events are only open to members of staff and students at the University of Exeter.

To book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/qualitative-research-forum-tickets-167594466561

Learning from null and negative effect trials in prevention science
Vashti Berry, Nick Axford and Katrina Wyatt

There can be a tendency for investigators to disregard or explain away null or negative results in prevention science trials. This is unhelpful for several reasons, not least that it skews the evidence base, undermines respect for science, and stifles creativity in intervention development. In our recent paper, we identify possible policy and practice responses when interventions have null (ineffective) or negative (harmful) results, and argue that these are influenced by: the intervention itself; trial design, conduct, and results; context; and individual perspectives and interests. We advance several strategies to promote more informative null or negative effect trials and enable learning from such results.

This short seminar will overview those strategies, and provide two case examples to illustrate how null results can enable learning and change to the intervention, process, culture and wider context/environment. There will also be an opportunity for networking and connecting with others undertaking intervention trials and/or providing or developing interventions being evaluated.

The seminar will take place from 11:30-12:00 and will be followed by networking 12:00-12:30.

Book here

Please note that this talk will be recorded and the recording may be shared publicly via the PenARC website.

Please note that these events are only open to members of staff and students at the University of Exeter.

The Qualitative Research Forum, based in the Institute for Health Research, for staff and students doing qualitative research in some capacity, was launched in September 2020, organised by Julia Frost, Jo Day, Cornelia Guell, Sarah Bell and Sarah Morgan-Trimmer. It will meet once every two months, alternately hosted by Exeter and Truro.

Qualitative Research in Times of Covid-19
Sarah and Conny will start the session with a 'fireside' chat with Professor Katharine Tyler, Associate Professor in Anthropology, to hear about her experiences of conducting fieldwork in the past year under Covid-19 restrictions. Katharine and her team are researching people’s experiences of inequalities in the face of Covid-19 and Brexit. The project is entitled ‘Identity, inequality and the media in Brexit-covid-19-Britain, https://www.brexit-studies.org/covid-19/. We'll talk about changing research designs, methods and related ethical implications.

We’ll then break out into smaller groups to discuss challenges and opportunities we might each have experienced and navigated, in particular around methods, engagement and ethical challenges arising when conducting research in a time of crisis and using new or unfamiliar approaches to data collection.

To book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/qualitative-research-forum-tickets-144389150837?aff=ebdssbeac

Magnetic resonance imaging for prostate cancer diagnosis in primary care
Dr Sam Merriel
Clinical Senior Research Fellow at The University of Exeter
Presentation then Q&A 1-1.30pm

And

The impact of reducing referral thresholds for urgent cancer investigation in England
Dr Sarah Moore
Academic Clinical Fellow at The University of Exeter
Presentation and Q&A 1.30-2pm

Though this isn’t our usual seminar format, we’ll still leave the call open until 2.30 for a relaxed opportunity to join in the discussions.

Please register via Eventbrite to receive your ticket: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/apex-seminars-dr-sam-merriel-and-dr-sarah-moore-cancer-focus-tickets-141985242683

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. All clinics will be held by video call or telephone.

Dr Fiona Warren
Email: F.C.Warren@exeter.ac.uk

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research study related queries from within PenARC and the Institute for Health Research. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the College of Medicine and Health with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors.

Please book via Eventbrite

Inter-arm blood pressure difference: what have we learnt over 25 years?

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. All clinics will be held by video call or telephone.

Dr Lauren Rodgers
Email: L.R.Rodgers@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research study related queries from within PenARC and the Institute for Health Research. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the College of Medicine and Health with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors.

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

The Qualitative Research Forum, based in the Institute for Health Research, for staff and students doing qualitative research in some capacity, was launched in September 2020, organised by Julia Frost, Jo Day, Cornelia Guell, Sarah Bell and Sarah Morgan-Trimmer. It will meet once every two months, alternately hosted by Exeter and Truro.

The second meeting will be from 11:00 - 13:00 hours on Tuesday, 24th November, when Professor Judith Green will talk on Collaboration in Analysing Qualitative Data, and we hope that anyone interested in qualitative methodologies will participate and help to shape the future direction of the group.

Please note that these events are only open to members of staff and students at the University of Exeter.

These clinics have been set up to help the PenARC Evidence Synthesis Team to manage and respond to systematic review related queries from within the geographical area covered by PenARC.  Whether you are an academic or an NHS professional who needs to know where to start on the systematic review process or how to go about designing a search strategy, you can book an appointment with one of our reviewers or information specialists.

The SPOtting Cancer among Comorbidities (SPOCC) programme.
Dr Gary Abel
Senior Lecturer & Statistician
Primary Care, UEMS

Supporting clinical decision making in patients with symptoms of cancer and pre-existing conditions.

Join the online seminar. For the calendar invite /if you have any queries, please email c.thomas6@exeter.ac.uk

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenARC and IHR Staff and Students

CMH qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research study queries.

Please book a time via Eventbrite.

Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 4 working days prior to the event

These clinics have been set up to help the PenARC Evidence Synthesis Team to manage and respond to systematic review related queries from within the geographical area covered by PenARC.  Whether you are an academic or an NHS professional who needs to know where to start on the systematic review process or how to go about designing a search strategy, you can book an appointment with one of our reviewers or information specialists.

Please visit: https://www.arc-swp.nihr.ac.uk/searching-and-review-clinics

Title TBC
Professor Sandra Nicholson, Centre Lead, Centre for Medical Education, Queen Mary University of London

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenARC and IHR Staff and Students

CMH qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research study queries.

Please book a time via Eventbrite.

Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 4 working days prior to the event.

Progress Testing in Medical Education
Mr Neil Rice, Senior Assessment Psychometrician, University of Exeter Medical School

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenARC and IHR Staff and Students

CMH qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research study queries.

Please book a time via Eventbrite.

Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 4 working days prior to the event.

Curriculum Design using Gold Standard Project Based Learning (GSPBL) to develop 21st century skills
Dr Corrina Cory, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Entrepreneurship, Strategic Curriculum Development Lead

****POSTPONED****

Cochrane – the challenges and opportunities
Martin Burton, Director Cochrane UK

For over 25 years Cochrane has produced high-quality systematic reviews and played a key role in the world of evidence-based medicine.  It has fiercely guarded its independence and sought to promote a wider and better understanding of the healthcare research.  What challenges and opportunities lie ahead, in an era full of ‘fake news”?  And one in which there is an increasing belief that the world’s great problems – in health care and beyond - will never be solved by academia alone.

****POSTPONED****

Assessment - Have you ever wondered if we could be doing it better
Helen Reid
GP and Clinical Lecturer in the Centre for Medical Education (CME), Queen’s University Belfast (QUB)

Helen Reid’s PhD in Medical Education (2018) explored ‘undervoiced’ stakeholder perspectives around OSCEs.  Her research interests encompass assessment, women’s health, professional development and interdisciplinarity. Her seminar will focus on those who are involved with any aspect of assessment in Health Professions Education and whether it we could be done better.  OSCEs are ubiquitous in health professions education (HPE).  Impending introduction of a medical licensing assessment (the GMC’s ‘MLA’) in the UK context has potential to increase OSCEs’ position. Such dominance - hegemony - can bring unintended consequences, warranting critical consideration.  There is a real risk that the importance of patient care is diminished in a quest for accountable, standardised assessments.  This interactive session will share insights from contemporary assessment research aiming to develop participants’ own thinking around OSCEs and broader assessment practices.

The aim of this session is to contribute, critically and constructively, to conversations around assessment in HPE.  This will be done through:

• Identifying potential tensions in performance assessments in different settings, with specific focus on patient involvement
• Sharing insights from contemporary OSCE and broader assessment research
• Considering some practical strategies to enhance assessment in our own settings with patient care remaining a central goal.

For PenARC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Further dates will be advertised in due course.

Please book a time via Eventbrite.

Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 4 working days prior to the event.

Graphical and online frameworks for multiple testing
Dr David Robertson
MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge

In the classical framework of drug development, the response to experimental therapies is evaluated one treatment at a time within a homogenous patient group. However, this paradigm is increasingly shifting towards testing multiple hypotheses (corresponding to multiple treatments, subgroups and endpoints), with an additional emphasis on adaptive trial designs. At the same time there continues to be a strong focus, particularly from a regulatory perspective, on guaranteeing control of suitable error rates. In this talk, I discuss recent methodological advances for multiple testing in two general trial settings.

Firstly, I consider trials where the hypotheses have a hierarchical structure that reflects different clinical objectives. The graphical approach of Bretz et al. (2009) is a flexible and easily communicable way of testing multiple structured hypotheses while controlling the familywise error rate (FWER). However, the FWER is a stringent criterion that leads to procedures with a low power, and may not be appropriate in exploratory trial settings. This motivates controlling generalised error rates that are more relaxed. I show how to control these generalised error rates when using the graphical approach, and demonstrate the utility of the resulting graphical procedures on three clinical trial case studies.

Secondly, I compare and contrast recently proposed procedures for error rate control in trials with ‘online’ hypothesis testing. In this setting, a sequence of hypotheses is tested and the investigator has to decide whether to reject the current null hypothesis without having access to the future p-values, or even the number of hypotheses to be tested. A key example is the perpetual platform trial design, which allows multiple treatment arms to be added throughout the course of the trial. Using simulation scenarios and case studies, I provide recommendations for which procedures to use in practice for online multiple testing.

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/2UnuFeA

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students
Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following
sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. Telephone  appointment can be held for those based in Cornwall.

Dr Fiona Warren
Email: F.C.Warren@exeter.ac.uk

These 90-minute workshops will introduce the basic principles of good process evaluation design. The three workshops are designed to build on each other, but you can attend only one if you wish.

1. Introduction to Process Evaluation
This workshop will introduce the key terms, concepts and design principles of process evaluation. It will also cover how to identify relevant research questions, select appropriate methods, and balance competing demands within a process evaluation.
2. Developing Theory and Logic Models for Process Evaluations    
The workshop will: outline the relevance of using a theory-based approach; discuss the practical application of different types of theory for process evaluation; demonstrate how logic models can be developed to underpin a good process evaluation; and discuss the benefits and challenges of using this approach.
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
This workshop will: introduce the rationale for using data integration techniques; summarise different techniques for integrating qualitative and quantitative data and datasets; discuss the application of data integration for different types of trial and research question; and discuss how to deal with conflicting data.

For more information about process evaluation see: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/

Times and dates
The workshops will be held at 10:30-12:00 on the following dates:
1. Introduction to Process Evaluation - Tuesday 4 February
2. Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations - Tuesday 11 February
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations - Tuesday 18 February

Suitable for
Researchers and PhD students conducting process evaluations as part of randomised controlled trials. The workshops will assume basic familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research methods, and randomised controlled trials.

Registration
Please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk to register for one or more of the workshops, or if you have any questions or want to discuss any accessibility requirements.

Please bring a notebook/paper and a pen to the workshop(s).

These 90-minute workshops will introduce the basic principles of good process evaluation design. The three workshops are designed to build on each other, but you can attend only one if you wish.

1. Introduction to Process Evaluation
This workshop will introduce the key terms, concepts and design principles of process evaluation. It will also cover how to identify relevant research questions, select appropriate methods, and balance competing demands within a process evaluation.
2. Developing Theory and Logic Models for Process Evaluations    
The workshop will: outline the relevance of using a theory-based approach; discuss the practical application of different types of theory for process evaluation; demonstrate how logic models can be developed to underpin a good process evaluation; and discuss the benefits and challenges of using this approach.
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
This workshop will: introduce the rationale for using data integration techniques; summarise different techniques for integrating qualitative and quantitative data and datasets; discuss the application of data integration for different types of trial and research question; and discuss how to deal with conflicting data.

For more information about process evaluation see: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/

Times and dates
The workshops will be held at 10:30-12:00 on the following dates:
1. Introduction to Process Evaluation - Tuesday 4 February
2. Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations - Tuesday 11 February
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations - Tuesday 18 February

Suitable for
Researchers and PhD students conducting process evaluations as part of randomised controlled trials. The workshops will assume basic familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research methods, and randomised controlled trials.

Registration
Please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk to register for one or more of the workshops, or if you have any questions or want to discuss any accessibility requirements.

Please bring a notebook/paper and a pen to the workshop(s).

RUPTURES IN PRACTICE: coping and learning in the here-and-now of clinical practice
by Arunthathi Mahendran
Senior Lecturer and Consultant Transplant Surgeon, Queen Mary University/Barts and the Royal London Medical School

Event Information
Arunthathi (Arundi) Mahendran is a senior lecturer and consultant transplant surgeon as well as programme director for the MSc. in Physician Associate Studies at Queen Mary University/Barts and the Royal London Medical School. She undertook her specialist surgical training at the Royal Free hospital in London and subsequently completed a transplant surgical fellowship at Columbia University in Manhattan, New York.  She has a PhD in Education from Goldsmiths’, University of London and was the 2018 Winner of the (BERA) British Educational Research Association Doctoral Thesis Award.  Her research interest lies in the philosophy of practices of thinking, knowing and doing across medical and clinical education.  Arundi lives in the East End of London with her husband and two young sons.  

Her present research focuses on the emotional complexities of learning and practice by exploring how the uncertainty of clinical practice can trigger powerful affective experiences that transform the ways in which a professional comes to understand their practice and function within it.   

Programme:
Tea/coffee    12:15-12:30 Atrium outside South Cloisters 3.06
Lecture         12:30-13:15  South Cloisters 3.06
Q&A              13:15-13:30  South Cloisters 3.06

To register please email: CMHFacultyDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk

Integrating health economics into the development and evaluation pipeline for medical tests
Dr. Bethany Shinkins
Lead of the Test Evaluation Group (TEG) at the University of Leeds

Modern medicine is increasingly reliant on medical tests; screening programs, diagnosis of disease, monitoring individuals with chronic disease, and prediction of treatment response and longer-term health all depend on tests. To recommend the use of a test, guideline developers (such as NICE or CADTH) require high quality evidence that the test improves patient health and that it is cost-effective. There are a number of features unique to medical tests that make timely evidence generation in this area challenging.

This presentation will explore some of these complexities and provide an overview of our methodological development work in this space, including early economic modelling, target product profiles, outcome-based analytical performance specifications, adaptive trial designs and incorporating real world evidence into cost-effectiveness evaluations.

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/2FA329r

***POSTPONED***

20 years of inter-arm difference: what have we learned?
Dr Chris Clark, Clinical Senior Lecturer in General Practice

There will be a sandwich lunch from 12.30 in the downstairs lobby of Smeall, so it would help if you can let me know if you are attending.

See more on our website.

All are welcome!

Please reply to apexseminars@exeter.ac.uk

These 90-minute workshops will introduce the basic principles of good process evaluation design. The three workshops are designed to build on each other, but you can attend only one if you wish.

1. Introduction to Process Evaluation
This workshop will introduce the key terms, concepts and design principles of process evaluation. It will also cover how to identify relevant research questions, select appropriate methods, and balance competing demands within a process evaluation.
2. Developing Theory and Logic Models for Process Evaluations    
The workshop will: outline the relevance of using a theory-based approach; discuss the practical application of different types of theory for process evaluation; demonstrate how logic models can be developed to underpin a good process evaluation; and discuss the benefits and challenges of using this approach.
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
This workshop will: introduce the rationale for using data integration techniques; summarise different techniques for integrating qualitative and quantitative data and datasets; discuss the application of data integration for different types of trial and research question; and discuss how to deal with conflicting data.

For more information about process evaluation see: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/

Times and dates
The workshops will be held at 10:30-12:00 on the following dates:
1. Introduction to Process Evaluation - Tuesday 4 February
2. Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations - Tuesday 11 February
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations - Tuesday 18 February

Suitable for
Researchers and PhD students conducting process evaluations as part of randomised controlled trials. The workshops will assume basic familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research methods, and randomised controlled trials.

Registration
Please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk to register for one or more of the workshops, or if you have any questions or want to discuss any accessibility requirements.

Please bring a notebook/paper and a pen to the workshop(s).

Three short presentations for discussion
Please look at these papers in advance if you can. They will then be discussed in turn. All contributions welcome.

1.“Is red meat bad for you?: Systematic review (Chris Clark)
ZeraatkarD et al. Red and processed meat consumption and risk for all-cause mortality and cardiometabolicoutcomes. Annals of Internal Medicine 2019. doi:10.7326/M19-0655
2. “GPs, money, and quality of care –mercenary or what?” (John Campbell)
Minchin M et al. Quality of care in the United Kingdom after removal of financial incentives. New England Journal of Medicine 2018; doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1801495
3. “Does knowing the timing of abuse help action to be taken” (Emma Pitchforth)
BohrenMA et al. How women are treated during facility-based childbirth in four countries: a cross-sectional study with labour observations and community-based surveys. Lancet 2019. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31992-0

12.30 in the downstairs lobby of Smeall for a sandwich lunch and informal networking

Please email: apexseminars@exeter.ac.uk to book your place.
For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

Health Economics Group

Seminar

***CANCELLED***

Integrating health economics into the development and evaluation pipeline for medical tests

Dr. Bethany Shinkins
Lead of the Test Evaluation Group (TEG) at the University of Leeds

Modern medicine is increasingly reliant on medical tests; screening programs, diagnosis of disease, monitoring individuals with chronic disease, and prediction of treatment response and longer-term health all depend on tests. To recommend the use of a test, guideline developers (such as NICE or CADTH) require high quality evidence that the test improves patient health and that it is cost-effective. There are a number of features unique to medical tests that make timely evidence generation in this area challenging.

This presentation will explore some of these complexities and provide an overview of our methodological development work in this space, including early economic modelling, target product profiles, outcome-based analytical performance specifications, adaptive trial designs and incorporating real world evidence into cost-effectiveness evaluations.

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/2PoYGYG

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Dr Jo Butterworth and Grace Dibben will be presenting their own work.  There will be a sandwich lunch from 12.30 in the downstairs lobby of Smeall immediately prior to the seminar, so it would help if you can let me know you are attending. See details below and more on our website.
 
Dr Jo Butterworth, NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow, UEMS
Interventions for involving older patients with multimorbidity in decision-making during primary care consultations: A Cochrane systematic review
And
Grace Dibben, PhD Student, UEMS
Cardiac rehabilitation and physical activity levels in heart failure

Please contact Joy Choules apexseminars@exeter.ac.uk
01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

The next meeting of the IHR Early Career Researcher Network will be on Thursday 21st November.

Claire Hulme, the new director of the IHR, will be taking this opportunity to come along and meet us and talk with us about her plans to support the ECRN going forwards.

For further information, please contact Liz Shaw (E.H.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk)

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. Telephone appointment can be held for those based in Cornwall.

Associate Professor Obi Ukoumunne
Email: O.C.Ukoumunne@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Further dates will be advertised in due course.Please booka time via Eventbrite

Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 4 working days prior to the event.

An important event for academic staff involved in PGR supervision, assessing upgrades and examining.

One important issue for us in the College of Medicine and Health is for supervisors and upgrade assessors to discuss modifications to assessing upgrades given the process will happen before 12 months, and how to ensure fair and consistent approach. Session will be partly led by Caitlin Kight with some scenarios for us to discuss, also update from PGR Admin on changes to student monitoring in MyPGR.

Please register by emailing N.J.Church@exeter.ac.uk

Smeall Building, St Luke's

VC to Truro on request

Challenges for economic evaluation when doing research with people with learning disabilities: The OK Diabetes Study

Professor Claire Hulme
Professor of Health Economics, University of Exeter Medical School

There are around 1.2 million people in the UK with a mild or moderate learning disability. People with a learning disability have poorer health, experience delays in diagnosis and treatment, are more likely to have multiple health problems, poorer health outcomes and shorter life expectancy. Obesity and type 2 diabetes are common in this population.

This presentation reports on challenges during development and testing of data collection methods for use in an economic evaluation within a RCT for a manualised supported diabetes self-management programme for people with mild/moderate learning disabilities: The OK Diabetes Study.

Join us from 12.30 for a sandwich lunch and informal networking

Email: j.l.Choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place
For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. Telephone appointment can be held for those based in Cornwall.

Professor William Henley
Email: L.K.Watson@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Using Wikipedia to disseminate your research - Workshop

This workshop is open to all researchers and research-facing professional service staff and is recommended for those interested in using creative methods to engage people with research and disseminate their findings beyond traditional academic journals.

Workshop participants will be provided with the opportunity and support to develop their skills in writing Wikipedia pages which they can use to disseminate their own research.

Richard Nevell is an archaeologist who previously worked for English Heritage and now works for Wikimedia UK, the UK-based charity supporting the Wikimedia projects. He has been writing for Wikipedia as a volunteer since 2006 and training people to contribute since 2012.

Please email Dr Liz Shaw (E.H.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk) to register to attend.

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Further dates will be advertised in due course.Please booka time via Eventbrite

Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 4 working days prior to the event.

Physical activity and serious mental health conditions: evidence, mechanisms and implementation
Dr Brendon Stubbs, Head of Physiotherapy, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (IoPPN) & NIHR Clinical Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London

Dr Stubbs will be talking about the potential for physical activity to prevent and manage mental illness (see flyer and website for further details). There will be refreshments from 12.30 in the downstairs lobby of Smeall immediately prior to the seminar. If you don’t have a swipe card, the entry code that day will be 8423.

Contact Joy Choules apexseminars@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. Telephone appointment can be held for those based in Cornwall.

Dr John Dennis - Email: L.R.Rodgers@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

South Cloisters, St Luke's campus

Using social media as a medical professional: tips, tricks, benefits and pitfalls
Catherine Hennessy, Lecturer of Anatomy
Brighton and Sussex Medical School

Catherine Hennessy, B.Sc. (Hons), M.Sc., PG.C.A.P, F.H.E.A., is a Lecturer of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in Brighton, UK. She teaches anatomy to undergraduate and postgraduate entry medical and allied health science students. She is conducting a part-time PhD exploring how medical students and doctors develop their understanding of social media professionalism and the development of a professional online identity. Her other research interests include developing anatomy core curricula for health professionals.

Teas/coffees     12:15-12:30 Atrium outside SC 3.06
Workshop         12:30-13:30       

To register please contact c.pierce@exeter.ac.uk or 01392 406808

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

VC to KSpa F10

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research related queries from within PenCLAHRC and the Institute for Health Research. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the University of Exeter Medical School with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors. To ensure that you gain the most from the clinic, please focus on clearly explaining one or two queries on which you would like to receive advice. We will send more guidance prior to your appointment on how to best use the time.

For UEMS staff and UEMS research students

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment. Telephone appointment can be held for those based in Cornwall.

Associate Professor Obi Ukoumunne - Email: O.C.Ukoumunne@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Getting your research known: Using Altmetrics to record interest in your research

Andrew Tattersall, an Information Specialist from the University of Sheffield will be discussing how to share your work with others in a way which is traceable and detectable through the use of Altmetrics. For full details of this event, please see the attached.

This professional development activity is a Researcher-Led Initiative that is funded by the University of Exeter Researcher Development & Research Culture Team.

Please contact Liz Shaw (E.H.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk) to reserve your place and find out more about VC links to Plymouth and Truro.

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

VC to Plymouth and Truro

Strengthening the quality of qualitative papers for REF 2021

All those doing qualitative research are invited to attend this workshop. If you have attended a previous workshop, you are welcome to do so again.

We ask you to bring with you a piece of qualitative research you are working on and that you are proposing to publish. If you have a paper already drafted but not yet submitted, that is perfect. Alternatively, bring a paper that you have already published, or come with a project in mind that you are intending to write up for publication.

In small groups we will work on writing and/or rewriting our abstracts so as to emphasise the originality, significance and rigour of our research (REF criteria), and discuss them with others.

Please contact Linda Dumchen linda.dumchen@exeter.ac.uk by Tuesday, 25th June 2019 if you would like to attend this workshop, so that we can send you a brief document which explains what these three criteria mean, with examples from published qualitative research.

Open to all IHR early career researchers and research facing professional services staff, Tristan has organised several excellent speakers and a buffet lunch. Our plan for the afternoon is as follows:

12:45-13:30 -  Buffet lunch
13:30-13:40 -  Welcome
13:40-14:00 – Research Finance and Support (Pam Gurney and Roz Harrison-Browne)
14:00-14:20 – International research and opportunities (Iain Lang)
14:20-14:40 -  Personal background, research interests, plans within his new role as head of PenTAG (GJ Melendez-Torres)
14:40-15:00 – The view from HR on promotion, fixed term contracts and other matters (Katharine Harris and Jane Slaven
15:00-15:30 -  Reflections and future of the ECRN

This professional development activity is a Researcher-Led Initiative that is funded by the University of Exeter Researcher Development & Research Culture Team.

Please let Liz Shaw (E.H.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk) know if you will be attending.

The next NIHR Pitch and Putt Hustings has been arranged for Weds 26th June. This is a good opportunity to pitch your early grant ideas for applications to this funder.
 
Please remember everyone is invited whether you are pitching or not.  Early Career Researchers are encouraged to both pitch and attend; for these colleagues we will ensure that at least one senior academic will be briefed beforehand to provide specific feedback to your presentation.
 
The aims of the event are to:

1. Pitch early stage research ideas to develop proposals and connect with potential collaborators
2. Pitch formed research proposals to receive funder specific feedback
3. Provide the opportunity, as part of the audience, to gain knowledge of what is happening across the university
4. Provide opportunity for networking across all career stages of the academic community.

If you are thinking of pitching, please remember it isn’t about the fine detail, but consider the points below.

• What is the question/problem?
• Why is it novel?
• What is my approach to answering it?
• Why am I in a really good position to answer/tackle it now OR what support/advice are you looking for in order to get yourself into that position?

Actions:
Please email S.E.Donovan@exeter.ac.uk if you:

1. would like further information about a pitching slot, or
2. plan to attend.

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research related queries from within PenCLAHRC and the Institute for Health Research. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the University of Exeter Medical School with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors. To ensure that you gain the most from the clinic, please focus on clearly explaining one or two queries on which you would like to receive advice. We will send more guidance prior to your appointment on how to best use the time.

2.35, South Cloisters, St Luke's

12.30-1.30

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

VC to MR12, Plymouth and F10, Truro

11.30am-2pm

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

Video-link to FO83, Knowledge Spa, Truro

2-3pm

2-3pm

Refreshments will be available from 1:30pm

Early career researchers and postgraduate researchers event

Beyond Exeter: Networks for Early Career and Postgraduate Researchers
Learn about networks that support, develop, connect and represent early career researchers

This is an event for early career researchers and postgraduate researchers – please circulate within your teams.

Please register at https://bit.ly/2uzJI6O. Please contact T.M.Snowsill@exeter.ac.uk if you have any questions.

Featuring presentations from Lucy Teece (Chair of the Young Statisticians Section of the Royal Statistical Society), Dr Rachel Meacock (Chair of the European Health Economics Association Early Career Committee) and Dr Max Barnish (Immediate Past Chair of the Society for Social Medicine and Population Health Early Career Researchers Subcommittee) and a panel discussion with questions invited from the audience.

This event is open to all staff and students, but is recommended for early career researchers and postgraduate researchers, particularly those in the Institute for Health Research or involved in running (or considering running) early career research networks.

This professional development activity is a Researcher-Led Initiative that is funded by the University of Exeter Researcher Development & Research Culture Team.

Health Statistics Group Seminar

Prognostic Models and Competing Risks

Joint ESMI/LKD Seminar

2.13, South Cloisters, St Luke's

Videolink to MR11, John Bull Building, Plymouth Science Park and ECEHH F083, The Knowledge Spa, Truro

Creative Communication Seminar Series

Workshop

Creative Communication Seminar Series

Seminar

Sharing through play - The board game as a potential dissemination strategy

Dr Alke Groppel-Wegener is an Associate Professor of Creative Academic Practice at Staffordshire University and was made a National Teaching Fellow in 2015. Bringing the creative methodologies of her design background to Learning and Teaching has led her to develop the Tactile Academia approach, which uses creative making activities and everyday analogies to explain complex concepts in simple terms. One of these is the use of the board game concept to disseminate both research process and findings to a range of audiences. Find out more about her work and workshops at www.tactileacademia.com
 
Event details:
Dr Groppel-Wegener will be delivering a 60 minute seminar on Thursday 4th April 2019, 1500-1600, open to all researchers and research facing professional service staff, covering:

• How trying to get students to see writing as a process rather than an outcome led to experimenting with the board game analogy in her classroom.
• The potential of using similar processes to illustrate and communicate research processes and findings to a variety of audiences (for example to a general audience or more specific stakeholder engagement)
• A brief overview of her three steps of turning a process into a simple board game

For more information or to register to attend, please see the Eventbrite page: http://bit.ly/2VrfXk4

Alternatively, please contact me directly on E.H.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk

Identifying persons with multimorbidity who are most in need of proactive person-centred care in general practice
Dr Mieke Rijken, Senior Researcher, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL)

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke's

Early detection research at Cancer Research UK
Dr Elizabeth Smethurst, Research Funding Manager, Early Detection Research, Cancer Research UK

Contact Joy Choules apexseminars@exeter.ac.uk  01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke’s Campus

Advocates, coordinators or detectives? The implementation of the ‘Freedom to Speak Up Guardian’ role in NHS organisations

Professor Graham Martin, THIS Institute, University of Cambridge

Employee voice is an important source of organizational intelligence about possible problems in service quality and patient safety, but effective systems for encouraging and supporting those who seek to speak up have remained elusive. A recent innovation in the English National Health Service to encourage voice takes the form of a novel organisational role: the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian. Intended to provide guidance and support for individuals with concerns and nurture cultural change about the importance of speaking up, the role has attracted significant investment—but is as yet unevaluated. We aim to address this gap, and to derive formative lessons for other health systems seeking to foster voice. Our data are drawn from 51 interviews covering the acute hospital, mental health, community care and ambulance sectors of the English NHS, as well as wider stakeholders and commentators, including individuals occupying the Guardian role and those involved in developing, implementing and managing it. We find that for managers, and particularly Guardians themselves, there are challenges in implementing the role in the way envisaged in policy. Many managers were keen to ensure that it focused on clearly defined problems of quality and safety. Those in Guardian roles, however, reported that the role was difficult to delimit so tightly. Colleagues approached them with more wide-ranging concerns that were nascent or difficult-to-articulate. Some concerns were not, on the face of it, obviously quality- or safety-related, but they nevertheless required careful interrogation—and could yield important insights into their organizations. Our analysis suggests that the focus—and, potentially, the principal value—of roles of this kind may be less in supporting and protecting whistleblowers in demanding a response to allegations of wrongdoing, and more in helping those with lower-level worries to make sense of their concerns and what to do with them.

Graham Martin is Director of Research for THIS Institute, a new unit funded by the Health Foundation at the University of Cambridge to develop the evidence base for and impact of work to improve healthcare quality and safety, and Professor of Health Organisation and Policy in the SAPPHIRE Group, University of Leicester. His research focuses on social, organisational and professional issues in healthcare system change, with a particular focus on quality improvement work and policy initiatives to address quality, safety and risk in the NHS.Please note that parking at each of the venues is very limited; please consider alternative means of travel.

To register, please email mailto:penclahrc@exeter.ac.uk

Presentations from previous seminars are available here:
http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/learning-knowing-doing-lkd-seminar-series

Please note that this seminar may be recorded.

3.06, St Luke's

VC to MR12, John Bull Building, Plymouth Science Park & F083 The Knowledge Spa, Truro

Introductory-level process evaluation workshops - Spring 2019 - Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
These 90-minute workshops will introduce the basic principles of good process evaluation design. The three workshops are designed to build on each other, but you can attend only one if you wish.

1. Introduction to Process Evaluation
This workshop will introduce the key terms, concepts and design principles of process evaluation. It will also cover how to identify relevant research questions, select appropriate methods, and balance competing demands within a process evaluation.

2. Developing Theory and Logic Models for Process Evaluations    
The workshop will: outline the relevance of using a theory-based approach; discuss the practical application of different types of theory for process evaluation; demonstrate how logic models can be developed to underpin a good process evaluation; and discuss the benefits and challenges of using this approach.

3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
This workshop will: introduce the rationale for using data integration techniques; summarise different techniques for integrating qualitative and quantitative data and datasets; discuss the application of data integration for different types of trial and research question; and discuss how to deal with conflicting data.

For more information about process evaluation see: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/

Times and dates
The workshops will be held at 10:30-12:00 on the following dates:
1. Introduction to Process Evaluation - Wednesday 13 March
2. Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations - Thursday 21 March
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations - Thursday 28 March

Suitable for
Researchers and PhD students conducting process evaluations as part of randomised controlled trials. The workshops will assume basic familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research methods, and randomised controlled trials.

Registration
Please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk to register for one or more of the workshops. If you have any questions or want to discuss any accessibility requirements, please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk. Please bring a notebook/paper and a pen to the workshop(s).

WK Norman Room, Medical School Building, St Lukes Campus

Truro - Room F083, Knowledge Spa (via video-conference link)

Engaging large groups in Medical Education
Dr Andrew Pye
National Teaching Fellow, College of Life and Environmental Sciences
CEC Penryn Campus, University of Exeter

This seminar will explore strategies for engaging large groups. Engaging students and facilitating learning can be incredibly rewarding. As group size increases, engaging students can become more challenging. This seminar will discuss the challenges faced during large group teaching and offer some strategies for engaging our students in a large group setting.

Dr Andrew Pye is Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences. An innovative and enthusiastic educator, he supports colleagues across the University through facilitating the University’s Advance HE (HEA) accredited programmes (APP, PCAP and LTHE). He is also known for his work on academic tutoring and peer support. In 2018 Andrew was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship, the most prestigious individual teaching award in the UK, in recognition of his work promoting good practice in HE.

Programme:
Wednesday 27th March

• 12:15  Tea and coffee EMS G18 St Luke's Campus
• 12:30-13:15 Presentation: Engaging Large Groups in Medical Education (video linked to KSpa F10)
• 13.15-13:30 Q&A

G18, EMS Building, St Luke's

Video link to KSpa F10

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research related queries from within PenCLAHRC and the Institute for Health Research. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the University of Exeter Medical School with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors. To ensure that you gain the most from the clinic, please focus on clearly explaining one or two queries on which you would like to receive advice. We will send more guidance prior to your appointment on how to best use the time.

Introductory-level process evaluation workshops - Spring 2019 - Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations

These 90-minute workshops will introduce the basic principles of good process evaluation design. The three workshops are designed to build on each other, but you can attend only one if you wish.

1. Introduction to Process Evaluation
This workshop will introduce the key terms, concepts and design principles of process evaluation. It will also cover how to identify relevant research questions, select appropriate methods, and balance competing demands within a process evaluation.

2. Developing Theory and Logic Models for Process Evaluations    
The workshop will: outline the relevance of using a theory-based approach; discuss the practical application of different types of theory for process evaluation; demonstrate how logic models can be developed to underpin a good process evaluation; and discuss the benefits and challenges of using this approach.

3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
This workshop will: introduce the rationale for using data integration techniques; summarise different techniques for integrating qualitative and quantitative data and datasets; discuss the application of data integration for different types of trial and research question; and discuss how to deal with conflicting data.

For more information about process evaluation see: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/

Times and dates
The workshops will be held at 10:30-12:00 on the following dates:
1. Introduction to Process Evaluation - Wednesday 13 March
2. Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations - Thursday 21 March
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations - Thursday 28 March

Suitable for
Researchers and PhD students conducting process evaluations as part of randomised controlled trials. The workshops will assume basic familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research methods, and randomised controlled trials.

Registration
Please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk to register for one or more of the workshops. If you have any questions or want to discuss any accessibility requirements, please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk. Please bring a notebook/paper and a pen to the workshop(s).

WK Norman Room, Medical School Building, St Lukes Campus

Truro - Room F083, Knowledge Spa (via video-conference link)

Exercise Training for Chronic Heart Failure (ExTraMATCHII): our experience of performing an individual participant data meta-analysis
Dr Sarah Walker, Research Fellow, UEMS

AND

Completing a systematic review summarising screening tools used to predict physical frailty in adults aged 65 years and over. A dissertation project
Ellie Williams, BClinSci student, UEMS

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke's

Introductory-level process evaluation workshops - Spring 2019 - Introduction to Process Evaluation

These 90-minute workshops will introduce the basic principles of good process evaluation design. The three workshops are designed to build on each other, but you can attend only one if you wish.

1. Introduction to Process Evaluation
This workshop will introduce the key terms, concepts and design principles of process evaluation. It will also cover how to identify relevant research questions, select appropriate methods, and balance competing demands within a process evaluation.

2. Developing Theory and Logic Models for Process Evaluations    
The workshop will: outline the relevance of using a theory-based approach; discuss the practical application of different types of theory for process evaluation; demonstrate how logic models can be developed to underpin a good process evaluation; and discuss the benefits and challenges of using this approach.

3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations
This workshop will: introduce the rationale for using data integration techniques; summarise different techniques for integrating qualitative and quantitative data and datasets; discuss the application of data integration for different types of trial and research question; and discuss how to deal with conflicting data.

For more information about process evaluation see: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/

Times and dates
The workshops will be held at 10:30-12:00 on the following dates:
1. Introduction to Process Evaluation - Wednesday 13 March
2. Using Theory and Logic Models in Process Evaluations - Thursday 21 March
3. Integrating Data in Mixed Methods Process Evaluations - Thursday 28 March

Suitable for
Researchers and PhD students conducting process evaluations as part of randomised controlled trials. The workshops will assume basic familiarity with qualitative and quantitative research methods, and randomised controlled trials.

Registration
Please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk to register for one or more of the workshops. If you have any questions or want to discuss any accessibility requirements, please contact s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk. Please bring a notebook/paper and a pen to the workshop(s).

WK Norman Room, Medical School Building, St Lukes Campus

Truro - Room F083, Knowledge Spa (via video-conference link)

Applying the Change Laboratory method in practice to promote workplace learning
Workshop by Dr Anu Kajamaa
Associate Professor, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki

Anu Kajamma, PhD, is an Associate Professor and leads the Learning, Culture and Interventions (LECI) research community at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her activity-theoretical doctoral dissertation on health care change management was chosen as the Award winner by Emerald and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). She has conducted extensive collaborative research and intervention projects in health care in several countries, and produced multiple refereed publications in international health care and management journals. Recently, she received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation research funding for improving collaborative working between correctional services and mental health services. For more information please see her homepage: https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/portal/en/person/kajamaa, and the webpage of her research group: http://www.helsinki.fi/leci

• 09:00-10:30 Workshop  “Applying the Change Laboratory method in practice to promote workplace learning”, WK Norman, St Luke’s
• 11:00-13:00 Round table discussion around areas for collaboration with practioners and/or researchers at St Luke’s, WK Norman
• 13:00-13:30 Sandwich lunch, WK Norman

The Change Laboratory as a tool for collaborative development in health care
Presentation by Dr Anu Kajamaa
Associate Professor, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki

Anu Kajamma, PhD, is an Associate Professor and leads the Learning, Culture and Interventions (LECI) research community at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her activity-theoretical doctoral dissertation on health care change management was chosen as the Award winner by Emerald and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). She has conducted extensive collaborative research and intervention projects in health care in several countries, and produced multiple refereed publications in international health care and management journals. Recently, she received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation research funding for improving collaborative working between correctional services and mental health services. For more information please see her homepage: https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/portal/en/person/kajamaa, and the webpage of her research group: http://www.helsinki.fi/leci

• 13:15-13:45 Sandwich lunch, Seminar Room 9 RILD
• 13:45-14:45 Presentation “The Change Laboratory as a tool for collaborative development in health care”, Seminar Room 9 RILD
• 14:45-15:00 Q&A

Institute of Health Research

Health Statistics Group – Stats Advice Clinics

Brokering, bridging and bonding: the maturation of knowledge sharing and learning in applied health research?

Professor Justin Waring, Nottingham University
(Paper co-authored by Dr Rob Vickers)

The translational research agenda addresses gaps in knowledge creation, utilisation, and movement into the organisation and delivery of care. Many strategies and interventions have been developed to close these gaps and to share and co-produce knowledge across epistemic, cultural, and organisational boundaries. There has been much interest, for example, in how knowledge brokers can work across organisations and ‘get the right information to the right people at the right time’. But knowledge brokers can struggle to reconcile different forms of knowledge and manage competing expectations; research emphasises the importance of brokering activities or ‘chains’ involving inter-connected groups, rather than individual brokers.

In this project we examine shifts in knowledge brokering strategies and activities in applied health and care research. We delineate three different approaches to facilitating knowledge sharing and learning: 

1.    An individualised approach to translating knowledge, consistent with the knowledge broker concept. These often act like a metaphorical ‘boat’ for knowledge between disconnected communities; unlike existing studies we show this is a collective and dynamic activity, where groups of stakeholders ‘boat’ between different ‘entry and exit’ points.
2.    The development of more formal systems to facilitate knowledge exchange, from reporting procedures to computer systems. These allow for the systematic and standardised exchange of codified information but like a ‘bridge’ between two communities it involves relatively fixed ‘entry and exit’ points and considerable investment of resource.
3.    Efforts to nurture collaborative communities of practice, often building on brokering and bridging activities, in which different communities bond around shared knowledge and practices. This leads to the formation of new epistemic boundaries which support applied health research, but as with similar boundaries can be exclusionary of changing priorities.

The cumulative learning from these combined strategies can help close the gap between research and practice but there remains a risk that maturation involves ‘getting older’ without ‘getting wiser’.

Justin Waring is Professor of Organisational Sociology and Associate Dean for Research at Nottingham University Business School. He is also the lead for the ‘Implementing Evidence and Improvement’ Theme for NIHR CLAHRC-East Midlands, and the lead for the ‘Safer Care Systems and Transitions’ Theme for NIHR Greater Manchester-PSTRC. Dr Rob Vickers is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Information, Leadership and Learning, University of Nottingham. He is currently working on the Implementing Evidence and Improvement Theme for NIHR CLAHRC-East Midlands, examining knowledge brokering.

To register, please email mailto:penclahrc@exeter.ac.uk

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

Video conferenced to MR12, John Bull Building, Plymouth Science Park & F083 The Knowledge Spa, Truro

Radiological and Microbiological Challenges of Human Spaceflight

This is a good opportunity to pitch your early grant ideas for NIHR applications.

Please remember everyone is invited whether you are pitching or not.  Post Docs welcome to pitch or be part of the audience.

The aims of the event  are:

• To pitch early stage research ideas to develop proposals and connect with potential collaborators
• To pitch formed research proposals to receive funder specific feedback
• Provide the opportunity, as part of the audience, to gain knowledge of what is happening across the university
• Provide opportunity for networking across all career stages of the academic community.

Actions:

• Please email d.fardon@exter.ac.uk;  if you plan to attend.
• Please email d.fardon@exeter.co.uk;  if you are wanting further information about a pitching slot.

If you are thinking of pitching, please remember it  isn’t about the fine detail but:

• what is the question/problem
• why is it novel
• what is my approach to answering it
• why am I in a really good position to answer/tackle it now OR what support/advice are you looking for

These advice clinics have been set up to help to respond to qualitative research related queries from within PenCLAHRC and the Institute for Health Research. Whether you are a postgraduate student, an academic or a researcher who has a query about any phase of a qualitative project from design to writing up, you can book an appointment to speak with someone from the University of Exeter Medical School with general expertise in qualitative research who can advise and signpost. The clinics consist of 30-minute appointments with up to two advisors. To ensure that you gain the most from the clinic, please focus on clearly explaining one or two queries on which you would like to receive advice. We will send more guidance prior to your appointment on how to best use the time.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: https://store.exeter.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/nihr-clahrc-south-west-peninsula/qualitative-research-advice-clinic/26022019-qualitative-research-advice-clinic

PERSEPHONE; 6 vs. 12 months of adjuvant trastuzumab in patients with HER2+ early breast cancer: A cost effectiveness analysis.

Professor Claire Hulme
Health Economics Group, Institute of Health Research, UEMS

Adjuvant trastuzumab has significantly improved outcomes for HER2+ EBC, using the 12m duration empirically adopted from pivotal registration trials. Given an annual per patient cost of trastuzumab treatment of over £30,000, a shorter duration has the potential to improve cost-effectiveness if efficacy is maintained.

This cost-effectiveness analysis was based on data from the PERSEPHONE trial, a phase III non-inferiority RCT comparing 6 to 12m Trastuzumab, the largest reduced-duration non-inferiority trial internationally. A landmark analysis 6 months into treatment was conducted, comparing costs and quality of life throughout follow-up (6m – 24m post treatment start). Multiple imputation was required to impute incomplete quality of life data. Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) were adjusted for differences at baseline. Uncertainty is estimated using the non-parametric bootstrap method. 4009 patients were disease free at 6m (6m: n=2000, 12m: n=2009) and therefore eligible for the analysis. The average costs for an individual in the 6m arm and 12 month arm were £2,538.64 (95% CI: £2,383.38 - £2700.72) and £12,333.83 (95% CI: £12,098.58 - £12,562.27), respectively, giving an average cost saving of £9,793.25 (95% CI: £9,515.86 - £10,071.64) per individual. Trastuzumab treatment and administration accounted for £9,699.58 (95% CI: £9,436.20 - £9.954.67) of this cost saving, the remaining arising from cardiac assessment and treatment costs and inpatient days. The average QALYs for an individual in the 6m arm and 12 month arm were 1.146 (95% CI: 1.131 – 1.161) and 1.128 (95% CI: 1.113 – 1.144), respectively, giving an average QALY difference of 0.018 (95% CI: -0.003 – 0.039). Thus, the 6m arm dominated with a probability of being cost effective of 100%. 6m of Trastuzumab was shown to be cost effective compared to 12m with cost-savings and no evidence of a detriment to quality of life.

Authors: Hulme C, Hall P, Shinkins B, Chehadah F, McCabe C, Dunn J, Hiller L, Earl HM. This research was funded by the NIHR HTA Programme (06/303/98). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/2E9cYcg

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Institute of Health Research

Health Statistics Group – Stats Advice Clinics

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment

Dr Beverley Shields - Email: b.shields@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advic.

1-2pm

Should clinicians measure blood pressure in 2019?
Prof Richard McManus, Professor of Primary Care Research, University of Oxford

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

12.30-1.30pm

Refreshments available from 12 noon

Measuring site performance in multicenter randomized trials

Prof Alan Montgomery
Director of Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit and Professor of Medical Statistics and Clinical Trials

Large multicentre trials are complex and expensive projects. Researchers focus great efforts on achieving recruitment targets, but this alone does not ensure overall success of a study. Other important factors include how well sites retain participants, and whether they can collect high quality, complete data in a timely manner. There is no consensus on the key metrics that should be used to measure site performance. A standardised set of clear and accessible summaries of site performance could facilitate early identification and resolution of potential problems, minimising their impact.
We used a comprehensive, mixed methods approach that we adapted from the COMET Initiative for developing core outcome sets in order to identify potential metrics and achieve consensus about the final set. I will present methods and results of the different phases of the project, demonstrate a practical tool that we developed to display key metrics during a study, and discuss future use and evaluation of the core set.

For further information please contact: j.jacob@exeter.ac.uk

****Unfortunately it has become necessary to postpone this seminar, but we hope that you will be able to join us when it is rescheduled***

Severity Adjusted Probability Of Being Cost-Effective: A Novel Approach To Integrate Severity And Cost-Effectiveness With Applications To Norway And The Netherlands

Dr Matthijs Versteegh
Institute for Medical Technology Assessment, Erasmus University of Rotterdam

In the context of priority setting, a differential cost-effectiveness threshold can be used to reflect a higher societal willingness-to-pay for Quality Adjusted Life Year gains in the worse off. This can reflect distributional concerns for particular groups, such as those who are more severely ill. Now that more countries use such a framework –Norway and The Netherlands have formally adopted it - applying the framework correctly becomes even more important. In order to operationalize a decision model with severity-based thresholds, one needs to define severity and estimate it in the context of treatments. An often ignored issue in this context is the uncertainty surrounding estimates of severity. However, since all estimates of severity, which subsequently translate into higher or lower thresholds, are surrounded with uncertainty, this should be adequately dealt with. In his talk for Exeter staff, Matthijs will present a new method to integrate ‘severity based thresholds’ with cost-effectiveness models. He will also show a simple tool to calculate QALY losses for the UK, including uncertainty.

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/2E9cYcg

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

4.00-5.30pm

Tea & coffee available from 3.30pm

Rapid control of moderate and severe hypertension: safety and efficacy
Andrew Jordan
Consultant Cardiologist, Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Physical activity and cardiac rehabilitation in heart failure
Grace Dibben
PhD Student, University of Exeter Medical School

JS07, Smeall Building, St Lukes

Video linked to Rm F10 Knowledge Spa, Truro

How do applicants from different social backgrounds choose which medical schools to apply to?

Eliot Rees is a PhD student in the Research Department at UCL Medical School working with Dr Katherine Woolf and whose research explores which factors influence applicants from different backgrounds choice of medical schools.  His doctoral research is exploring how applicants from different social backgrounds chose which medical schools to apply to.  He has undertaken a national qualitative interview study of applicants and medical students at eight UK medical schools, exploring what factors influence their choice.

Programme:

14:30-15:30 Festive mince pies, tea and coffee served in gallery outside South Cloister 3.06

15:00-15:45 Presentation by keynote speaker Eliot Rees: ‘How do applicants from different social backgrounds choose which medical schools to apply to?’

15:45-16:00 Q&A

How does ‘implementation’ in process evaluation relate to the ‘implementation studies’ field? With Vashti Berry

Advanced-level round-table seminars on process evaluation

1-3pm

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic
appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Gary Abel - Email: G.A.Abel@exeter.ac.uk

1-2pm

Maximising the university setting for knowledge mobilization in health services research: Co-production of an online educational resource with GPs in training

Dr Jessica Sheringham, Senior Research Associate, UCL

Jessica will present a study she has led to improve diagnostic decision making in future primary care clinicians. This work, funded by the NIHR Cancer, Awareness Screening and Early Diagnosis PRU, originated in a study to understand how GPs make decisions to investigate lung cancer. It led to the co-creation of an online educational resource using simulated patients with common symptoms that might be cancer. The resource – eCREST – was co-created with GP registrars and has been tested in three medical schools. The talk will use this example to focus on: the range of opportunities in university settings for knowledge mobilisation; the tension between a REF focus on the impact of knowledge generation vs. genuine co-creation of resources with partners; and the tension between students’ and educators’ wish to provide a ‘right answer’ vs. the clinical reality of diagnostic uncertainty.

Dr Jessica Sheringham is a Senior Research Associate at UCL, a member of NIHR CLAHRC North Thames Research Partnership Team, and a Consultant in Public Health. She uses mixed methods to study determinants of implementation. Her current work includes studies on improving pathways to a cancer diagnosis, self-management in asthma, and maximising the value of linked data. She also works on professional education and training and has developed online courses in screening, evidence-based practice, and clinical reasoning for Masters and medical students; co-written Mastering Public Health, a leading textbook on public health; and is an Examiner for the Faculty of Public Health international membership exams.

To register, please email penclahrc@exeter.ac.uk

Presentations from previous seminars are available here:
http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/learning-knowing-doing-lkd-seminar-series

Please note that this seminar may be recorded.

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

Video conferenced to MR8, John Bull Building, Plymouth Science Park & F083 The Knowledge Spa, Truro

1-2pm

Exploring the role of peer-led group-based interventions in the care of adult sexual abuse survivors
Judit Konya, UEMS Academic Clinical Fellow
AND
To beet or not to beet? That is the question – a brief review of dietary nitrate as a potential ergogenic and therapeutic aid
Sinead McDonagh, UEMS Research Fellow

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

12.30-1.30pm

(Refreshments available from 12 noon)

Danish Centre for Intervention Research - building a scientific evidence base for health promotion and disease prevention through intervention research in real world settings

Crafting Communities of Health: The Work of Hope in Aging Japan

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic
appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

4-5.30pm

Tea & coffee available from 3.30pm

What is the difference between realist evaluation and process evaluation? With Daisy Parker

Advanced-level round-table seminars on process evaluation

No need to register for the seminars. These seminars will assume some knowledge of process evaluation and/or the other topics being discussed.

A list of all the workshops and seminars is available on this webpage: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/ihrprocessevaluation/events-seminars-and-training/

Mixed-method mediation analysis for process evaluation With Obi Ukoumunne

Advanced-level round-table seminars on process evaluation

Academy of Nursing

Annual Seminar Series

No Health without Mental Health

Why do we separate mental health and physical health and what are we doing to bring them together?
Mental health and physical health are in reality conjoined twins. Our mental wellbeing affects our physical health and our physical state has a huge impact on our mental health. And yet we often treat them as if our minds and bodies live on different planets. Come and hear how local initiatives are bridging the gap between mental and physical health, in particular improving mental wellbeing for people with long-term conditions.

Speakers:

• Jonny Wilkins, Clinical Team Lead, Talking Health - DAS Long Term Conditions Team, Devon Partnership NHS Trust
• Emma Tucker, Service Manager, Liaison Psychiatry Service, Devon Partnership NHS Trust
• Marie Ash, Peer Support Worker, Devon Partnership NHS Trust and Joint Lead, Devon and Torbay Suicide Prevention Alliance

For further information and to book your place for this Seminar, please email Marte Lavender: m.lavender@exeter.ac.uk

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: https://store.exeter.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/nihr-clahrc-south-west-peninsula/qualitative-research-advice-clinic
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 7 working days prior to the event.

Cancer diagnosis trials in primary care – ECASS and ERICA
Professor Willie Hamilton, Professor of Primary Care Diagnostics

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

Health technology adoption in Canada: moving from appraisal to optimization

Dr Jeff Round
Institute of Health Economics, Alberta, Canada

This seminar will discuss how reimbursement and technology approval organisations are expanding the remit of health technology appraisal from narrow questions of health technology appraisals (HTA) to wider questions of health technology optimization (HTO). Typically decisions about whether or not some technology, intervention or programme should be funded are expressed as either a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. This approach works well in cases where an intervention and its effects are both clearly defined and limited in scope. Health technology appraisal bodies such as NICE or CADTH frequently evaluate technologies in this fashion. In the Canadian province or Alberta, the HTA body responsible for such decisions is increasingly exploring decision making processes that go beyond individual appraisals to focus on wider questions of technology optimization. Jeff Round will draw on recent experience in Alberta of an appraisal and optimization programme around services for the treatment and rehabilitation of people who have suffered an ischemic stroke. He will illustrate the impact that focusing on optimization can have for a health system, and the challenges for analysts in moving to more complex decision making processes.

Please register your attendance at https://bit.ly/2E9cYcg

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Integrating data in mixed methods process evaluations

Introductory-level training workshop

To register or discuss any accessibility requirements, please email  s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk

8.40-11.45am

1.00-2.00pm

Professor Tony Avery, Professor of Primary Health Care, University of Nottingham is coming to Exeter on Wednesday 26 September to co-host with Professor Jose Valderas, Professor of Health Services & Policy Research, UEMS, an APEx/AHSN-sponsored workshop on Patient Safety “Measuring Patient Safety in General Practice: the NIHR Patient Safety Toolkit Project and related initiatives” from 08.40 registration/coffee--11.45 (with lunch for those registered for workshop).

This will be followed by an APEx seminar by Professor Avery “Making a difference with your research: towards improving patient safety in primary care“ at 13.00.

All are welcome to attend both but as coffee and lunch have to be ordered for the workshop please email me to register as soon as possible if you wish to attend. Feel free to circulate this email if you have colleagues who you think would be interested in attending.

Developing theory and logic models for process evaluations

Introductory-level training workshop

Introduction to process evaluation

Introductory-level training workshop

Process evaluation for non-RCT studies

Introductory-level training workshop

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

With videolink to
F083, European Centre for Environment & Human Health, Knowledge Spa, Truro
Meeting Room 8, John Bull Building, Plymouth Science Park

1-4pm

Refreshments on arrival at 12.30pm

Joint RSS South West Local Group and Exeter Health Statistics Event

Seminar

Methodological Advances in Evidence Synthesis

Institute of Health Research

Joint Seminar with Heath Statistics Group (UEMS) and Genetics Group

Don’t take it personally: careful causal analysis of claims for personalised medicine is long overdue

Psychosocial interventions in cardiovascular disease
Professor David Thompson, Professor of Nursing, Queen’s University Belfast

Email: j.l.Choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place

For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke's

(VC to F083, Knowledge Spa)

Over Homer's Dead Body - Rejuvenating Medical Education. Seeking Help from Homer

Keynote speakers Robert Marshall and Alan Bleakley discuss their book ‘Rejuvenating Medical Education. Seeking Help from Homer’, in which the authors return to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey for inspiration, using these epics as a medium through which to “think otherwise” about key issues in contemporary medicine and medical education.

WK Norman, St Luke's

The At-Risk Registers Integrated into primary care to Stop Asthma crises in the UK (ARRISA-UK) trial: progress and plans for future work

Dr Jane Smith, Senior Lecturer in Primary Care
Dr Leon Poltawskiand Rachel Winder, ARRISA-UK Research Fellows, UEMS

The At-Risk Registers Integrated into primary care to Stop Asthma crises in the UK (ARRISA-UK) study is an ongoing UK-wide cluster randomised trial involving 270 GP practices that is investigating the effectiveness of a GP-practice level intervention in reducing severe attacks amongst high-risk asthma patients. Come and hear about study progress and plans for process evaluation work being led by members of APEx.

Email: j.l.Choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke's

(VC to F083, Knowledge Spa)

12-1pm

Workshop 2-4pm

Creative Communication Seminar Series - Graphic Medicine

Ian Williams is a comics artist, physician and writer, now living in Brighton. He has studied Medicine, Medical Humanities and Fine Art and founded the website GraphicMedicine.org, coining the term that has been applied to the interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare.

Daniel Locke is an artist and graphic novelist based in Brighton. Since 2013 much of his work has been informed and shaped by the discoveries of contemporary science. He's worked with Nobrow, Arts Council England, The Wellcome Trust and The National Trust.
We will begin with a talk by the artists about their work and how they address the challenges of communicating their ideas. Later Ian and Dan will lead a fun comic-book workshop where they will walk you through some of the skills and strategies they use in their books.

To book a place: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-communication-seminar-series-graphic-medicine-tickets-45509632536

2.13, South Cloisters, St Luke's.

Methodology Guidance – Where are the methods?

There is an increasing stream of published “methodology  guidance” covering the conduct and reporting of almost every kind of observational study, randomised trial, systematic review and meta-analysis. In some cases, journals require that this guidance is followed as a condition for publication. But what are the methods that generate this guidance?

Using Network Meta-analysis (NMA) as an example, we look at guidance issued by GRADE (Grading of Recommendations  Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis). We find that, in common with the majority of “methodology guidance”, the GRADE and PRIMA extensions for Network Meta-analysis are based on no more than opinion, and issued without any explicit empirical or theoretical underpinning. We identify aspects of GRADE-NMA and PRSIMA-NMA that are incorrect or even incoherent, and illustrate alternatives.

The current approach to methodology guidance is leading to ossification and hegemonism, and feeds a “post-truth” agenda in which the investigator’s priority is conformity with guidelines rather than a search for scientific truth. We distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive methodology guidance, and suggest that a debate is needed on what form methodology guidance should take.

Tony is a Professor of Public Health Science at Bristol Medical School. Trained as a psychologist, influenced by structural linguistics, he eventually became an epidemiologist and statistician interested fitting things together.

For further information please email ESMI@exeter.ac.uk or refer to the weblink

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Dr Fiona Warren - Email: F.C.Warren@exeter.ac.uk

Data, Patients, Action!  Patient involvement in knowledge mobilisation in a Learning Health System
Sarah Knowles, University of Manchester

A Learning Healthcare System (LHS), which uses routinely collected data to enable rapid, potentially real time knowledge mobilisation, is being developed across the North of England through the Connected Health Cities programme. The LHS aims to use electronic health data to better integrate services, and identify and deliver rapid and sustained service improvements. Patients themselves are intended to be central to a high functioning LHS, but it is unclear what this could or should look like in practice. In this talk, I will argue that patients can contribute directly to both the ‘data’ and the ‘action’ stages of LHS improvement cycles. I will present findings from qualitative and co-design research projects exploring patient involvement in two Connected Health City themes of work, Stroke Care and Community Wound Care. The two cases illustrate how patient involvement can inform decisions about what data is collected and prioritised for improvement, and how patients can contribute to implementing changes and evaluating impacts to inform further learning. They also demonstrate the need to tailor opportunities for involvement to different patient groups. I will use the findings to illustrate the value of qualitative research, stakeholder involvement and implementation science in helping to address the barriers and realise the opportunities of LHS’s in practice.

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's

VC to to F083, Knowledge Spa, Truro

12.30-1.30pm

(Tea/coffee available from 12 noon)

The value of theoretically informed and methodologically rigorous qualitative process evaluation – more than barriers and facilitators.

Dr Julia Frost

Julia Frost is a Senior Lecturer in the Third Gap research group, which explores the ways in which evidence based treatments and management strategies are used (or not) in patients’ everyday lives, and the ways in which research evidence is used, understood, and contributed to by members of the public.

The Rehabilitation Enablement in Chronic Heart Failure (REACH-HF) intervention was developed to optimise self-care support for people with heart failure (HF) and their caregivers. A multi-centre randomised trial was conducted, and a qualitative process evaluation was undertaken to establish the fidelity of the intervention and characterise patients and carers observed and self-reported responses to the intervention. Findings suggest that the effectiveness of the intervention is contingent upon optimal alignment of trial ‘elements’ and demonstrates the need for process evaluations to integrate data from multiple sources to explain in which contexts and circumstances interventions work best.

ALL STAFF AND STUDENTS ARE WELCOME
Enquiries to Jo Jacob (J.Jacob@exeter.ac.uk)

APEx Seminar Series

Why do people with long-term conditions get depression: unpicking the neurocognitive mechanisms

Professor Chris Dickens
Professor of Psychological Medicine UEMS

Why do people with long-term conditions get depression: unpicking the neurocognitive mechanisms
Professor Dickens will present findings from a preliminary study of emotional processing among people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He will report how negative bias in the way individuals perceive emotions in others is linked to disease activity. This bias in emotional recognition could be used to further investigate mechanisms underpinning depression in future studies and in the development and evaluation of novel interventions for depression.

Email: j.l.Choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place

For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

Clinical Education Seminar

How Policy and Research Can Inform Each Other

Tim Swanwick, Dean of Education and Leadership Development, Health Education England

Research and policy have a complex and, at times difficult relationship. Policy makers and researchers inhabit very different worlds, operate to different timescales and are spurred on by different sets of incentives. Academics are frequently disappointed when research evidence is considered only a minor factor, and occasionally disregarded, when policies are formulated, trialled and implemented. Similarly, policy makers are often frustrated by a lack of rigorous and relevant research evidence available to them within the time constraints of the policy cycle. In this interactive and participatory workshop we will consider the nature of policy, the different ways in which research may influence the policy process - and vice versa - and how researchers may be more impactful in the work that they do.

Tim Swanwick
Tim works across Health Education England, the NHS Leadership Academy and local leadership academy partners providing a national focus on clinical leadership development and leading on portfolio of projects from academic careers, to workforce transformation. Tim has worked in the NHS for over 30 years and in health professions education since the early 1990s, most recently as a Postgraduate Dean in London. He has a wide variety of academic interests including work-based learning, faculty development, professional support, academic training and clinical leadership and in addition to his work with Health Education England, Tim is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at University College London, Imperial College and Queen Mary University of London. A general practitioner by clinical background, Tim has researched and published widely both in his specialty and clinical education. His publications include the textbook Understanding Medical Education (2018, 2013 and 2010), Clinical Teaching Made Easy (2010) and the ABC of Clinical Leadership (2017 and 2010). Tim is regularly invited to present at healthcare education conferences including recent appearances in Helsinki (Finland), Barcelona (Spain), Washington (USA), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Copenhagen (Denmark), Lund (Sweden), Prague (Czech Republic), Toronto (Canada), Kyoto (Japan) and Singapore. Overseas consultancy has included work in Oman, Japan, Myanmar and South Africa.

Please register at Eventbrite (free): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-policy-and-research-can-inform-each-other-tim-swanwick-tickets-44545385447

Learning, Knowing, Doing Series

The art of compromise: Collaboration between researchers and practitioners to co-produce applied health research

Roman Kislov, University of Manchester

Involving stakeholders and ‘research users’ in the design and implementation of applied health research is widely regarded as important. Such ‘co-production’ can be challenging because of the contrasting interests, perspectives, and needs of those involved. Drawing on experience of a large-scale UK-based collaborative research partnership across the NHS, third sector, and university, Roman will discuss how these challenges can be overcome through joint working, negotiation, and compromise and reflect on how such compromises influence the design, focus, and overall impact of applied health research.
 
Dr Roman Kislov is Senior Research Fellow in the University of Manchester and a Visiting Fellow in Queensland University of Technology. He conducts qualitative research on the processes and practices of knowledge mobilisation with a particular interest in communities of practice, intermediary roles, organisational learning, and implementation of change.

To register, please email: penclahrc@exeter.ac.uk

Please note that this seminar may be recorded

Creative Communications Seminar

Creative Communications Seminar: Reaching New Audiences.

Tara Lamont and Kirsty Heber-Smith

Tara Lamont is deputy director of the NIHR Dissemination Centre which promotes NIHR and other research findings to decision-makers in health and care. Tara will be talking about ways of reaching non-academic audiences, tailoring outputs and using appropriate platforms and approaches to improve the reach and impact of research.

Kirsty Heber-Smith, science communicator from the University of Oxford will be giving a talk on the university’s digital interactive platform Oxford Sparks and how researchers can use social media to interact with a new audience.

Kirsty will then lead a Q&A session from 2–3 pm.

To book a place - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-communication-seminar-series-tickets-44033368992

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/conferences-events/nihr-clahrc-south-west-peninsula/qualitative-research-advice-clinic

Health Statistics Group –
Stats Advice Clinics

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Sue Ball - Email: S.Ball3@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

APEx seminar

A randomised trial of the addition of mirtazapine for patients with depression in primary care who have not responded to antidepressant treatment.

Dr David Kessler
Reader in Primary Care, Bristol Medical School

Antidepressants are often the first line of treatment for major depression, but only half of those treated with a single drug respond. For patients in primary care who had not responded to a single antidepressant, we investigated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of combining mirtazapine with Serotonin-Noradrenaline Reuptake Inhibitor (SNRI) or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. This two parallel-group multi-centre, placebo controlled, randomised trial recruited 480 participants aged over 17 years with treatment resistant depression. The results of this trial will be presented.

Join us afterwards for our informal monthly APEx meeting: updates on progress in APEx and networking (refreshments will be served)

Email: j.l.Choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place

For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

Learning, Knowing, Doing Series

Seminar

Staging evidence: the implications of clinical mindlines for knowledge mobilisation
Kate Beckett, University of the West of England

Kate’s background is in Nursing, Midwifery, Anthropology and Psychology. She currently holds a NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation (KM) Research Fellowship. Her KM research at the interface between academia and practice focusses on traumatic injuries and their psychological impact.

Kate’s NIHR KM fellowship project entitled ‘Enhancing Post-injury Psychological Care (EPPIC)’- uses a form of participatory theatre called Forum Theatre as a medium for knowledge mobilisation. Her work involves NHS patients and practitioners in creative activities/co-production and aims to integrate research evidence with patient and practitioner experience to bring about service improvement. Based on Gabbay and Le May’s work on mindlines, Kate’s work challenges the way in which knowledge is used to inform effective practice and she will explore this with the audience.

To register, please email penclahrc@exeter.ac.uk

Please note that this seminar may be recorded

SPOtting Cancer among comorbidities (SPOC): do pre-existing conditions delay diagnosis of cancer?
Dr Luke Mounce, DISCO, UEMS

Time-dependent variation of PRO measurements in patients with chronic health conditions: A systematic scoping review
Antoinette Davey, PhD Researcher, Health Services & Policy Research Group, UEMS

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

Dr Michael Tvilling Madsen
Center for Surgical Science, Department of Surgery, Zealand University Hospital.
Graduat School of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

Michael’s research has a predominant focus on patient reported outcomes in surgical and medical patients. Sleep, circadian rhythm, depression and anxiety have been his primary areas of expertise in patients with cancer and following acute coronary syndrome. He has been involved in 2 randomized controlled trials investigating Melatonin of which he was the sponsor/investigator of the MEDACIS trial (NCT02451293). Ongoing research involves cohort studies using repeated measured design in patients with colorectal cancer.

About the MEDACIS trial
Depression and depressive symptoms are prevalent and represent a heavy burden for affected patients following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The prevalence of depression have consistently been shown to be around 20%, however, depressive symptoms have been reported as high as 50% assessed with depression questionnaires. The MEDACIS trial tested Melatonin as primary prophylaxis for prevention of depression in patients following ACS over a 12 week period. The seminar will present the primary findings of the MEDACIS trial.

ALL STAFF AND STUDENTS ARE WELCOME
Enquiries to Sarah Dean (S.Dean@exeter.ac.uk) or Jo Jacob (J.Jacob@exeter.ac.uk)

Campbell Collaboration : Better evidence for a better world

Dr. Vivian Welch, Editor in Chief of the Campbell Collaboration, will introduce the types of evidence synthesis conducted by the Campbell Collaboration across social sciences including international development, social welfare, crime & justice, education and knowledge translation and implementation, including their impact.

She will also describe ongoing research on an evidence gap map of ageing and current research being led by the Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods Group.

Vivian is a Clinical Epidemiology Methodologist at the Bruyère Research Institute, lead of the BRI Method Centre, Assistant Professor at University of Ottawa, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Health, University of Ottawa.  Vivian's research interests include systematic reviews, health equity, global health, knowledge translation and clinical guidelines.

EQ5D: 3L, 5L what the L?

This seminar aims to explores how to create engaging oral presentations. Jointly delivered by Michelle Ryan from the University of Exeter and Giles Yeo from the University of Cambridge, this seminar will showcase different approaches to engaging your audience and making oral presentations less dull. The seminar will be followed by a workshop led by Giles Yeo entitled ‘Why, How, What?’ in which participants will have the opportunity to put into practice the tips they’ve learnt in the seminar.  Can you come up with a ‘Why, How, What?’ for your project for a non-expert audience?  Can you do that in 10 seconds or less? Come along and find out more!

Michelle Ryan, Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Exeter.
Giles Yeo, Principal Research Associate in Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge (and occasional TV presenter).

To book a place - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-communication-creating-engaging-oral-communications-tickets-42121839556

The good the bad and the ugly – what we really do when we identify the best and the worst organisations?

Community-based social innovations for healthy ageing: evidence from middle income countries

Dr Emma Pitchforth, Senior Research Fellow in Primary Care, UEMS

For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

Supporting applied health services through knowledge translation: The Canadian scene

Professor Anita Kothari, Western University

Anita Kothari is an Associate Professor with the School of Health Studies at Western University in Ontario. She is interested in understanding how to best support the use of research and knowledge in healthcare decision-making, with a particular focus on integrated knowledge translation. Anita is also interested in public health systems and services research.

In this talk, she will discuss the concepts of knowledge mobilisation, knowledge translation and implementation science from the Canadian context. She will use examples from her research to illustrate the nuances of integrated knowledge translation in contrast to co-production approaches.

To register, please email penclahrc@exeter.ac.uk

3.06, South Cloisters, St Luke's Campus.

Videoconferenced to MR8, John Bull Building, Plymouth and F083, The Knowledge Spa, Truro.

Increasing value and reducing waste in implementation research

Jeremy Grimshaw, Ottowa Hospital Research Institute

Seeing the forest and the trees – getting more value out of systematic reviews of complex interventions

Jeremy Grimshaw, Ottowa Hospital Research Institute

A life with no Windows. A 12 month exploration into living in an Open Science world, outside of the Intellectual Property kingdom

Dr Mike Allen
Senior Modeller, PenCHORD

How free are you to share what you work on? How free are others to use what you have learned? How much, in academia, do we really freely share what we learn with wider society?

Free Open Source Software (FOSS) is a movement that advocates free sharing of knowledge. In this short seminar I will talk about my experience of trying to make everything I do freely available to others, from data, to software, to research (the algorithms we used and developed), to publication. I won’t try and tell you what choices you should make. Rather, I shall share my experiences of trying to work in a world that uses and shares knowledge completely freely (thankfully very, but not completely, positive).

I will talk about what it is like to try and live in the academic community without Microsoft Windows and Office, or Apple OSX, or any other commercial software.

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Dr Sarah Walker. Please email: s.walker@exeter.ac.uk

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Justin Matthews - Email: J.N.Matthews@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

The Annual Barbara Starfield Lecture will this year be on Thursday 7 December at 18.30 on St Luke’s Campus and be presented by Professor Amanda Howe, Professor of Primary Care, Norwich Medical School and President of World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA).

Mental health in GP/patient consultations

Dr Joe Ford, Postdoctoral Research Associate, UEMS with Professor Rose McCabe and Professor Katrina Wyatt

The DeSTRESS project is an investigation into the pathologisationof stress in low-income communities. Preliminary findings will be presented: ways in which GPs diagnose and treat MH problems; ways in which they ask patients to self-refer to MH services; and general conversational styles adopted in interactions. The team would also welcome attendees’ views and observations.

Email: j.l.Choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place.

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes 7 working days prior to the event.

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Associate Professor Obi Ukoumunne - Email: O.C.Ukoumunne@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

Randomised controlled trials of behavioural interventions: lessons learned and current work at the Health Behaviour Change Research Group at NUI Galway

Drs Elaine Toomey & Molly Byrne, National University of Ireland, Galway

Researchers and staff interested in Wellcome Trust funding are invited to attend a funding presentation and afternoon sessions with the Wellcome Trust research services team.

During the funding presentation members of the team will provide an update on current and future opportunities, and be available to answer questions from the audience.

Please note: later in the day we will also be running smaller, focused sessions on:

• Biomedical research funding (13.30 - 15.00)
• Medical humanities and social sciences (13.30 - 15.00)
• Population health (15.00 - 16.00)
• Public engagement (15.00 - 16.00)

Enhancing the social and cultural relevance of interventions

Professor Sally Wyke
Deputy Director of Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Research Professor at the University of Glasgow

The evidence and theory supporting innovation in behaviour change interventions are building at an exciting pace but the scale of the international public health challenge remains enormous.  In this presentation Sally argues that if, in intervention development and research, we pay even more attention to the essentially social nature of health-related behaviours, and if we recognise and work with the cultural context within which health and other behaviours are enacted and reformulated over time, we can improve both the reach and effectiveness of our programmes.  In essence, we argue for greater integration of what Wright-Mills called the ‘sociological imagination’ into programme development. 

To make this case we draw, amongst other evidence, on our experience of developing and evaluating the ‘Fans in Training’ set of programmes, the first of which is the highly successful, award-winning, Football Fans in Training (FFIT) programme.  FFIT is gender-sensitised in relation to context (the traditionally male environment of football clubs and men only groups), content (information about the science of weight loss presented simply, discussion of alcohol and its potential role in weight management, and branding with club insignia), and style of delivery (participative with time devoted to interaction amongst participants for vicarious learning and mutual support).  This, and subsequent programmes in professional sports and faith-based settings we are developing, are explicitly designed to work with rather than against existing cultural identities in attracting and engaging participants in change and, through multiple opportunities for interaction, to support long-term change and the negotiation of new, more ‘healthful’ identities.

Sally concludes that a more interdisciplinary approach to the development and delivery of health improvement programmes can both enhance their reach and effectiveness and potentially contribute to wider scale cultural change at a societal level.  

Hunt, K, Wyke, S, Gray, CM, Anderson, A, Brady, A, Bunn, C, Donnan, PT, Fenwick, E, Grieve, E, Leishman, J, Miller, E, Mutrie, N, Rauchhaus, P, White, A & Treweek, S (2014) ‘A gender-sensitised weight loss and healthy living programme for overweight and obese men delivered by Scottish Premier League football clubs (FFIT): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.’ The Lancet. Vol 383. April 5.

For further information please contact j.frost@exeter.ac.uk

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Professor William Henley - Email: W.E.Henley@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Sharing medicine

Dr Richard Lehman, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Birmingham

Dr Richard Lehman is the editor of the"Sharing Medicine" series in JAMA Internal Medicine. In his view the future of medicine cannot consist simply of big data processed by big machines, with clinicians standing back and accepting the printouts. Of course, the analysis of information in many databases may well produce important advances in knowledge and treatment, but these advances will invariably have to be made meaningful through a process of shared understanding. Such understanding begins with clinicians as individuals. It is shared between clinicians within our community of learning and practice. It is shared with patients in every clinical encounter. The future of medicine lies in sharing medicine. The talk will expand on these themes.

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

2-5pm

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Dr Beverley Shields,
Email: b.shields@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

1.00-4.30pm

There will be a training session covering all aspects of postgraduate research (PGR – MPhil/PhD/MD/MByRes) supervision to be held on the afternoon of Tuesday 19th September from 1 p.m. until 4.30 p.m. in Smeall, JS07 at St Lukes, Exeter.  Whilst the session is primarily aimed at new/less experienced supervisors (and people who would like to become supervisors) and those people who have recently arrived at Exeter, current more experienced supervisors are also very welcome.

To register and for further information please contact Nick Chruch N.J.Church@exeter.ac.uk.

1pm

Alison Marsh from the Royal College of General Practitioners is coming to Exeter to talk about the RCGP Impact from Research. She will give a short seminar and then be available for one-to-one meetings (booked in advance through Joy) to discuss this initiative.

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk

12-1pm

Frailty: Recent clinical advances and next steps for research

Dr Andy Clegg, Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Geriatrician, University of Leeds and Bradford Teaching Hospitals.

Andy led the development, validation and national implementation of an electronic frailty index (eFI) using routine primary care electronic health record data from around 900,000 patients in the ResearchOne and THIN databases as part of the NIHR CLAHRC YH programme. He is PI for the Home-based Extended Rehabilitation for Older People (HERO) trial, which is a multi-centre RCT evaluation of a home-based exercise intervention for older people with frailty after acute illness or injury (n=718), funded by the NIHR HTA programme. The HERO trial is a collaboration between the University of Leeds and University of Exeter.

Andy is also joint PI for an NIHR Programme Grant to optimise and evaluate personalised care planning to improve quality of life for older people with frailty, which will lead to a definitive cluster RCT evaluation involving 2,000 participants across 40 general practices. He is also PI for the Community Ageing Research 75+ (CARE 75+) study, which is a multi-site prospective cohort study using a 'Trial within Cohort' design to investigate frailty, disability and quality of life trajectories in older age, and evaluate interventions (target n=1,000).The CARE 75+ study is funded by the NIHR CLAHRC YH programme, with Vicki Goodwin as local PI in the South West. Andy also led the authorship of a highly cited Lancet review on frailty in elderly people http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)62167-9/abstract

Please let Vicki Goodwin know if you plan to attend v.goodwin@exeter.ac.uk

9.30am-12.30pm

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Institute of Health Research

Health Economics Group

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

Health Statistics Group –
Stats Advice Clinics

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following
sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment

Dr Lauren Rodgers
Email: L.R.Rodgers@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

PenCHORD Seminar

Physician scheduling in hospitals. From theory to practice using decision support tools
Professor Jens O. BrunnerUniversity of Augsburg, Germany

Abstract: In order to cope with steadily increasing healthcare costs, hospitals try to schedule their staff (e.g. physicians, nurses, logistics assistants, etc.) efficiently and effectively. We consider practical and theoretical physician scheduling problems at large teaching hospitals in Germany. In particular, we model the problem of duty-and workstation assignments and show appropriate methodologies to find solutions. The problems are constraint by union contracts as well as individual agreements between the hospital and the employees. To promote for job satisfaction, we take into account fairness and preference considerations. Regarding the practical side of physician scheduling, we present the status of the software development which is in use since 2015. Finally, we discuss lessons learned from the project and highlight some barriers when it comes to real implementation of decision support systems in practice.

Bio: Jens Brunner has been permanently appointed as Professor of Health Care Operations & Health Information Management at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Augsburg (Germany) in March 2013.Since July 2016 he is co-director of the University Centerfor Health Care at KlinikumAugsburg (UNIKA-T). He received a PhD from the TUM School of Management in 2009 and a diploma degree in Business Administration from the University of Mannheim in 2006. His research interests centeron design and analysis of service systems using quantitative methods, a special focus is on processes in health care. He is Associate Editor for Operations Research for Health Care and has published in IIE Transaction, Health Care Management Science and European Journal of Operational Research.

This seminar is organised by PenCHORD – the Peninsula Collaboration for Health Operational Research and Development. Please contact s.rachuba@exeter.ac.uk should you have any queries.

Seminar

Measuring and improving the quality of NHS care for children and young people: where do we go next?

APEx Seminar

Jaheeda Gangannagaripalli, Researcher, Health Services & Policy Research Group, University of Exeter Medical School

&

Optimising Interventional Treatment of Tennis Elbow

Jonathan Evans, MD Student, Health Services & Policy Research, UEMS & Orthopaedic Registrar

IHR Seminar

Creative Communication: To blog or not to blog - is blogging right for me?

As part of the 'Creative Communication: seminar and workshop series’ André Tomlin (@Mental¬Elf), Caron Sprake (@CaronCares2) and Andrew McRae (@McRaeAndrew a head of department’s blog) will be talking about their blogs why they use them, their experiences in setting up and maintenance, and sharing some top tips for blogging and how to make the most of digital technology. So, if you want a clear and fun introduction to the importance of blogs and social media - this is the talk for you!

This seminar will be followed by a practical ‘how to’ workshop hosted by André Tomlin. Please make sure you indicate your interest in attending the workshop when you register for the seminar as there is a minimum number this workshop will run for.

André Tomlin is an Information Scientist with 20 years’ experience working in evidence-based healthcare. He has worked in the NHS and for the University of Oxford where he helped to set up the Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health. In 2002, he spun out a company from Oxford University (www.minervation.com), and he has spent the last 15 years building health websites for charities and the public sector. Most recently he has been the driving force behind the Mental Elf blog, which is part of a series of health evidence blogs designed to help health and social care professionals keep up to date with simple, clear and engaging summaries of evidence-based research.

Caron Sprake is passionate about good care for the elderly and campaigns to raise    awareness about issues affecting them and their caregivers. From technophobe to award-winning blogger (UK Blog Awards 2016 in the category, Health and Social Care), Caron has used her blog, "Caron Cares" offering advice and information to anyone caring for someone elderly or with dementia, to help people across the world. Caron Cares is a cross between Age UK and Which with a person behind it who genuinely cares and is there to really help you. Caron is a regular columnist for Devon Life and writes for Huffington Post.

Andrew McRae is the Head of English at Exeter University and the author of ‘A Head of   Department’s Blog’. He is a self-taught blogger, who uses this medium as a way of engaging with higher education policy and practice, particularly from the perspective of an academic department. He writes as an academic researcher, teacher and manager, often just trying to make sense of policy changes. In 2017 he has shared some posts with wonkhe.com.

For further information on this or other seminars in this series click here: http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/creative-communication-seminar-series or contact r.s.whear@exeter.ac.ukTo register click here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-communication-to-blog-or-not-to-blog-is-blogging-right-for-me-tickets-33455455167?aff=es2.

2.13, South Cloisters, St Luke's

(Video link to Truro Knowledge Spa F10 and Plymouth John Bull Building PSq C501)

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

Exeter Medical School S09, St Lukes

This is on the top-floor so please let us know if you would like assistance with access.

1-2pm

Institute of Health Research

Qualitative Research Support Group Seminar

Insights from the everyday practice of ethnography in emergency care

Professor Catherine Pope
Professor of Medical Sociology in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton

This paper will draw together my thoughts about the practicalities of doing ethnography in emergency care and trauma care settings in the NHS. I plan to talk about three studies. First I will describe my experiences studying ambulance handover communication in a project which included observations of over 200 ambulance journeys and interviews with crew, hospital staff and patients. Then I will describe a recently completed project that used observation to evaluate the implementation of an innovative checklist for ‘minors’ (ambulatory) patients attending the Emergency Department. Finally, I will look at my new role as researcher-in-residence in the Regional Trauma Centre. In describing these projects I want to untangle some knotty issues about doing research in healthcare settings and, in particular, to contrast the idealised versions of methodology and research ethics with the rather messier and complicated realities of everyday ethnographic conduct.

Catherine Pope is Professor of Medical Sociology in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton where she leads Emergency and Urgent Care (EmU) research and is a member of the NIHR CLAHRC Wessex. Her research focuses on healthcare work and the organisation and delivery of health services. She has a researcher-in-residence role in the Wessex Regional Trauma Centre. Catherine has played a leading role in developing qualitative methods and evidence synthesis in
health services research and contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate education across health and social sciences and for the Web Science Centre for Doctoral Training.

For further information please contact linda.dumchen@exeter.ac.uk

12pm-1pm

Institute of Health Research

Centre for Research in Aging & Cognitive Health (REACH) Seminar

Examining the experience of caring for a family member with dementia through illness blogs

Associate Professor Joel Anderson
University of Tennessee

Individuals who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias often exhibit behavioral and psychological symptoms that can place a great deal of strain on family carers. This strain leads to increased stress for family carers and reduced quality of life. While the impact of dementia caregiving on levels of depression, anxiety, and stress has been explored, more information is needed on the psychosocial impact of dementia caregiving on carers and families. Many individuals use web blogs as online journals to share their lived experiences. These blogs contain rich narratives that represent an untapped resource for understanding the psychosocial impact of caring for a person with dementia at the individual and family level. The present study uses blogs to explore the psychosocial impact of dementia caregiving, examining how and why carers use blogs as part of the caregiving experience, strategies used for supporting themselves and their loved ones, and the impact of dementia on the dignity of persons living with the disease. By understanding the psychosocial impacts of dementia caregiving, family focused interventions and services can be developed to reduce caregiver strain and improve quality of life.

For further information please contact s.odwyer@exeter.ac.uk

BC112, Baring Court, St Luke’s

9.45am-1.30pm

Introduction to health economics workshop

In this one day workshop, participants will be introduced to key principles and concepts of health economics and economic evaluation.

Intended for those unfamiliar with the health economics field, the workshop will provide a critical perspective on a pragmatic analytical framework for understanding economic evaluation studies.

The workshop will cover topics such as:
(1) health state preference valuation and how to estimate Quality Adjusted Life years (QAYLs).
(2)the methodology for identifying, measuring and valuing resources consumed by users of health care interventions and services.

Finally, participants will be given the necessary tools to critically appraise economic evaluation research papers.

9.45am Arrival refreshments
10am Start
1.30pm Finish

TO BOOK FOLLOW THIS LINK -

http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/event/health-economics-workshop-with-antonieta-medina-lara

Baring Court 202, St Luke's

Seminar: 1.30 to 2.30, Room G18

Workshop: 2.45 to 4.15, Room G27

Dealing with complex reviews: how to do narrative synthesis well

Audience: The seminar is intended for anyone interested in systematic review methods. The workshop is intended for those specifically working with quantitative systematic reviews, wanting to develop skills in narrative synthesis.
Note: If you are interested in attending the workshop, please email Michael Nunns to register your interest (M.p.nunns@exeter.ac.uk).

Content: Systematic reviewers often encounter complex and heterogeneous samples of studies which may not be amenable to meta-analysis. Where data cannot be meta-analysed, the data may be synthesised narratively, but this is often poorly reported. The seminar will provide an insight into the importance of narrative synthesis, the key components of good practice, and useful tools to improve transparency. Workshop attendees will be provided with extracted and tabulated data from a published Cochrane review of a public health intervention, and will work in small groups towards a brief narrative synthesis.

Presenter: We are delighted to welcome international expert Dr Hilary Thomson to present these sessions. Hilary leads the evidence synthesis theme (Improving the quality and utility of evidence synthesis) within the Informing Healthy Public Policy programme at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow. Hilary has
extensive experience in conducting large complex reviews of questions about the health impacts of social policy interventions such as housing, transport, and welfare. This includes work to improve the transparency of non-statistical methods of synthesis, interpretation of complex reviews and assessing Risk of Bias in Non-Randomised Studies. In addition to a range of systematic reviews, Hilary is a Co-I on the NIHR funded Complex Reviews Support Unit and is co-ordinating editor of Cochrane Public Health.

For more details, search for the events on MyCareerZone, or click here:
https://mycareerzone.exeter.ac.uk/students/events/detail/476208/dealing-with-complexreviews-h

Seminar: 1.30 to 2.30, Room G18

Workshop: 2.45 to 4.15, Room G27

Professor Wendy Brown
University of Queensland

Physical activity in mid-age and older women: Lessons from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health
The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) commenced in 1996 when researchers recruited approximately 40,000 women in three birth cohorts, 1973-1978, 1946-1951 and 1921-1926. Since then participants have completed surveys on a wide range of health issues, at approximately three year intervals. This presentation will describe changes in physical activity (PA) over time in the mid-age and older ALSWH cohorts, and summarize the findings of studies from the ALSWH on the determinants of PA, and its associated health outcomes in Australian women. The data show a significant increase in physical activity during mid-age, and a rapid decline in activity levels when women are in their 80s. The study has demonstrated the importance of life-stages and key life events as determinants of activity, the additional benefits of vigorous activity for mid-age women, and the health benefits of ‘only walking’ for older women. The data indicate that maintaining a high level of physical activity throughout mid and older age will not only reduce the risk of premature death, but also significantly extend the number of years of healthy life.

For further information please contact s.odwyer@exeter.ac.uk

Parking at St Luke’s is extremely limited and restricted to University of Exeter permit holders. Parking attendants patrol regularly. Where possible, please consider alternative options when planning your visit.

BC217, Baring Court, St Luke's Campus

Calling time on the consultation
Professor John Campbell, Professor of General Practice & Primary Care, Director of APEx, University of Exeter Medical School

There is currently not enough evidence to say whether altering the amount of time that doctors consult with patients provides benefits or not. We consider the findings of four recent research papers exploring the impact of variation in consultation length.

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke’s

(with video conferencing to F083, Knowledge Spa)

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment

Event open to Postgraduate Researchers, Early Career Researchers (E, F and new G grades) and Professional Services Staff from the Institute of Health Research

A Chance to Meet Other Early Career Researchers and Tell Us What you Want From the Early Career Researcher Network

Talks held 11.15-12.30
Speakers include: Professors Stuart Logan, Angela Shore and Michelle Ryan.

Topics for discussion:

• What can the peer network offer me?
• Where can Early Career Researchers access support?
• What should Early Career Researchers expect from their line managers?
• How did the speakers navigate their own early research careers?

Bring and Share Lunch
Transport provided for people from Penryn and Plymouth Campuses

For more information please contact Liz Shaw: E.H.Shaw@Exeter.ac.uk

Wellcome Centre of Cultures and Environments of Health (University of Exeter)

Combining expertise from humanities and social sciences, together with natural, medical and environmental sciences, the vision of the Wellcome Trust Centre of Cultures and Environments of Health is to provide a unique opportunity to work together to address health challenges facing socially and culturally diverse populations.

The Centre aims to:

• Determine how individual and collective health and well-being are shaped by cultural contexts, environmental conditions and social relations;
• Extend the evidence base for cross-sectoral policies and interventions that help to create and sustain ‘healthy publics’.

The Centre’s ethos is that:

• Effective responses to complex health issues require approaches that mobilise non-linear models of health and well-being, recognise the importance of subjective and collective experience, and synthesise approaches and insights from the humanities and social sciences with those from life sciences and medicine.

Our ambition is to establish a Centre in which creative pathways of investigation, interpretation and action can be communicated and shared across disciplines in order to generate and sustain healthy cultures and environments.
The roadshow will provide an opportunity to:

• Meet members of the Centre’s senior research team and hear about their plans for research
• To learn more about the Centre’s timetable for recruitment
• Funding opportunities for research and public engagement activities

Refreshments served on arrival

14.00 - Open session: Welcome and introduction (Refreshments served on arrival)
            Led by senior research team
14.45 - Q&A session with members of the senior research team    
15.30 - End of session  

Please register your interest in attending using the online registration form.
If you have any questions about the event please contact research-events@exeter.ac.uk

Introduction to Qualitative Research Evidence with Associate Professor Dr Sarah Dean

During this talk Sarah Dean will introduce the basic principles of qualitative research and how it differs from quantitative research. Using entertaining practical examples participants engage in learning about the meaning of experience and how this is important for understanding health problems.

To book, please visit http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/event/introduction-to-qualitative-research-evidence

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/

Dementia: Prevention, Treatment and Care

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or
arrange an appointment

Institute of Health Research

A joint seminar hosted by the Complex Interventions &
Cardiac Rehabilitation Research Groups

Issues to consider when moving from development to pilot testing in complex interventions: an example of a nurse-led clinic for individuals with Heart Failure in Switzerland

Dr Petra Schafer-Keller, Nurse Researcher; Lecturer,
University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Western Switzerland – School of Health Sciences

For research into complex interventions, when to move from the development and modelling phases to testing and evaluation is a matter of uncertain judgement. Schafer-Keller and colleagues have a programme to develop, test, evaluate and ultimately implement a nurse-led clinic for individuals with heart failure in Switzerland. They will outline the mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, and the results of their intervention development stage aimed at uncovering both healthcare professionals’ perceived challenges in delivering heart failure care, and the needs and existing self-care abilities of individuals with heart failure. As this phase comes to an end, they will discuss how to translate such findings into an evidence-informed complex intervention ready for the next stage of pilot testing.

In this seminar, Petra will present the preliminary modelling of this complex intervention using a six stage intervention mapping process and will discuss selected stages in detail. Audience participation will be encouraged during the seminar in order to consider incorporating elements evolving from seminar discussions into the modelling process.

ALL STAFF AND STUDENTS ARE WELCOME
Enquiries to Lucy Evans (L.Evans@exeter.ac.uk)

Creative Communication: Making Research Visible, Accessible and Engaging

As part of the 'Creative Communication: seminar and workshop series’ Sarah Chapman and Jack Leahy will be talking about their work, which focuses on creative dissemination of Cochrane reviews and other health evidence through social media. As well as giving an overview of their dissemination work, they will show how the findings of one Cochrane review were shared in multiple formats and the impact of these activities. Through a series of brief activities, you will have a chance to start building a communication plan for your own research.

Sarah Chapman is the Knowledge Broker at Cochrane UK where her work focuses on creative dissemination of Cochrane reviews and other health evidence through social media, including writing and editing the Evidently  Cochrane blog. She has a keen interest in exploring ways to share health evidence widely and encourage engagement with it.

Jack Leahy is the Communications and Engagement Officer for  Cochrane UK. He is responsible for managing the digital presence of Cochrane UK, measuring impact, and the development of new evidence products. He graduated from the University of Bristol with an MSci in  Chemistry in 2014. He then worked in drug policy reform before joining Cochrane UK in early 2016. He is interested in the ways in which research can be disseminated to effect change from practice through to policy.

Look here http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/creative-communication-seminar-series for further information on this or other seminars in this series or contact r.s.whear@exeter.ac.uk.

To register click here

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Justin Matthews: J.N.Matthews@exeter.ac.uk

*****Cancelled*****

Learning and surviving: an outsider looking in at the working lives of doctors

Professor Jeremy Brown, Postgraduate Medical Institute, Edge Hill University

Medicine is a career that requires doctors to continually reflect, learn and develop throughout their working life. Jeremy will address some of the ongoing challenges faced by doctors at each stage of their professional career, from newly qualified to hospital consultant or GP. This seminar will consider the multiple roles of doctors as clinicians, learners, educators and leaders.  In doing so Jeremy will reflect on the current state of medical education research as an academic discipline and consider where our research priorities should lie in relation to undergraduate / postgraduate education and patient care.

Cognitive function assessment in clinical research: The good, the bad & the ugly

Professor Keith Andrew Wesnes
BSc PhD FSS CPsychol FBPsS

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Exeter Medical School

Keith joined UEMS as Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in November 2016. Since 1973 he has specialized in measuring human cognitive function in clinical trials. His PhD at Reading University into the cholinergic bases of human attention led him to computerize tests of major aspects of cognition, and in the early 1980s to develop the CDR System, an integrated set of computerized tests to assess change in cognitive function in clinical trials. Since 1986 the System has been used in over 1,400 worldwide clinical trials. He holds Professorships at the Psychology Department, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne (since 1997), the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia (since 2007) and the Medicinal Plant Research Group, University of Newcastle (since 2015). Previous academic positions have been held at Indiana University, Reading University, Guy’s Hospital Medical School, the University of East London and Bristol University. He has authored approaching 300 peer-reviewed publications and 9 students have received PhDs under his supervision. Since February 2014 he has run Wesnes Cognition Ltd, which provides a proprietary online cognitive test system, CogTrack, for use in worldwide clinical research.

The presentation will be an overview of Keith’s research in applying cognitive tests to clinical research. Collaboration with Universities & research groups worldwide has been a core feature of his experience and he will present an overview of studies in a wide variety of disciplines. The benefits of automated testing will be discussed. The intention is to make colleagues in UEMS aware of the cognitive test system Keith has developed, as he hopes to provide it to groups who may wish to use it on projects of mutual interest.

For further information please contact linda.dumchen@exeter.ac.uk

Insitiute of Health Research

Health Economics Group and PenTAG
Seminar

Modelling of pharmaceuticals licensed without RCT data

Anthony Hatswell – Principal Consultant (HTA Methodology), BresMed Health Solutions LTD

Pharmaceuticals are most commonly licensed in randomised controlled trials against placebo or active comparators. On occasion however, drugs are approved without a comparative trial being available. This talk will discuss the circumstances and ethics around such approvals, and present work on the number of treatments licensed over the past 15 years under such circumstances, and how their comparative efficacy has been modelled. Following this, there will be a discussion of other techniques that can be used and ongoing work to estimate efficacy based on historical controls and other methods, including propensity scoring, matching adjusted indirect comparisons, and novel techniques.

Anthony Hatswell is a Principal Consultant at BresMed where he works as a health economist on NICE submissions, evidence generation, and quality of life analysis. His PhD is part time as a mature student on the estimation of comparative effectiveness from uncontrolled clinical studies. Prior to BresMed, he graduated from the University of York, before holding roles at and sanofi-aventis and GSK UK.

For further information, please contact Huiqin Yang H.Yang@exeter.ac.uk

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/

Institute of Health Research

Health Economics Group, PenTAG and Knowledge Mobilisation

Health economics in local government settings: a focus on childhood obesity

Dr Emma Frew
Reader in Health Economics, NIHR Career-Development Fellow, University of Birmingham

In April 2013, responsibility for public health in England moved away from the National Health Service to local authorities (LAs). Financial support was provided through ring-fenced public health budgets for LAs to work with providers of health and non-health services, as well as community organisations to improve population health and wellbeing (HM Government, 2012c). More recently however, budgets have been cut, in 2015/6 the LA public health budget was cut by 7% (£200 million), and it has to be further cut by 3.9% annually over the next five years – amounting to a long term reduction in real-terms of £600 million by 2020/21. Alongside these cuts, in October 2015, the Government announced that by the end of Parliament, LA’s will be able to keep 100% of business rates they raise locally and the public health budget will be no longer ring-fenced. Moving public health into LAs has provided opportunity to integrate public health with other LA functions such as education, planning, housing, crime to improve population health and wellbeing. Together with the rapidly changing financial context, there has also been a move towards ‘place-based’ activities, aligning providers of care to achieve common objectives that are about meeting the needs of local populations.

One key public health priority it to tackle the alarming levels of childhood obesity. Children who are overweight have an increased risk of disease, have lower quality of life and an increased risk of adult obesity causing a huge societal burden over the life course. This seminar will focus on how health economics can contribute to childhood obesity interventions within a LA setting. Consideration will be given to the organizational, political, and financial context, and the need for LA’s to align priorities to improve population health and wellbeing, whilst reducing inequalities. It will discuss how the ‘traditional’ methods of economic evaluation fit within that context and provide insight into how the economist can contribute to decision making within this setting. It will use case-studies from Birmingham LA to present novel, innovative ways of changing the obesogenic environment and discuss how economics can be used to evaluate these approaches.

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

The Community-based Prevention of Diabetes (ComPoD) randomised, waiting list controlled trial of a voluntary sector-led diabetes prevention programme

Associate Professor Colin Greaves and Dr Jane Smith

This talk will present the findings of the School for Public Health Research’s Community-based Prevention of Diabetes study (ComPoD) www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN70221670. This is a randomised waiting list controlled trial of a voluntary sector-led intervention to reduce risk of progression to type 2 diabetes in an at-risk adult population. The primary outcome was weight loss at 6 months post-randomisation, but changes in HbA1c, physical activity and other risk indicators were also measured. Maintenance of the changes achieved was estimated at 12 months.

Join us afterwards for our informal monthly APEx meeting: updates on progress in APEx and networking (refreshments will be served). Email: j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk to book your place. For further information visit: www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine/apex/seminars

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Dr Lauren Rodgers L.R.Rodgers@exeter.ac.uk

Seminar

Future Strategy for Research in the NHS

Professor Chris Whitty
Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health

Professor Chris Whitty was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health in January 2016. He has overall responsibility for the DH research and development budget which includes the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). He leads DH research policy and supporting evidenced based decision making capacity.

Professor Whitty is currently the Professor of Public and International Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Consultant Physician in acute medicine and infectious diseases at University College London Hospitals and the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. He is also Visiting Gresham Professor of Public Health at Gresham College.

Professor Whitty will talk about his vision for Health Research, the challenges and opportunities.

Open session

Research and Impact Strategy

In February three open sessions providing an update on the Research and Impact Strategy will take place, with Professor Nick Talbot (Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Impact) and colleagues leading on strands of the strategy.

Sessions will take place on St Luke's, Streatham, and Penryn Campus. For more information on the Research and Impact Strategy, please click here.

In these sessions you will be able to:

• Hear about the latest developments in the University's Research and Impact Strategy.
• Find out more about the key strategic areas, who is leading on them, and how they will impact the research community.
• Ask questions to Professor Nick Talbot and key staff.

Insitute of Health Research Seminar

Pharmacists: the magic bullet for the NHS?

Professor Margaret Watson
Professor of Health Services Research in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of Bath

I joined the University of Bath in October 2016 and I lead the Health and Clinical Research theme in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. I registered as a pharmacist in 1987 and worked as a clinical pharmacist for eight years in various hospitals throughout the UK and more recently spent three years in pharmaceutical public health. I moved into health services research in the 1990s and was awarded my PhD (1998) from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Bristol. Along the way, I was awarded an MSc Epidemiology (2003) and Certificate in Pharmacovigilance and Pharmacoepidemiology (2001) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as well as an MSc Clinical Pharmacy from the University of Strathclyde (1989).

Much of my academic career has been supported by Fellowships from the Medical Research Council, Leverhulme Foundation and South West Regional Health Authority. My current Health Foundation Improvement Science Fellowship is a senior post-doctoral Fellowship which includes a unique leadership development programme. My wider academic roles have included membership
of the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research Committee and the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice editorial board. I chaired the International Social Pharmacy Workshop (2016), Health Services Research and Pharmacy Practice Conference (2014) and Royal Pharmaceutical Conference (2012).

Research Interests
The overall purpose of my research is to optimise patient outcome through the safe and effective use of medicines and evidence based professional practice.

My research is collaborative and multi-disciplinary and draws on different theoretical approaches and methods including: systematic literature reviews to synthesise existing evidence; qualitative methods that are theoretically-underpinned, to explore the behaviour of service users (patients/consumers) or providers (pharmacists, pharmacy personnel, other health care
professionals) to identify key determinants of specific behaviours; and quantitative methods (randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, questionnaires) to develop and test the effect of interventions to achieve behaviour change i.e. evidence based practice, quality improvement in health service delivery and patient outcomes.

For further information and if you would like to attend please contact linda.dumchen@exeter.ac.uk

LKD Seminar

National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) seminar

Implementation Science 2.0 – Show me the evidence!
Bianca Albers – Australian Centre for Evidence & Implementation

The field of implementation science has undergone an impressive growth in the past two decades. A large number of frameworks, models and concepts have emerged, all aiming to support researchers, organisational leaders, practitioners and other human service professionals in building, integrating and utilising evidence in their daily work – for the benefit of the target populations they serve. This presentation takes the temperature on the current status quo within implementation science: Where are we in building the evidence base for the field? What are common agreements, where are the gaps, and what needs to be done in the decade ahead?

Bianca Albers is a Senior Advisor, Evidence in Practice and Policy, at the Australian Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI). Her work focuses on knowledge synthesis and translation; the implementation and evaluation of evidence-informed programs, practices and service models; and on building the capacity within organisations and services to implement and sustain evidence-informed practices and policies. She is a staff member at the University of Melbourne’s Department of Social Work, where she developed and now teaches the first Post-Graduate Certificate in Implementation Science in the Australasian region. Ms Albers has a strong involvement with the international world of implementation science. She has co-chaired the first three Global Implementation Conferences held in 2011, 2013 and 2015, is one of the co-founders of the Danish Implementation Network and currently chairs the European Implementation Collaborative (EIC) and the planning of the third Nordic Implementation Conference to be held in Denmark in 2018. In 2015, Ms Albers was the lead editor of the book ‘Implementering’, which introduces implementation science to the area of child and youth services in Denmark and includes key contributions from Dr. Alison Metz (NIRN) and professor Per Nilsen, Linköping University, Sweden.

To Book – https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SSYMJCB
LKD Blog: http://learningknowingdoing.org.uk

Presentations from previous seminars are available here:
http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/implementation-science-seminar-archive

Age UK’s Index of Wellbeing in Later Life

Coronial practice and suicide rates: Beyond reasonable doubt?

Professor Belinda Carpenter
Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

In response to widespread concerns about the accuracy of suicide statistics, this presentation will focus on the standard of proof used in coroners’ investigations of death by suicide. We present recent research into the ways in which coroners reach their verdicts, based on in-depth interviews with over 40 coroners, both in Australia and England. The results reveal a high degree of inconsistency within the various processes of suicide determination. They touch on issues of capacity and intent, different cultural understandings of suicide, and practical and philosophical difficulties with the construction of this category of death itself. We suggest that, among other issues, the necessary standard of proof and the wide range of ways in which it is interpreted—mostly very conservative—has a significant role to play in the ongoing coronial-authored underestimation of suicide.

Professor Carpenter has been conducting research into coroners’ decision making processes for more than 10 years and has written extensively on the subject, focusing also on the coroner’s role vis-à-vis the grieving family and the concept of therapeutic jurisprudence. Her other research interests include sex trafficking and prostitution.

For further information please contact Dr Christabel Owens c.v.owens@exeter.ac.uk

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Dr Beverley Shields, RILD Building b.shields@exeter.ac.uk

Diabetes and Heart failure: Can I help Sweet heart?

Professor Chim Lang, Consultant Cardiologist. Clinical Pharmacologist & Professor of Cardiology, University of Dundee

Chronic heart failure (CHF) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) frequently coexist and is associated with a poor outcome: T2D has consistently been shown to be an independent predictor of increased mortality in patients with either symptomatic heart failure or asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction.   It is difficult to outline an evidence-based diabetic treatment strategy in these patients because there have been no randomized trials that have adequately explored the risks and benefits of diabetic therapies in this at-risk population. This situation is not helped by the increased heart failure risk of some T2D therapies (glitazones) and this CHF concern has resulted in the exclusion of CHF patients in most of the large-scale cardiovascular safety trials of T2D therapies mandated by the FDA. Yet, there is still a critical need for agents that will both improve overall glycaemic control and CHF outcomes. In this seminar, I will explore potential therapeutic options for this unmet need suggested by observational data that needs to be addressed by translational ‘proof of concept’ and outcome clinical trials

All staff and students are welcome

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke's

Meeting video linked to Rm F083 Knowledge Spa, Truro

Professor Andrea Manca
Professor of Health Economics at the University of York

On cost effectiveness analysis and person-centred healthcare

Person-centred healthcare (more often referred to as personalised or precision medicine) is becoming one of the hottest topics on the public and private agenda worldwide. It has supporters among the industry, patients organisations, healthcare professionals, academics, funders and politicians. Devoting energies and resources to pursue (and hopefully realise) the promises of person-centred healthcare would seem to be a win-win strategy for a number of stakeholders. Indeed, recent years have seen an acceleration in R&D reports towards the development of novel person-centred diagnostics, drugs and medical devices (both therapeutic and support). But here lies the critical issue: how can Society shape the future of healthcare, identify and prioritise R&D investments towards acceptable, cost-effective and sustainable person-centred interventions with the highest return in terms of population health and other relevant outcomes? Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) plays a pivotal role in informing such decisions in many jurisdictions around the world. However, the design and analysis of CEAs has traditionally followed the standards of mainstream clinical epidemiology and evaluation studies, reporting results based on sample means, which are expected to represent the average patient. This view of the world has been recently challenged by the need to (a) recognize individuals' heterogeneity in factors that may systematically affect costs and health outcomes, (b) reflect these characteristics in the design and analysis of CEA studies, and (c) inform more nuanced (clinical and health policy) decisions regarding funding treatments provision and further research effort priorities.

This talk discusses these and a number of other issues that the current evaluative framework for healthcare decision making needs to overcome, if it is to survive the demands posed by the personcentred healthcare (r)evolution, presenting recent methodological advances that may help our pursuit of it.

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Diagnostic activity indicators for cancer in primary care.

Dr Gary Abel, Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter Medical School

Please contact Joy Choules for further information j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Sue Ball
Email: S.Ball3@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Advice Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

The art and science of non-evaluation evaluation
Lorelei Jones and Justin Waring

Speaker - Lorelei Jones – Biography
My research looks at the changing social organisation of health care services and professional work in the context of contemporary policy reforms. I studied anthropology and sociology as an undergraduate, and wrote my masters thesis on changes in the professional identity of general practitioners.  For my doctoral research I studied ethnographically the politically contested issue of hospital planning.  I am currently interested in the role of expertise in governing, using policies for ‘self care’, ‘major system change’ and the practices of policy evaluation as particular cases. I am a member of the editorial board for Sociology of Health and Illness and co-convenor of the London Medical Sociology Group where we explore the links between social theory, philosophy and medical sociology.

Seminar details – There is growing recognition of the limitations of realist evaluation, and other theory driven approaches to evaluation, in the context of healthcare policies. These approaches, which seek to surface ‘programme theories’ or construct ‘logic models’, are often unable to account for empirical observations of policy implementation in real-life situations.  In this paper we argue that this failure stems from insufficient theoretical elaboration of the social, cultural, and political dimensions of healthcare policies. Drawing from institutional theory, critical theory and discourse theory, and from organizational ethnography, we set out an alternative approach to research on healthcare reform. We illustrate with examples from our own experience of research on acute care ‘reconfiguration’, integrated health and social care and other forms of major system change in the NHS in England.

Please register at: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9QBQNJ9
LKD Blog: http://learningknowingdoing.org.uk

Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) in Clinical Trials – an introduction

19th October 2016

**POSTPONED**

***POSTPONED*** Alternative date TBC

Does implementation science neglect implementation in pragmatic trials?
Convened by Vashti Berry1, Sarah Morgan-Trimmer1 and Nick Axford2

Implementation science is the study of methods that promote the integration of research findings and evidence into health and social care policy and practice. It seeks to understand what support and accommodations are needed in the systems and behaviour of professionals to ensure sustainable uptake, adoption, and implementation of evidence-based interventions. The focus of implementation science to date has been closing the gap between known or demonstrated effective interventions and existing practice, in other words getting services and professionals to replicate evidence-based programmes. In this roundtable discussion seminar, we question this research focus and suggest that there is valuable implementation research to be done in the early stages of efficacy and effectiveness testing, long before interventions are ready to be scaled. This development phase in pragmatic trials, often called service design or development, involves making assessments of existing system processes and professional behavior, and either making adaptations to the intervention to fit or considering methods and strategies for influencing professional behaviour. This is an iterative process that is often neglected in the evaluation assessment. We think there is an opportunity for implementation science to discover effective (and ineffective) implementation strategies to accompany promising interventions by unpacking and studying the methods that underlie this service design process. We look forward to discussing these issues with interested colleagues.

[1 Institute of Health Research]
[2 Dartington Social Research Unit]

More Info - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/events//details/index.php?event=6059

To book - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/WM36CBQ

Why healthcare research isn’t working, and some ways to make it better

Dr Rosamund Snow
BMJ Patient Editor, and Service user researcher
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford

Rosamund Snow is a leading researcher on involvement in health research, publishing and medical education.
Rosamund will be challenging the audience to think differently about research evidence, about the role of patients, and the role of healthcare publishing. Come prepared to ask yourself and your colleagues some tricky questions.

Welcome to a stimulating and interesting seminar on involvement, organised by the PenCLAHRC PPI team.

Email: e.j.cockcroft@exeter.ac.uk to register your interest.

Providing psychological care in cardiac rehabilitation settings: a tale of two halves. Findings from an updated Cochrane review, and NIHR HTA funded pilot study ‘CADENCE’

Dr Sue Richards, Senior Lecturer in Primary Care, UEMS & Deputy Director of Exeter Clinical Trials Unit

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Rod Taylor
Email: R.Taylor@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Advice Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Martin Gulliford
Professor of Public Health in the Division of Health and Social Care Research at King's College London

Efficient Trials Using Electronic Health Records

Martin Gulliford qualified in medicine from the University of Cambridge and University College Hospital, London and trained in public health and health services research at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical Schools London where he was a Wellcome Training Fellow in Health Services Research. For several years, he was based in Trinidad, organising a programme of health services research and training. Research interests are in epidemiology as applied to public health and health services research. Current research focuses on the use of electronic health records to evaluate public health interventions. This includes public health trials with either cluster or individual level randomisation, as well as health economic modelling studies. The main areas of application are in obesity, chronic disease prevention, ageing and antimicrobial utilisation.

For further information please contact: j.jacob@exeter.ac.uk

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Justin Matthews
Email: J.N.Matthews@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Advice Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Dr Christophe Sarran
Met Office

Data mash-up: a new infrastructure for connecting health and environmental data.

A large proportion of global diseases can be linked to environmental factors, with chemical hazards, changing habitats for disease-carrying insects and community behaviours all playing a growing role. As climate change continues to drive changing weather patterns, these environmental factors are predicted to have ever greater impacts on human health and wellbeing. Yet research into the links between environmental factors and health remains fragmented, hampered by a lack of common tools and databases needed to investigate connections across a number of environmental factors and health conditions. By linking databases on climate, weather and disease, MEDMI (a novel infrastructure at the University of Exeter) is, for the first time, attempting to create a resource that will allow researchers to shed light on these complex interactions. This seminar will present the aims of the MEDMI project, the challenges encountered and how some of these were addressed. It will then present demonstration browsers for the analysis of extreme temperatures, air quality and mortality, and for the analysis of climate and infectious diseases. It will conclude with a discussion of current capabilities available and future planned developments.

Christophe Sarran is a senior Science consultant at the Met Office, supporting the health research activities of the Health Programme to achieve its targets and deliver high quality research into the links between weather and health. Specifically, this has included developing the warning service that is delivered to COPD patients, contributing to the development of the cold weather health warning service delivered to the Department of Health, the analysis of seasonal-affective disorder symptoms with respect to luminance related weather variables and the analysis of the impact of air quality on COPD patients’ health. Christophe Sarran is currently coordinating the Met Office’s health research programme.

Please email Leala Watson if you wish to attend: l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Professor Paul Little
Professor of Primary Care Research within Medicine at the University of Southampton

“Nepal, Ivan Illich, and flesh-eating killer bugs: the journey of a clinical researcher”

Prof David Batty (UCL) will give a seminar on psychological factors and death: a bigger data approach.

Please contact Sue Bosley for further details.

Searching for grey literature.

For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store:
http://store.exeter.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=45&catid=74&prodid=1421

 Please note that the Online Booking Service closes
7 working days prior to the event.

The Researcher’s Guide To Getting The Most Out Of Twitter: From recruitment to impact and everything in between!

Dr Siobhan O’Dwyer is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Exeter Medical School. She has successfully used Twitter to: recruit participants; collect data; disseminate research findings; engage with industry, media, patients, and the public; and measure the impact of her research. She is also the founder of Shut Up & Write Tuesdays, an internationally recognised, Twitter-based writing group for academics.

In this seminar, Siobhan will show you how to use Twitter to strengthen all aspects of your research. Topics will include: how, when, and what to tweet; increasing your followers; using hashtags; joining communities of practice; tweeting at conferences; engaging with journalists; managing your time; and measuring your impact.

Note: This seminar assumes that you have a Twitter account and a basic understanding of how to use it. If you don’t have a Twitter account & would like to set one up, Siobhan can help you in 2.38 South Cloisters during the following times: Monday 5th September 4-5pm; Tuesday 6th September 3-4pm; Thursday 8th September 1-2pm. S.ODwyer@exeter.ac.uk

Weight Management – the Lighten Up studies and further trials

Kate Jolly is Professor of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Birmingham. She is medically qualified and trained in both general practice and public health. Her main research interests relate to behaviour change, particularly supporting lifestyle changes and self-management of clinical conditions outside of health care settings. She undertakes research on the prevention and management of important non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular and respiratory conditions; behaviour change to reduce obesity and increase physical activity and supporting behaviour changes during pregnancy or after childbirth.

For further information please contact R.Taylor@exeter.ac.uk

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic - For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

Searching for evidence: systematic review skills workshop.

Delivered by the Evidence Synthesis Team, UEMS and PenCLAHRC.

There is an increasing recognition of systematic review methods beyond the field of medicine. This workshop is principally targeted at PhD students, and grade E & F research and teaching staff. Researchers from the College of Life and Environmental Sciences and the College of Social Sciences and International Studies are particularly welcome. The number of participants for the workshop is limited to 20.

Please email Dr Rebecca Abbott at r.a.abbott@exeter.ac.uk for further information, or to book your place on the workshop.

Creative Communication: Podcasts

Jane Reck
Freelance BBC radio producer, podcaster and media trainer

As part of the ‘Creative Communication: seminar and workshop series’ Jane Reck will be presenting on the use and development of podcasts (audio and visual) for research communication. Jane’s podcast work has included features for the UK Research Councils, universities across the UK, the British Library, the BBC, the Open University and the Transport Systems Catapult. As a former press officer for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Jane is very familiar with the Impact Agenda and the importance of stressing how a piece of research is, or could potentially, benefit society and the economy. Jane’s radio features and documentaries have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5 Live, commercial radio and BBC Local Radio. In 2015 Jane was awarded a bronze at the New York International Radio Festival for Mad about the Mustang, which was narrated by Ewan McGregor.

Jane’s seminar will be complemented by Jenna Richards the University of Exeter Web and Digital Communications manager who will recap on what we have heard during the series also touching on animation and stop-motion and approaches to digital marketing.

For further information please contact R.s.whear@exeter.ac.uk

What is real about operational research? With Sean Manzi

As someone who is relatively new to the world of operational research I was confused by the lesser consideration of what underpins the discipline than some other disciplines. Some might say “Well it is the scientific method of course” and in a loose question-avoiding way that is right, but my response would be “Which scientific method?”.

In this Realist Hive session I will first briefly introduce the discipline of operational research.  I will ask some difficult questions of the way operational research considers how it conducts research and why it is done that way. I will open the discussion out to everyone to ask ‘Is operational research a good example of the realist philosophy of science in action?’ We will likely need to go beyond this question to examine ‘Why should we consider philosophies of science at all? Do we need them?’ and ‘How do we decide just which philosophy should underpin our research?’.

Operational research, due to its lack of strong philosophical underpinning makes a good space to examine these fundamental questions of research. My hope is that this will be a provocative discussion which enables people to reflect on their own practices and beliefs.

No prior understanding of operational research or realism is required to attend this talk! In fact I implore you to attend especially if you do not know much about these topics and even more so if you take issue with any of the questions proposed above.

This will be a lively and welcoming debate; I look forward to seeing you there.

For further information, please contact Rebecca Hardwick or Mark Pearson

Creative Communication: Infographics and motion-graphics

Dr Will Stahl-Timmins
Data Graphics Designer at the BMJ

As part of the ‘Creative Communication: seminar and workshop series’ Dr Stahl-Timmins will present on the use and development of infographics (also touching on motion-graphics and physical graphics) to communicate research messages. As The BMJ's (British Medical Journal) first Data Graphics Designer, Will designs online and print infographics, which explain scientific developments and investigative data to a busy clinical readership. Will takes copy from scientific authors, and works with the editors to visualise it, from concept through layout and coding interactivity. His career has focussed on visual communication of health research, using infographics and data visualisation techniques. Will turns raw data into engaging visual stories, so that the information can immediately be put to use by those that need it.

For further information and for details on the accompanying workshops please contact R.s.whear@exeter.ac.uk

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic - For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries. Please email to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Associate Professor Obi Ukoumunne - South Cloisters, St Luke’s
Email: O.C.Ukoumunne@exeter.ac.uk

Attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to their Stats Clinic appointment, to enable the team to offer the best advice.

Designing streamlined process evaluations. Round table discussion (with introduction from Sarah Dean)

The Future of Primary Care

Professor Martin Roland CBE

For further details, please visit: http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/research/healthserv/healthservicesandpolicy/barbarastarfieldlecture/

Contact Joy Choules for further details or if you wish to book a place.

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic - For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

National Institute for Health Research Personal Fellowship Awards: What are they and how to get one!
Professor David Richards

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds research in applied health services
research to the tune of £1 billion annually. A considerable proportion of this research funding is
awarded to individuals in the form of fellowships. These fellowships fund individuals from masters
level study all the way to professorial positions, via a range of doctoral, post-doctoral, researcher
development and senior awards. Some awards are open to all, others are restricted to clinicians.
In general, the success rate for winning an award is around 20% of all applicants. If you are
thinking of applying for such an award, at any level, how will you get into this magic percentage?
Some awards are restricted to clinicians, others are open to any health scientist. What is the right
scheme for you? What are the eligibility criteria for each award? What are the shortlisters looking
for? What sorts of projects are likely to be successful? How do I identify the right supervisors,
mentors and training schemes? What is it like being interviewed? What does the panel want you to
say? How should I apply?
All these and many other questions will be answered in the seminar. If you are thinking of applying
or are a potential supervisor of an applicant this seminar is for you.

Health Service Modelling Across Europe – Success Stories, Opportunities and Challenges.

This symposium will bring together health service researchers from across Germany and the UK to showcase the use of systems modelling techniques to support and improve the delivery of healthcare. We will have four talks and a panel discussion with an opportunity to facilitate learning from different settings and success stories.

This event will be free of charge, but we would appreciate your registration via http://clahrc-peninsula.nihr.ac.uk/event/penchord-international-symposium as this helps with catering.

Improving the quality of care: Using Quality Improvement methodology in healthcare

Mr Rob Bethune (Colo-rectal consultant, Royal Devon & Exeter) and Dr Rosie Benneyworth (Managing Director SW Academic Health Science Network)

Please email c.hewlett@exeter.ac.uk to register your attendance
LKD Blog: http://learningknowingdoing.org.uk

Video-conferencing to Plymouth, details TBC

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic - For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students

UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store: http://store.exeter.ac.uk/
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

Exeter Clinical Trials Support Network Event 9: CTIMPS

09:30 - Introduction to CTIMP themed ECTSN event (Rod Taylor – Acting ExeCTU Director)
09:35 - CTIMPS and sponsorship (Claire Ridler & Chris Gardner –  RD&E, NHS R&D)
09:55 - Surviving  CTIMPS and MHRA inspections (Kim Gooding – Exeter University Medical School)
10:15 - Lessons learned from conducting a CTIMP in primary care (Mary Carter & Caroline Jenkinson – Primary Care Research, UEMS)
10:35 - Multi- centre CTIMP set up (Catherine Angwin – NIHR Exeter CRF & UEMS)
10:50    Refreshments, Coffee and Cake. Speakers Q&A followed by networking
11:30    Close

Please RSVP to the CTSN Mailbox: ctsn@exeter.ac.uk

Members of the Health Statistics team will be available to assist with your Stats related queries during the following sessions below – please email them individually to discuss your query or arrange an appointment.

Patient and Public Involvement: The opportunities and challenges

This is a webinar for current researchers with experience of the opportunities and challenges around patient and public involvement (PPI) in research. This webinar is aimed at current NIHR trainees and other researchers who are leading research projects and want to learn more about getting the best out of PPI.

This webinar will:

• provide practical solutions to help to manage the opportunities and challenges in the context of your research
• explore existing and novel methods of patient and public involvement and how to systematically address challenges
• include a live Q&A session

The webinar will be presented by Derek Stewart OBE, Associate Director for Patient and Public Involvement at NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) and Paula Wray, Public Involvement Programme Lead for NIHR CLAHRC East Midlands.
You can register for the webinar via the following link: http://bit.ly/AdvancedPPIwebinar

If you have any issues when registering please email tcc@nihr.ac.uk.

13th PenCHORD Seminar

Our first guest speaker will be Dr David Worthington from the Department of Management Science at Lancaster University Management School. Dr Worthington will be talking about some work his team has undertaken modelling care pathways for people with bipolar disorder. He will talk about this project, and some of the challenges when trying to model the resource implications of national clinical guidelines.

Our second guest speaker will be Andrew Dobson, an independent Operational Research analyst from London. Andrew will be talking about work he has undertaken building Operational Research capacity in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of you will have attended our own capacity building initiatives (such as our training programme and our workshop series), and we are very excited to hear more about how building capacity in remote rural Uganda has been helping to create impact to improve the delivery of healthcare in this region.

For our afternoon workshop session we will be running our postponed Christmas workshop looking at route optimisation. In this workshop we will show you ways in which shortest route calculations can be made for those problems where you have to visit a number of different people or places.

To register, please complete your details here

Please contact penchord@exeter.ac.uk should you have any queries

Translational Research in Behavioural Medicine and Health Psychology
Professor Falko Sniehotta and Dr. Vera Araujo-Soares

Professor Sniehotta and Dr Araujo-Soares specialise in design and evaluation of behaviour change interventions that make a difference to the health and clinical services and have the potential to improve population health.

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ihs/people/profile/falko.sniehotta

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ihs/people/profile/vera.araujo-soares

For further information please contact: Marilyn Evans (Marilyn.evans@exeter.ac.uk)

Key components in models of community-based interventions coordinating care in dementia: a mixed studies systematic review
Amy Backhouse, UEMS

The Clinical Practice Research Datalink: how much symptom information is lost in the free text
Sarah Price, UEMS

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students
 
UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store here.
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

The Evaluation of Medical Tests - from results to consequences

Professor Patrick Bossuyt
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Head of School of Public Health at the University of Amsterdam  
Visiting International Academic Fellow to the University of Exeter

Health care professionals rely on medical tests to support diagnostic judgment and clinical decision making. Like all other interventions, these medical tests should be properly evaluated before they are introduced into clinical practice.

Overall, the evaluation of medical tests is changing, from an exclusive attention on the “trueness” of test results to a more global appraisal of the consequences of testing itself.
Payers, regulators and other decision-makers increasingly emphasize that testing should help to improve health outcomes. This shift comes with several challenges, to researchers, decision-makers, and clinicians.

For further details, please contact Chris Hyde c.j.hyde@exeter.ac.uk who is hosting Patrick’s visit

** Event cancelled**

On cost effectiveness analysis and person-centred healthcare

Professor Andrea Manca
Professor of Health Economics at the University of York

Andrea is Professor of Health Economics at the University of York and Visiting Scientist at the Luxembourg Institute of Health. His current research interests focus on the development and application of health economics methods to facilitate the evaluation of person-centred healthcare technologies. He is a member of NICE Technology Appraisal Committee and co-editor of the journal PLOS One.

For further information please contact l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Exeter Collaboration of Primary Care (APEx) Seminar

Patient feedback: useful in transforming primary care?

Professor John Campbell, Professor of General Practice & Primary Care, University of Exeter Medical School and Director, APEx

Contact Joy Choules j.l.choules@exeter.ac.uk 01392 722743 http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/apex/seminars/

PenSR Discussion Group

Patient and Public Involvement in systematic reviews: opportunities and challenges (Kate Boddy and Kristin Liabo)

Health Statistics Group Seminar

Use of Bayesian multivariate meta-analysis to inform decision making in HTA
Dr Sylwia Bujkiewicz
University of Leicester

Dr Sylwia Bujkiewicz is a Lecturer in Biostatistics in the Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester. Her background is in Applied Mathematics and Medical Statistics. She previously held research and academic posts at Wroclaw University of Technology, University of Nottingham and University of Leicester. She joined the Biostatistics Research Group in Leicester as a lecturer in 2011 and her role focuses on research of Bayesian multi-parameter evidence synthesis methodology and the application of such methods to modelling surrogate endpoints.

Please email Leala Watson if you wish to attend: l.k.watson@exeter.ac.uk

Process Evaluation seminar

Open Session

Open Sessions will be round-table discussions on different aspects of process evaluation, including: progress of participants’ current process evaluations; peer advice on process evaluation design and methods; lessons learned from previous studies; process evaluation resources such as upcoming events/conferences/training; new studies and publications.

The content of these sessions will be flexible and open to what participants want to discuss. If you have any requests for particular content to be covered that you want to specify in advance of a session, please contact Sarah at s.morgan-trimmer@exeter.ac.uk. Otherwise just show up!

See here for slides from previous process evaluation seminars in this series. Please see the PAtH process evaluation website for resources and updates http://processevaluationatpath.wordpress.com/process-evaluation-events/

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students
 
UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store here.
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

A school based cluster RCT of CBT to prevent anxiety: Statistical and Methodological considerations.

Dr Gordon Taylor
Reader in Medical Statistics at the University of Bath and the Bath lead for the Research Design Service South West (RDS-SW).

JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke’s Campus

(with video link to Knowledge Spa, Truro)

Qualitative Research Advice Clinic
For PenCLAHRC and IHR Staff and Students
 
UEMS qualitative researchers will be available to give face-to-face advice and signposting for your qualitative research queries.

Please book a time via the UEMS store here.
 
Please note that the Online Booking Service closes five working days prior to the event.

Searching and beyond: the Librarian’s role in systematic reviews.

A one day workshop for librarians and information professionals on the systematic review process. Helping you help your users.

Are you being asked more and more about systematic reviews? Information professionals play a vital role within the process and our course is designed specifically for you and delivered by an experienced team of information specialists and reviewers.

Booking for this event is now closed.