Kent Health News and Events

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has renewed its funding to CHSS and the Universities of Surrey and Brighton to manage the NIHR Research Design Service South East (RDS South East) for a further five years.As part of a national network of ten university based RDS centres in England, the RDS South East provides a free service to individuals seeking funding for applied health and social care research from open national peer reviewed funding programmes.

The new contract will enable health and social care researchers to continue to benefit from specialist support in formulating research proposals. This includes advice on identifying an appropriate funding stream, statistics, health economics, qualitative methodology, and support for patient and public involvement in research.

Professor Dame Sally C Davies, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Health, said: ‘The NIHR is transforming research in the NHS to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease. It is very important that researchers applying for NIHR funding access the services provided by the RDS so that they can submit their best applications’.

Co Director of the RDS South East, Bridget Carpenter said: ‘The award is great news. Over the last five years, we have built an excellent team who deliver really effective support. Advice is informed, confidential – and completely free. The new contract provides an opportunity to carry on working with academics and clinicians to develop high quality research applications that will ultimately benefit patients and improve health’.

For more information about RDS SE, or to apply for support, visit: www.rds-se.nihr.ac.uk/

PRUComm, the Commissioning and Health Systems Policy Research Unit, is one of several policy research units funded by the Department of Health and is a collaboration between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Department of Primary Care at the University of Manchester and the Centre for Health Services Studies at the University of Kent.

Directed by Professor Stephen Peckham at CHSS working with Associate Directors Dr Kath Checkland (University of Manchester) and Dr Pauline Allen (LSHTM), the unit
brings together experts in the study of health services, organisations and commissioning to develop high quality research.

PRUComm’s research programme examines the functioning of health systems, focusing on organisations such as the NHS Commissioning Board and regulators in systems management, and local commissioners’ role in shaping and managing care provision. The Unit’s primary aim is to support the Department of Health in developing commissioning for health and wellbeing, sustaining high quality and effectiveness and developing strong links with policy makers, health regulators, NHS
managers and practitioners.

Stephen Peckham commented: ‘The unit has completed initial research on the development of clinical commissioning groups and is reviewing the evidence on clinically-led commissioning. We are also examining healthcare contracting in the English NHS, supporting the Department of Health’s commissioning policy group’.

‘We will have done our job well if we can help all the players in this vast process to get the best out of commissioning for their organisations, but most of all for patients and the public who are the key focus. Hopefully, we can offer tools to make the process easier’, Stephen said.

For more information about PRUcomm, www.prucomm.ac.uk/

CHSS Reader in Applied Health Research Jenny Billings, is leading a project to evaluate a palliative care tool developed with Kent and Medway Children and Young People’s (KMCYP) Palliative Care Network.

The Advance Care Plan Tool allows families to plan and agree end of life care for children, including any decisions which may be needed about resuscitation.

The tool has been adapted for use locally with the approval of South Central Strategic Health Authority and is currently in use at Ellenorlions Hospice and by nurses within the East Kent community. The evaluation will identify the main strengths of the tool, so these can be built on, and highlight any weaknesses or areas where change may be necessary.

The project uses a mixed methods approach, with a quantitative assessment of how the tool is being completed, alongside qualitative interviews and focus groups with families and professionals. Service users have been actively involved in the design of the project which reports later this year, and a workshop will be held with professionals from the research sites to explore how the results can be taken forward. The aim will be to move towards a standardised and robust planning tool which can be put into practice

For further information contact Jenny Billings: j.r.billings@kent.ac.uk

Coordinating end of life care

Patients with incurable illness in the last months of life need access to a range of services, but evidence shows that currently these are poorly coordinated, with both duplication of and gaps in care.

CHSS Research Associate Laura Holdsworth is working on a study to evaluate the impact of a new project run by Pilgrims Hospices in collaboration with local NHS and social care partners. Project Invicta aims to improve end of life care for patients through an Electronic Palliative Care Coordination System, improved patient pathways, and a new ‘navigation centre’, which patients, carers and local care providers can call 24 hours a day for advice or assistance.

The study will assess the impact of Project Invicta, and particularly the navigation centre, on patients, carers, professionals and organisations involved, as well as evaluating the health and social care service use costs. The study will utilise a number of research methods, including a telephone survey with carers, interviews, observations, and a review of service use records. The study will also look at the implementation process of coordinated working between local health and social care providers.

For further information contact Laura Holdsworth: l.m.holdworth@kent.ac.uk

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt recently placed dementia care at the forefront of Government plans for the NHS, calling for improved care and announcing £50m in targeted funding. There are 670,000 people in the UK diagnosed with dementia and numbers are predicted to rise by 150% over the next four decades.

As part of a policy-driven health research portfolio, CHSS has been involved in several dementia studies, and Professor of Health Services Research Simon Coulton is currently leading a Kent team on statistical design for a randomised controlled trial of a new model of collaborative dementia care. The CARE-DEM trial is under way at several primary care sites between London and Kent in the South East, and Newcastle in the North East; testing how effective and cost effective it is compared with usual care. The project involves people with dementia of all ages who live independently in the community and have regular contact with an informal carer.

Simon Coulton commented: ‘Evidence shows a real need in the UK for integrated, cost effective services to support people with dementia and their families to help them live independently for as long as they possibly can. CAREDEM is designed to address this need
by offering a coordinated care package led by a single health or social care professional who acts as designated care manager’.

The project, funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme, will fill a gap in UK evidence for the benefits of this approach; studies of collaborative care outside the UK have shown promising results.

For further information, contact Simon Coulton: s.coulton@kent.ac.uk

A simple blood test could diagnose kidney disease before it progresses. A £2 million study gets underway. Tom Savvides talks to patient Gloria Lewis, Dr Edmund Lamb from the Kent & Canterbury Hospital and patient Laurence Sandum.

Research into kidney disease from ITV News Meridian on Vimeo.

Please see the attached £2 million pound research grant which the NIHR RDS SE is pleased to have supported here

See here for the Trust News on 5th July