Past Events

Safer together? Exploring collective learning for safer patient care Thursday 25th February 2010 University of Glasgow A one day symposium exploring collective learning and patient safety providing an opportunity for knowledge exchange and sharing views from practice, management, education and research. Teamwork and learning together for improvement are an increasing focus for the NHS and work undertaken in Scottish Primary Care Teams has shown that collective learning is a process that highlights the relationships within teams and is as important as the content of education. Working in a team is not the same as working as a team. Patient safety is not only a contemporary issue for the NHS, but one which poses challenges for teams working together to learn and improve care. With a balance of presentations and discussions, this event created an opportunity for those interested in collective learning and patient safety to share knowledge, exchange views and generate discussion and debate. Together we explored whether collective learning can contribute to patient safety, if so, in what ways, and considered what the implications of this approach might be for staff and patients. Speakers included: Professor Brendan McCormack University of Ulster and Dr Donna Brown The Royal Hospitals Trust, Belfast Learning to improve. Psychological safety of staff as a feature of learning to change practice (view presentation here) Ms Lucy Mitchell Industrial Psychology Research Centre, University of Aberdeen Communication, leadership and teamwork. Non-technical skills in operating theatres and their role in patient safety (view presentation here) Dr Justin Waring University of Nottingham Who's learning or whose learning? Tensions between risk management and situated learning (view presentation here) Dr Suzanne Bunniss NHS Education for Scotland Collective learning, change and improvement: learning together in primary and secondary healthcare teams (view presentation here) Dr Paul Bowie and Dr Carl de Wet NHS Education for Scotland Searching for harm in primary healthcare records: benefits and challenges (view presentation here) Professor Brendan McCormack University of Ulster - plenary (view here) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES OF RESEARCHING HEALTH CARE ORGANISATIONS! Tuesday November 24th 2009 Brought to you by SDHI and HORnet This seminar was the latest in the successful series of HORnet meetings held at different locations across Scotland since February 2007. What is the Health Organisation Research Network (HORnet)? HORnet is an informal grouping of academic researchers from across Scotland. We have a particular focus on the organisations that deliver care, their forms, functions and dynamics, and their relationships with other agencies and stakeholders. Thus, we are concerned to understand how health care delivery is designed, enacted and managed, as well as how that delivery is shaped by the external forces of, for example, regulatory efforts or new modes of health care funding. Underpinning such research enquiry is a desire to produce practical knowledge of value at both policy and managerial levels, knowledge that can assist with both insight and action. Speakers included: Kathryn Charles, Lorna McKee, University of Aberdeen Identifying the 'nuts and bolts' of patient safe cultures: enabling informal communication and transmission of knowledge (view presentation here) Alison Cumming, University of Edinburgh Considering performance measurement in the NHS since devolution: the active role of policy documents (view presentation here) Maria Cucciniello, University of Edinburgh Key issues in the development of ICT in the healthcare sector. Evidence from documentary analysis about UK and Italy (view presentation here) Jill Schofield, University of Edinburgh Consortium bid about the research needs of Scottish healthcare managers (view presentation here) Iris Bosa, University of Edinburgh, Ruth Ann Althaus, University of Ohio Impact of funding schemes on communication and structure in delivering integrated medical and social services in rural home care: Italy and the USA (view presentation here) Audrey Jackson, Heriot-Watt University The erosion of professional boundaries within healthcare: the growing dependence of clinical managers upon pharmacy expertise (view presentation here) Alison Smart, Raluca Bunduchi, University of Aberdeen Service innovation and process redesign: the provision of ongoing glaucoma care through the use of community-based testing and telehealth (view presentation here) Alex Greene, Debra Hopkins, University of Aberdeen (on behalf of the Glaucoma Screening Platform Study Group) Developing intervention and outcome components of a screening programme: role and scope of qualitative research (view presentation here) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ESRC Research Seminar Series "Making Sense of Knowledge Production" Seminar 2: Co-Producing Knowledge Friday 6th November 2009 - St Andrews This second seminar in the series explored contemporary understandings about how both research and practice can influence knowledge production. Recognition of the complex and dialogical processes in which new and contextualised understandings are created from an accommodation between practitioner-based knowledge and values on the one hand, and research-based findings and ways of thinking on the other, tends to undermine simple ideas of knowledge 'transfer'. Terms such as knowledge exchange, knowledge interaction, knowledge mediation and knowledge integration perhaps more appropriately capture the issues relating to the co-production of knowledge which was the focus of this seminar. This one-day interactive and invitational meeting explored a range of perspectives on the co-production of knowledge through presentations and discussions in the idyllic setting of St Andrews in Scotland and was held in the Lower College Hall, University of St Andrews. Speakers included: Huw Davies, Professor, SDHI - Welcome and Introductory Remarks (view presentation here) John Shotter, Professor of interpersonal relations in the Department of Communication, University of New Hampshire, USA - Co-creating Innovative Developments... (Copenhagen Plenary, JTSB Bateson 2009, The Happening of Change) Andrée Le May, Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton (view presentation here and references here) Jacky Swan, Professor of Organizational Behavior at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (view presentation here and publication here) Kevin Orr, Director of the Centre for Management and Organisational Learning, University of Hull (view presentation here and references here) Brendan McCormack, Professor of Nursing Research, University of Ulster (view presentation here and references here) David Walker, managing director, communications and public reporting at the Audit Commission; member of the council of the Economic and Social Research Council; and a member of the Understanding Society advisory board (view notes here) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hosted by the Universities of Dundee, St Andrews and Plymouth A National Workshop to Share and Discuss Research Findings into Clinical Networks Delivering Care through Managed Clinical Networks: lessons from the North and The Management and Effectiveness of Clinical and Professional Care Networks Researchers from the Universities of Dundee, St Andrews and Plymouth held a joint workshop to disseminate research findings from two three-year projects into clinical networks. Clinical Networks Clinical Networks (CNs) are believed to increase co-ordination of care and integration of services for chronic conditions, and to lead to improved clinical outcomes, better patient experience, greater equity and improved cost-effectiveness. However it is unclear what forms of network are most likely to succeed, how these should be set-up and managed, or indeed whether they will actually deliver the anticipated benefits. The Service and Delivery Organisations of the NHS (SDO) funded five research projects to explore various aspects of CNs and the care they deliver. Two of those projects hosted a one-day workshop to report their findings to those who can make best use of them. Presentations Included: Introduction - The management and effectiveness of personal and professional networks The story of four Managed Clinical Networks in Scotland Patient experience survey in four Scottish MCNs A Delphi Process The Management and Effectiveness of Clinical and Professional Care Networks Research Design and Data Analysis A National survey of the clinical leads & managers of Scotand's diabetes and CHD networks FUNDED BY THE SERVICE AND DELIVERY ORGANISATION OF THE NHS (SDO)

SDHI Launch Event

The Universities of St Andrews and Dundee hosted an event on Wednesday 3rd December 2003 aimed at bringing together research-active health professionals from Tayside and Fife.

The meeting - an informal networking and fact-finding event - served to form new working relationships and partnerships between individuals with a special interest in the social, economic and cultural aspects of health.

It was hosted by the Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI) and held at the St Andrew's Bay Hotel in St Andrews. The SDHI brings together more than 70 researchers from both Universities building on the long history of health-related research collaborations between the two Universities.

Around 150 professionals gathered at the event, and will include representatives from both Universities as well as individuals from the NHS, the Scottish Executive and Dundee and Fife Councils.

80 research groups displayed elements of their research and it is hoped that by raising awareness of health-related research expertise, the event will be a starting point for stimulating new research collaborations.

Winner of the best poster prize, Dr Stephen Greene, receives his prize from Prof Paul Boyle. The poster was entitled "‘Sweet Talk’ Text Messaging Support for Intensive Insulin Therapy for Young People with Diabetes"

(Researchers - Victoria Franklin, Stuart Gibson, Annalu Waller, Claudia Pagliari, Stephen Greene) 'Sweet Talk’ was developed in collaboration with the University of Dundee Applied Computing Department and Orange plc. It is a web-based text messaging system with an ability to deliver scheduled text messages based on individual patient profiling. It is currently being evaluated in a RCT investigating the adherence of young people with diabetes to intensive insulin therapy. The Project is sponsored by Diabetes UK.

SDHI Seminars

Addressing Violence as a Public Health Issue

Professor Peter Donnelly
Professor of Public Health Medicine
University of St Andrews

responding to him was

Nick Fyfe
Professor of Human Geography
University of Dundee
Director, Scottish Institute for Policing Research

Evidence and Nursing: Enabling the Conditions for Nursing Expertise to Flourish

Professor Brendan McCormack
Professor of Nursing Research
University of Ulster

The Impact of Workplace Culture on Nursing Effectiveness - Rethinking Priorities

and

Professor Andree Le May
Professor, School of Health Sciences
University of Southampton

Finding an Evidence Base for Practice

Ethical Issues in Organ Transplantation

Professor Wendy Rogers
Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Law
School of Medicine
Flinders University
Australia

responding to her was

Alasdair Maclean
Senior Lecturer
School of Law
University of Dundee

The impact of the Scottish smoke-free legislation in affluent and deprived communities - a longitudinal qualitative study

Professor Amanda Amos
Professor of Health Promotion
Public Health Sciences
University of Edinburgh

responding to her was

Andrew Radley
Lead Pharmacist, NHS Tayside
Directorate of Public Health

The use of guidelines to estimate optimal utilisation rates for clinical interventions.
An example from cancer care - barking up the right tree

Professor Michael Barton
Professor of Radiation Oncology
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia

responding to him was

Professor Alastair Munro
Department of Surgery & Molecular Oncology
Ninewells Hospital & Medical School

An Evolutionary in Evaluating Complex Health Interventions

Dr Sanjeev Sridharan
Head of Evaluation,
Research Unit in Health, Behaviour and Change
University of Edinburgh

responding to him was

Dr Brian Williams
Associate Director of Social Dimensions of Health Institute

Patient Involvement: Rhetoric or Reality?

Professor Nora Kearney
Director of Cancer Care Research Centre
Professor of Cancer Care
University of Stirling

responding to her was

Dr Vikki Entwistle
Deputy Director of Social Dimensions of Heath Institute

The Biology of Deprivation

Dr Harry Burns
Chief Medical Officer for Scotland
Scottish Executive Health Department

Introduction to Multi-level Modelling (lecture based)

Dr Fiona Steele
Reader
Graduate School of Education
University of Briston

followed by

Seminar on

"The formation and outcomes of cohabiting and marital partnership in early adulthood"
(which uses multi-level models)

In this recent, well attended SDHI seminar, Fiona Steele provided an interactive and user-friendly introduction to multi-level modelling (also known as random effects and hierachical linear modelling). Dr Steele provided a clear and simplified overview of this this increasingly common set of statistical methods and procedures. Multi-level modelling involves the analysis of clustered data which has a hierarchical structure and is therefore nested in nature, e.g. child scores nested in school. Dr Steele demonstrated the key characteristics of multi-level models that ranged in terms of complexity from simple two level structures, e.g. of child nested in School, to a repeated measures model of educational attainment enabling the control of autocorrelation effects.

In a stimulating discussion, Dr Steele provided a clear distinction between the use of random effects models and fixed effect approaches such as that seen in ANOVA, and illustrated this with the application of random slope models in a health context. The health related model examples were particularly useful in illustrating the use of multi-level modelling. Dr Steele examined the main characteristics of MLM models examining repeated measures of exam scores nested in students, trends in life expectancy, prenatal care and child immunisation and the duration of hospital stay following stroke.

Dr Steele ended the workshop by providing an online demonstration of MLWin 2.02, which can be downloaded freely from http://www.cmm.bris.ac.uk with a discussion group on http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/multilevel . Dr Steele recommended the following text, Snijders, T.A., Bosker, R.J. (1999) Multilevel Analysis: An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multilevel Modeling. Sage, London.

Ethnic group density effects on health

Dr Kate Pickett
Lecturer in Epidemiology
Department of Health Sciences
University of York

responding to her was

Dr Seeromanie Harding
Health of Programme: Ethnicity and Health, Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, MRC Glasgow

Inequalities in Access to Inpatient Palliative Care

Prof Tony Gatrell
Dean
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Lancaster University

responding to him was

Dr Pamela Levack
MacMillan Consultant in Palliative Care and Co-lead Clinician for Cancer & Palliative Care

view Prof Gatrell's slides here

Patient Empowerment & Vulnerability: Contrasting Perspectives

Prof Peter Salmon
Department of Clinical Psychology
University of Liverpool

responding to him was

Dr Brian Williams
Associate Director of the SDHI and Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Science within the Division of Community Health Sciences, University of Dundee

view Prof Salmon's slides here

Health inequalities: linking social structure and individual psychosocial risk factors

Prof Richard Wilkinson, Division of Epidemiology & Public Health,
University of Nottingham Medical School will be making a presentation on

responding to him was

Richard Mitchell, Senior Fellow, Research Unit In Health, Behaviour and Change University of Edinburgh Medical School

Friday 19th February saw the Social Dimensions of Health first seminar take place at the University of St Andrews. An audience of around 50 academics, health and social care staff and other interested parties filled the Old library to hear the UK and world expert on health inequalities, Professor Richard Wilkinson, highlighted his current views and evidence on the cause of health inequalities in the UK and abroad. Professor Wilkinson delivered a fascinating tour of the current explanations of inequalities before highlighting a range of both global mortality and morbidity statistics from around the world to suggest that health inequalities were largely rooted in inequalities in income and status rather than poverty per see. Consequently, he suggested, simply addressing poverty would be unlikely to close the health inequalities gap.

Professor Wilkinson was followed by Dr Richard Mitchell from the Unit for Health, Behaviour and Change at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Mitchell provided an insightful critique of some of Professor Wilkinson's theories and suggested that even if income and status inequalities were a cause of poor health addressing poverty would still play an important part and should not be ignored.

Professor Wilkinson and Dr Mitchell's talks were then followed by questions and points from the floor. The audience were clearly intrigued and fascinated by both the topic and the various explanations that were currently being developed and debated in the field.

Read Prof Wilkinson's Publication: Journal of Community Work and Development (2004) here

View Dr Mitchell's slides here

Back Row L to R - Karen Munro, Brian Williams, Martyn Jones, Huw Davies

Front Row L to R - Richard Mitchell, Richard Wilkinson

Changing places and changing people: a longitudinal analysis of deprivation, migration and health in England and Wales

Prof Paul Boyle, Director of the SDHI

Responding was

Seeromanie Harding, Head of programme: Ethnicity and Health at the Medical Research Council: Social and Public Health Sciences Unit

The second in the SDHI seminar series took place in the Tower Building, university of Dundee on 14th May. Professor Paul Boyle, Founding Director of the Institute, presented a range of studies exploring the role of imigration in the relationship between areas of poor health and social deprivation.

While it was clear that people who became ill tended to drift towards more deprived localities, Professor Boyle argued that even after this selective migration is accounted for, people’s actual geographical location influenced their health status. Presenting data from a number of his recent studies Professor Boyle showed that by looking at individuals who had not moved house (over a 20 year period) the effect of place could be clarified. Individuals whose neighbourhood had become more deprived tended to experience a reduction in health while people in areas where their neighbourhood had become more affluent had improved health.

Dr Seeromanie Harding from the MRC Social and Public Health Research Unit in Glasgow responded to Professor Boyle’s talk. She highlighted the limitations of the datasets underpinning the work and that further work and clarification of key issues was required. In particularly, there remained debate over the extent to which migration enhanced or mitigated against the development of health inequalities over time.

Read Prof Boyle et al's associated papers - Paper 1 and Paper 2

View Dr Harding's slides here

The Effect of Health Care Supply on Health

Dr Matt Sutton, Senior Research Fellow, General Practice and Primary Care, Community-Based Sciences
University of Glasgow

Responding was

Prof. Frank Sullivan, Research and Development in General Practice and Primary Care, Tayside Centre for General Practice, University of Dundee

View Dr Sutton's slides here

Read Dr Sutton's abstract here

View Prof Sullivan's slides here

Emergency Contraception: What happens when you try to give it away

Prof. Sally Wyke, Director of the Central and North Scotland Research Alliance. (The Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals Consortium)

Responding was

Dr Edwin van Teijlingen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Public Health, University of Aberdeen

View Prof Wyke's slides here

View Dr van Teijlingen's slides here

View the press release and press coverage for this event here

Understanding the relationship between health inequalities and place - the role of research on lay expertise

Prof. Jennie Popay, Sociology and Public Health, Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University

The fifth SDHI seminar took place on Thursday 10th March 2005. It was led by Prof. Jennie Popay, Sociology and Public Health, Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University on the topic "Understanding the Relationship between Health Inequalities and Place - the role of research on lay expertise."

View Prof Popay's slides here

SDHI Workshop

Learning the Language: The Use of Intensive Interaction with people whose Severe Learning Disabilities are Linked to Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Distressed Behaviour

Dr Phoebe Caldwell

SDHI held an interactive workshop led by the reknowned Phoebe Caldwell entitled Learning the Language: The Use of Intensive Interaction with people whose Severe Learning Disabilities are Linked to Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Distressed Behaviour. We began by limiting places to only 20, but the event was so popular that we moved venue and over 40 people attended.

Phoebe Caldwell is a Practitioner who has been working with people whose severe Autistic Spectrum Disorder is linked with Learning Disabilities and severe behavioural distress for thirty years. Her approach is a combination of Intensive Interaction and paying attention to those aspects of an individual's environment which are triggering hypersensory distress. For four years she was a Rowntree Research Fellow, looking at best practice. She has been one of the principal speakers at a BILD Annual Conference. She teaches management, therapists, parents, teachers, advocates and carers and is also employed by NHS, Social Services and Community and Education Services to work with people for whom they are finding it difficult to provide a service. Her approach is now taught in a number of University Courses to students who wish to qualify in services to people with learning disabilities. She is the author of four books, the last two, "You don't Know What Its Like" and "Crossing the Minefield" are specifically about ASD - and the training video "Learning the Language", all published by Pavilion Press.

The workshop covered

• Experiencing a different sensory reality
• Looking at ASD from the point of view of those who experience it
• Models
  • 'Build Up',
  • 'Coping Strategies' (Repetitive Behaviours and Exit Strategies - Avoidance and Aggression)
  • 'Fragmentation'
• The Pivotal Role of Stress - Scotopic Sensitivity
• Factors inducing Stress
  • Hypersensitivites to sensory experience:
  • Emotional Overload:
  • Boundaries:
  • Knowing What is Happening:
  • Speech - Understanding and Communication:
  • Time:
  • Change:
  • Choices and Hormonal Factors
• Intensive Interaction
  • Using a Person's 'Brain-Body Language ' to Communicate with them:
  • Observation and Attention
• Challenging Behaviour
• The Dual Approach: Reducing Stress and Looking for What has Meaning for a Particular Individual
  Using Stereotypic Behaviour to contain threatening situations
  

As an introduction to Phoebe's work, "Can We Talk?" can be downloaded here

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Art Competition Prizegiving

The winners of an art competition organised by the Social Dimensions of Health Institute at the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews were presented with their prizes on Monday July 3 at University of Dundee, Tower Building Reception.

Contestants submitted various forms of art on the theme of "Health". Five winners received book tokens for their entries.

Winner of the adult section was Joyce Wilkinson from Cupar, with three separate pieces which hung together form a tryptica looking at mental health. They are entitled "Depression", "Mania" and "Wellbeing". Runner up was Jay Mackinnon from Kingsbarns in Fife, with a submission entitled "The Vital Force" - a series of 3 photographs.

In the children's section brothers Glen (10) and Ross (7) Gauld from Letham, Angus, were awarded joint first place with separate submissions focussing on healthy eating. Both pieces were created using vegetables and fruit to print. Glen's entry was entitled "5 a day" and Ross's "Healthy Eating". The brothers took time out from another healthy activity to attend the prize giving - they are currently taking part in the Institute of Sport and Exercise's children's summer activity programme.

A special prize was also awarded to LUNA and Dr Hester Parr, Dept of Geography, University of Dundee, for a DVD entitled "Recovering Lives: mental health, gardening and the arts". LUNA is an arts and mental health group associated with Art Angel, a unique Arts Advocacy Project based at Dundee Rep Theatre.

Karen Munro, Research Manager at the SDHI, said, "SDHI aims is to encourage collaboration between the Universties of Dundee and St Andrews on social issues related to health. Although we focus mainly on research, we like to encourage all types of activity to improve peoples sense of wellbeing and obviously art is a good example. We have held several exhibitions of art works in our offices in Airlie Place, Dundee in collaboration with Art Angel and with Gillian McFarland, Art Therapist. We currently have an exhibition by Kenny Wilkie, one of Gillian's clients."

As senior judge Gillian McFarland was delighted with the standard of the entries and she said, "Competitions of this sort encourage social links in the workplace and beyond which really helps build a sense of health and wellbeing."