12. Other cool healthcare projects I’ve worked on
Here’s a small selection of many projects, that I am just so proud & homoured to have gotten a chance to work on. To try and help make things better for others and enhance/recreate/make-a-brand-new service for those who need them.
Royal College of Occupational Therpaists
Workbooks and core principles to enhance research activity & understanding across and into the profession (2020).
ZEST: Your Voice, Your Health
The Health Team at Zest work closely with Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BAMER) women in the community, engaging them in wellbeing courses; health activities; social groups and English conversation classes as well as providing one-to-one healthy lifestyle support. Through this work they had been made aware of a number of issues in relation to how and why the women access GPs and other health services. Anecdotally the team had heard that the women had struggled with issues relating to language and translation services; had little knowledge of their rights to request specific GPs or to change GPs; often went to the GP when an alternative service might have been more appropriate (e.g. calling 101, using a pharmacist). To find out more about the community’s experiences and expectations of GPs we held two consultation events at Zest.
https://www.healthwatchsheffield.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Zest-speakup-report-final-version.pdf
Improving access to the Hepatitis C clinic
Non-attendance in the drug service Hepatitis C outreach clinic means clients miss the opportunity of referral for curative hospital treatment. A doctoral study was undertaken to investigate the problem, with the reasons for missed appointments being more complex than the initial explanations given (*Poll et al, 2017). The challenge was to transform this knowledge into practice and to do so in a co-productive way.
The project team recognised the importance of collaboration with service users and stakeholders, using the principles of coproduction (*Heaton et al, 2015). Our objective was, using co-design methods, to develop potential solutions for improving access to the Hepatitis C clinic which were created and owned by stakeholders.
During this process an initiative suggested by participants was a mobile clinic van staffed by the hospital team, which would provide screening, care and treatment at different locations in the city. Whilst a business case is being prepared, a short animated video with commentary was produced. https://youtu.be/DWCF6j2oygs
As with other areas of health where it has shown to be effective, the use of ‘buddies’ was offered by participants as a strategy to help improve engagement with the clinic. https://youtu.be/LmDwnTZEexs
Videos drawn by me.
Way Forward Doncaster: Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) INSPIRE project
Evidence-based practice offers many advantages to patients, clinicians and health service providers. Whilst clinical guidelines aim to help put evidence into practice, there are many challenges to implementing clinical guidelines.
The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) developed Inspire, a resource to collate clinical guidelines from multiple sources. Inspire aims to enable clinicians to access and understand what guidelines could look like in practice. To better understand how such knowledge can translate into practice and explore the role of the CSP in supporting their members to implement guidelines, the CSP has linked with implementation science experts at the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health, Research and Care Yorkshire and Humber (NIHR CLAHRC YH). They will both work with Doncaster & Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (DBHFT) to plan and develop strategies to implement evidence based recommendations from Inspire.
The project will focus on strategies to support Musculoskeletal Outpatient Physiotherapy Services at Doncaster Royal Infirmary to deliver Inspire evidence-based guidelines on weight management. Using a participatory and co-productive approach, patients and clinicians with experience of this pathway will work together to identify local issues and barriers to implementation and develop new strategies to overcome these.
http://clahrc-yh.nihr.ac.uk/our-themes/translating-knowledge-into-action/4-projects/way-forward-doncaster-chartered-society-of-physiotherapy-csp-inspire-project
SPACES: Helping people with Severe Mental Health To Become More Active
Multiple university research project
