Blogs

If the recent Medilink East Midlands Innovation day and Awards are anything to go by then life sciences in the East Midlands is thriving! Life sciences champion the use of research, innovation, and technology. Medilink East Midlands Innovation day is in its 14th year and it continues to grow and evolve attracting more than 250 delegates.

Many of us will have seen these disturbing headlines in the media today (23 February 2018). A study published today by researchers from Manchester, Sheffield and York Universities estimates that up to 1 in 5 prescriptions ends in the wrong drug being given to a patient, that’s equivalent to 237million errors a year. This is shocking but there is hope, The AHSN network and EMAHSN have been working on innovations that help reduce the number of errors being made in the prescribing and dispensing processes.

Lucy Hose, Communication Manager, EMAHSN discusses using social media and other digital channels, especially if you are a leader.

I recently read NHS Employers Guide to Using Social Media in Leadership and it struck me that so many more senior leaders could "take to Twitter" or "leap to LinkedIn" to assist their organisations to communicate.

Chris Hart, Commercial Director, EMAHSN, emphasises the importance of a strong NHS business case and how a recently produced EMAHSN guide can assist in the preparation for an effective business case aimed at small and medium sized organisations.

When the NHS is interested in taking on board a new product or service it is likely that a NHS business case will need to be prepared and approved before the procurement of the project can proceed. From experience working alongside many organisations over the years we have recognised that organisations that supply the NHS are often challenged by the process and requirements.

Martin Hindle, Independent Chair of the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network talks about the latest public health data.

Recently, Public Health England (PHE) released the health profiles for 2016. It is an excellent resource which holds a huge amount of valuable health and socioeconomic statistics for England. As the Independent Chair of EMAHSN I was particularly drawn to the granular nature of information for the East Midlands region and the common health trends within the data.

Dr Cheryl Crocker, Regional Lead Patient Safety Collaborative, EMAHSN. 

Cheryl summarises the recent 'State of Care report', the CQC annual overview of health and adult social care in England which was published on 14 October 2015. Cheryl also talks about how our work at the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative is already contributing to improving safety across our region.

Peter Bates, former PPL lead at EMAHSN recently visited friends in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Peter decided to donate some of his leaving collection (from team members) to the community he visited. While there met Lynne Smith from Scotland. Lynne is qualified as a dentist and keeps up her continuing professional development when she returns to the UK, but her main home is in the town of Kaya, some 60 miles north of Burkina’s capital city of Ouagadougou. Amongst a range of initiatives, Lynne’s dental project highlights some themes that are relevant to innovation in healthcare in the UK.

Prof. Jos Schols MD, PhD from the Dutch LPZ team in Maastricht gives his views and feedback on this annual measurement of the prevalence which first started in the Netherlands in 1998 and is now being trialled by the Eats Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative.

Prof. Murray Anderson-Wallace, Expert Advisor, EMAHSN Patient Safety Collaborative gives an overview of the appointment of the first Chief Investigator of the newly formed Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB).

Dr Adam Gordon is Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People at The University of Nottingham and an Honorary Consultant Geriatrician at Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He tweets @adamgordon1978

Here he describes a project to benchmark and report the prevalence of care problems in UK care homes.
Care homes do a lot of good work. There are almost three times as many beds in UK care homes as there are in National Health Service hospitals. Care home residents are amongst the most vulnerable members of our society.