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Learning Disability - community/university event Thursday 21 June 2012

t's learning disability week and the Welsh Government-funded Learning Disability network is holding an accessible conference for people with a learning disabilty. There will be varied presentations about what research is and interactive workshops on different topics eg housing, mindfulness, drama, healthy eating. You can find the programme here -

http://www.ldancymru.org.uk/ld_conference.php.en?catid=&subid=9662

This is a community/university event and is important because it is rare for people with a learning disability to have the opportunity to find out what research goes on about them and to express their ideas of what needs doing.

We have a group of people with a learning disability - The Question-Aires - who are starting a research project of their own. They will be talking about their research at the conference. After this event, others may want to join them.

Mencap and Involving People are supporting the event and Healthcare Sciences and Psychology at Bangor University are the main actors. There will be internationally recognised speakers and well-known professionals in Learning Disability who will be challenged to present very simply!

The main focus of the day of course is the delegates themselves. We're sure it will be a friendly and useful day and a memorable community event.

I hope you may want to cover the conference and contribute to a positive public image of learning disability. Please get back to me or Ruth Wyn Williams (01248 383154) if you have any questions.

Dr Christopher Burton, Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director of Implement@BU has been elected to be the next President of the Society of Research in Rehabilitation.

The Society of Research in Rehabilitation (SRR) is the major multidisciplinary rehabilitation research society in the UK. Its aim is to advance education and research into all aspects of rehabilitation for people with disability, and to disseminate the results of research (http://www.srr.org.uk/default.asp).

Dr. Burton said “SRR is an important platform for the development of rehabilitation science, and provides excellent opportunities for novice and experienced rehabilitation researchers to share knowledge and expertise.

Rehabilitation is an important component of treatment for many health conditions, and includes a wide range of physical, psychological and environmental aspects that help people to participate in meaningful life activities. Bangor University has a strong reputation for its rehabilitation research for stroke and other long-term health conditions, and staff and students have presented their work at recent SRR meetings. I am looking forward to strengthening the ties between the University and the SRR over the next four years”.

Prize winning nursing student Anthony Green creates Learning Disability website

A new website has been launched to assist anyone who is involved in learning disability work or thinking of becoming involved in learning disabilities work. Learningdisabilitynurse.com has evolved following The Fiona Law Practice Innovation Award 2011.

The award invited students attending the Positive Choices Conference in Hertfordshire to write in no more than 500 words ‘Why the future is in their hands, and how they will make a bright future for people with a learning disability’.

The award was won by Anthony Green (Bangor University), runners up were Sean Ledington (Wolverhampton University) and Tracy March (Nottingham University). Since winning the award the Three were invited to present at this year's Positive Choice conference in Edinburgh where they will present the Ultimate Marketing Campaign for Learning Disability Nursing. The main aim of the project is to raise awareness of learning disability nursing in order to increase the number of students engaged in that particular branch of nursing.

The initial idea was to produce a poster presentation to show, how as a team, they would produce the Ultimate Marketing Campaign, however the team quickly realized that a poster wouldn’t be enough to show how ‘diverse’ the role of a LD nurse is along with learning/ Intellectual Disability Nursing across the four countries of the UK and have since developed this campaign to incorporate the website and various social media pages.

The website can be found at http://learningdisabilitynurse.com/

Bangor University Work-Based Learning

Information about these courses was presented at the ‘Wellbeing at Work’ conference in the Conwy Business Centre Llandudno Junction on the 17th November 2011.
These bite-sized courses are available from the Schools of Psychology, Sports, Health and Exercise Science and Healthcare Science Bangor University for private or third sector employees operating in the field of health and wellbeing.

The courses from CPD workshops to accredited modules will allow employees to progress to further qualifications.

This Health and Wellbeing course is part of the Work Based Learning programme funded by the Convergence European Social Fund through the Welsh Government. If you live, and, or work in the Convergence area of Wales and are working in the private or third sector, you may be entitled to either a fully funded or part funded place on the course.

Further information about the courses available and eligibility criteria can be obtained from Pauline Kelly Project Manager by email to p.kelly@bangor.ac.uk or telephone 01248 382039

Prof Jo Rycroft-Malone -Visiting Professor at University of Ulster

Prof Jo Rycroft-Malone has just been awarded the status a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Ulster.
As an internationally recognised academic in the field of implementation science, the award aims to help advance existing collaborations, develop
new opportunities for increasing expertise in implementation science and build capacity in translation research.

Nursing at Bangor University - 17th in Independent poll.

The Good University Guide (Independent Newspaper) published their University league tables. In the subject listing Nursing at Bangor was listed as 17th in the UK and second in Wales. The Complete University Guide

Clear framework for services supporting children with the most severe conditions

Professor Jane Noyes, an expert in researching what works for disabled children and their families, at Bangor University's School of Healthcare Sciences, led in the evaluation that underpinned the development of this important new framework. The evaluation was undertaken in 12 areas in England and involved following 137 children as they and their families were assessed for funding to pay for additional care and support at home. Read more

Prof Jo Rycroft-Malone co authers new book on ways of implementing evidence gained through research and factors that influence successful implementation. Read more.

Project Grant Awards

The School is delighted to to confirm the award of the following project grants:

Karen Vipond. Rhagnodi Annibynol. £8,282
Gill Roberts & Heather Bloodworth. Datblygu Deunydd Vod a Podcast Dwyieithog ar gyfer Addysg Gofal Iechyd. £7,200
Ruth Williams. Cyflwyniad i Anabledd Dysgu ym maes Gofal Iechyd. £8,956
Total Grants: £24,438.

Llongyfarchiadau mawr! / Warm Congratulations! This funding enables the school to move forward significantly with bilingual provision in teaching and learning as well as e-learning and multi-media resource development.

Dr Sion Williams

Dr. Sion Williams from the School of Healthcare Sciences, was awarded the 2009 Senior Health Career Research fellowship. This was a competitive all-Wales award by the "The Health Foundation and WORD Research Capacity Building Collaboration for Nursing and Allied Health Professions in Wales". This is a very prestigious award and one that Sion and the school can be very proud of. The award is for two years.

Sion's research title for this Fellowship is: "Maintaining stability, managing decline and bridging transition in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: developing a model of adjustment, shared decision making and self management."

PILSen: Practice Interventions for Language Sensitivity: a Pilot Study to Inform the Delivery of Pharmaceutical Services in Wales.

The Pharmacy Practice Development Scheme of the Welsh Assembly Government has been awarded a grant of £11, 894 to a local pharmacist, Mr Llyr Hughes of Nefyn, to help build the evidence base for effective healthcare communication in the delivery of pharmaceutical services in the bilingual setting.

This grant arises from an innovative partnership between

Local community pharmacists in Gwynedd,
Gwynedd and Môn Local Health Board,
LLAIS (Language Awareness Infrastructure Support Service for Clinical Research Collaboration Cymru), Bangor University’s language awareness in healthcare research group
The ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory & Practice, Bangor University’s internationally recognised centre of excellence for the study of bilingualism
NWORTH (North Wales Organisation for Randomised Trials in Health), Bangor University’s registered Clinical Trials Unit
CEPhI (Centre for Economics and Policy in Health), Bangor University’s Health Economics group

Over the next six months this partnership will undertake an in depth study examining the link between the language of consultation between patients and community pharmacists and the way people subsequently use their medication. This work will pave the way for a larger scale trial, being planned for next year, to study the wider health impact of language and language choice on the delivery of pharmacy services in the bilingual setting.

LLAIS, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, is already making important advances in enhancing language awareness in healthcare, but this is the first study of its kind to bring together such a broad range of expertise within the community and university to study links between language and health. It opens the way to understanding how language planning may be implemented to improve service delivery to the local population, and more broadly to any bilingual or multilingual community, at a national and international level.

For further details contact:

Annual Monitoring

The School of Healthcare Sciences received a very successful outcome to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Annual Monitoring that took place earlier this year.

We are one of only 31 UK universities who were assessed to be in the category "Programme Providers with Well Developed Risk Control" (see
http://www.nmc-uk.org/aFrameDisplay.aspx?DocumentID=4678 for more information).

Congratulations to Dr. Chris Burton

Dr Chris Burton is part of a research collaboration (with the Universities of Central Lancashire, Glasgow Caledonian, Edge Hill, Leicester and Leeds) that has been awarded a £1.8M (£36k of which comes to Bangor) programme grant from the National Institute for Health Research to investigate treatments for post-stroke urinary incontinence. This is an issue that causes a lot of misery for sufferers, but where little evidence to guide practice exists. The research will draw on our expertise here in Bangor in evidence-based practice, organisational context and case study research using mixed methods. We really are making a difference here through the school's Centre for Health Related Research.

School of Healthcare Sciences

The School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Studies has changed its name to reflect its ever increasing, multi-professional education and training provision, which benefits patient care in hospitals and nursing homes across North Wales, and will be known as the School of Healthcare Sciences.

__________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________MSCtudent Achievements

BN Nursing

Congratulations to Mr David LLoyd

Mr David LLoyd has received an invitation today from Professor Dickon Weir-Hughes, who is the current (and 1st non-USA) president of NANDA-I, to sit on the Bye-Laws Committee of the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association-International (NANDA-I), which provides governance to the organisation. This is a worthy recognition of Dave's work in this field and raises both his and the school's profile in this important international organisation (http://www.nanda.org/Home.aspx )

Congratulations to Mrs Karen Vipond

Congratulations to Mrs Karen Vipond who has been elected to the Board of Governors of the Walton Neurological Centre in Liverpool with the constituency of North Wales. This is a management and advisory role to the executive team based at the Walton Foundation Trust. Karen will undoubtedly make substantial contributions to the work of the neurological centre due to her professional and personal experience and expertise in this field.

www.thewaltoncentre.nhs.uk

e-mail: foundationtrust@thewaltoncentre.nhs.uk

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Research

Congratulations Dr. Sion Williams

Dr. Sion Williams was awarded the 2009 Senior Health Career Research fellowship. This was a competitive all-Wales award by the "The Health Foundation and WORD Research Capacity Building Collaboration for Nursing and Allied Health Professions in Wales". The award is for two years.

Sion's research title for this Fellowship is: "Maintaining stability, managing decline and bridging transition in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: developing a model of adjustment, shared decision making and self management."

Congratulations Peter Jones

Peter Jones has been awarded a Research Capacity Building Collaboration First Into Research Award.

The award is worth £9,000 for a 12 month project, commencing 1 April, by the "The Health Foundation and WORD Research Capacity Building Collaboration for Nursing and Allied Health Professions in Wales". Peter is going to build on a stroke study that Dr. Chris Burton received funding for through the North West Wales Research Committee - to explore the effect of stroke on relationships with a spouse.

Congratulations to Gwerfyl Roberts

Gwerfyl Roberts was involved in a successful Grant Award titled: Bilingual Alternatives in Managing Medicines: a pilot study to inform the delivery of pharmaceutical services in Wales.

The grant is worth £12K and the 6 month research study is led by two local community pharmacists. As co-applicants on the bid, LLAIS will offer project management support to the team; NWORTH will offer trial support; and the Centre for Bilingualism will undertake the linguistic analysis.

The findings of this pilot study will guide the development of a large scale RCT on language concordance in Medicine User Reviews that should attract research council funding.

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Grant Award

The Higher Education Academy has awarded a £4300 grant from their prestigious mini-project research funding (only 10 given a year) to a team consisting of Peter Jones, Dr Alan Thomas, Prof Jo Rycroft-Malone, Neil Davison and a BN undergraduate student Wendy Scrase.

The title of the study is 'Evaluating clinically based vodcasts on the engagement of nursing students with research'.

The outcomes for the project are:

• Production and evaluation of vodcasts as a means of increasing student nurses’ engagement with the research process.
• Evaluation of instant group feedback on learning through audience polling system (clickers).
• Enhancement of the research capabilities of new researcher and student on the team. We will use mentoring and principles from action learning to enhance

this development opportunity.
• Testing feasibility of a larger project.

This grant builds on the £1700 received last year from TechDis to buy the mindmapping and vodcasting equipment
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Major Grant Capture

Congratulations to Prof. Jo Rycroft-Malone who is a partner in a successful FP7 EU grant worth around 3 million euros, 22% of which is allocated to our School of Healthcare Sciences.

The programme of work called "Facilitating Implementation of Research Evidence (FIRE)" aims to evaluate facilitation as a process for promoting the uptake of research evidence in the care of older people. Jo is leading on the process evaluation work package. It's a partnership between us and the Universities of Warwick, Manchester, Ulster & Cork, Karolinska Institute, Sweden, Fontys, Netherlands and Alberta in Canada.

This is another important and major achievement for our school and is evidence that our strategy and investment in developing research activities was the right thing to do. Our school's Centre for Health Related Research has now built up a good portfolio of successful bids and research programmes. These successes are bound to lead to further grants being awarded in the future.

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