Making a difference

Outcomes from previous Clinical and Health Research Studies

Can compassionate leadership of senior hospital leaders help retain trainee doctors? — July 2024

We ran this study earlier in the year — big thanks to everyone involved and who supported this study. This provided doctors, NHS Trusts and other stakeholders with evidence-based insights and recommendations to improve the working experiences and retention of doctors-in-training.

An article based on your previous responses has been published in the BMJ Leader take a look!

Parent Carer Wellbeing Study — July 2024

This study was open in our Trust in 2023 and first findings of the study have been published. Read the summary here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/more-than-40-of-parents-with-disabled-children-have-thought-about-suicide-study or read the full article here: Full article: Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors in Parents Caring for Children with Disabilities and Long-Term Illnesses (tandfonline.com)

This is the first research study of its kind and the findings are deeply concerning. They also highlight an urgent need for action in policy and practice to support at-risk parent carers.

If you have been personally effected by this please don't hesitate to get in touch for further support: WHCNHS.ResearchDevelopment@nhs.net

MELODIC — Music therapy for people with dementia — April 2024

This study was open in our Trust in November 2023 — early January 2024 and aimed to co-design a new music therapy intervention for NHS dementia wards with stakeholders and experts-by-experience. 11 people were recruited from this Trust so a huge thank you to all involved on Meadow Ward staff at New Haven, Bromsgrove, and Cantaloupe ward staff in Hereford.

Catch-up on a systematic review here.

Hearing Nasty Voices — February 2024

We were pleased to be one of the first NHS Trust’s to open this study in February 2020 and, although paused during COVID, was open through until December 2021. 3 people were recruited contributing to the 308 participants recruited in total.

HUGE thanks to teams in this Trust involved in this study who have helped broaden understanding of the potential causes of distress in voice hearers focussing on one type of experience – hearing derogatory or threatening voices.

We shared the full report in 2023: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/49/1/151/6659785

The participant feedback and final report has now been released. Please see below.

Participant feedback: Hearing nasty voices participant feedback.pdf [pdf] 83KB

Final report: Hearing Nasty Voices Follow-up archdischild-2023-326393.full.pdf [pdf] 461KB

YourTube – Home blended diets for children who are gastrostomy fed — February 2024

It was great to receive the results from the above study which Alex Ginever (Community Paediatric Dietitian) led on for this Trust.

HUGE thanks to Alix and everyone involved. Please find the summary of the findings and full articles:

Yourtube - 0102 Infographic print.pdf [pdf] 1MB

Baseline Develop Med Child Neuro - 2023 - Fraser - YourTube the role of different diets in gastrostomyfed children Baseline.pdf [pdf] 789KB

Follow-up archdischild-2023-326393.full.pdf [pdf] 700KB

‘Building a supportive culture to retain doctors-in-training’ — January 2024

Huge thanks to the staff who supported this study which was open in this Trust in July 2023.

"As part of the Trust's commitment to improve trainee doctors' working lives, The R&D team supported Dr Wen Wang's research project "Building a supportive culture to retain trainee doctors" (Leicester University Business School). This was funded by the British Academy.

More information can be found at https://careinuncertainty.le.ac.uk.

The first project's survey was completed by more than 300 trainee doctors from England and Wales. The research findings have been disseminated amongst the 25 participating NHS Trusts ( Doctors in training study summary_Initial findings (3).docx [docx] 63KB ). Based on the findings, an event was curated and well-attended on 30^th November 2023 (Leading the Future Healthcare CPD Day – Report )

73 guests were hosted at the Brookfield House, among them 60 are trainee doctors from the NHS Trusts.
The programme was well received with 90% of the trainee doctors who attended wanting to recommend this event to a fellow doctor; and 79% wanting to attend a similar event again.

The recommendations (3Rs: Responsiveness, Relationship, and Recognition) from the findings are similar to the core values already adopted by the trust.

The Medical Directorate thanks the study team for sharing this information with them and acknowledges the importance of increased engagement between senior leaders and trainee doctors to form good working relationships to support trainee doctors, and to recognise their valuable contribution by informing trainee doctors about their achievements. There will be a follow-up survey in February and a CPD event in April 2024.

The Trust is a core member of the project and these opportunities are open to trainee doctors."

RADAR — October 2023

We were thrilled to learn that a study that staff from Herefordshire were involved in in 2019, led by Dr Barny Major (PI – Principal Investigator), has been published in the Lancet.

The study looked at ‘benefits and harms of a gradual process of antipsychotic reduction compared with maintenance treatment.’

It found that ‘a gradual reduction over several months in the dose of maintenance antipsychotics in people diagnosed with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders did not lead to benefits in social functioning and was more likely to lead to relapse than continuing on maintenance treatment.’

Read the article here:

Psychological Impact of Covid-19 (phase 3)

We recruited just under 100 people to this online questionnaire study in 2021 including a number of staff so a quick update: the end of study report will soon be submitted but in the meantime please see below for the following papers on the study that have been published: World journal of psychiatry and Journal of Affective Disorders

SYMBAD trial results

HWHCT took part in this trial so we were really pleased to receive these results at the end of October 2021. The main results have been published in the Lancet: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0140673621012101 but please see below for the summary outcomes:

‘In summary we found that there was no benefit in taking mirtazapine compared with placebo, there was even the possibility of harm with a marginally higher rate of mortality in the mirtazapine group. The clear conclusion from the data is that they do not support the use of mirtazapine as a treatment for agitation in dementia. Positively there was clear recovery in those that participated in both the placebo and the mirtazapine group. This means that the best thing to do clinically may be to actively monitor agitation while carrying out treatment as usual, rather than jumping to use another medication in all but the most serious of cases.

This is a result that has important implications to clinical practice, and we hope that you will join with us in disseminating the findings as widely as possible. There has been a press release: Research news - Common antidepressant should no longer be used to treat people with dementia - University of Exeter by the University of Plymouth and the team would be happy to work with your local institutions and Trusts should you wish to provide further public information. Alzheimer’s Research UK has also published an article: Antidepressant drug doesn’t improve agitation in dementia trial - Alzheimer's Research UK (alzheimersresearchuk.org) ’

HUGE thanks to everyone who was involved in this study at HWHCT.

PrEP Impact Trial – A pragmatic health technology assessment and implementation

PrEP (HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis) is a medicine for HIV negative people and it can reduce the risk of catching HIV when taken as instructed. However this is currently not available through the NHS.

PrEP is made up of two drugs, Tenofovir and Emtricitabine. Both these drugs have been widely used for many years to treat HIV and the drug has been used by several thousands of HIV negative people worldwide to reduce the risk of HIV.

To plan a PrEP programme in England, NHS England and Local Authorities carried out research to find out:

How many people attending sexual health clinics need PrEP?
How many of these start PrEP?
How long do they need PrEP for?

In this Trust the study ran across the 3 Sexual Health Services; Arrowside, John Anthony Centre and Hereford and 64 patients were recruited. All participants in this study had access to PrEP.

This study has now closed but we will share the outcomes when they are published later this year. A huge thank you to everyone who was involved.