A message from Peter

Jones, Director of

CLAHRC CP

“It’s a

lively

mixture

that is fast

becoming

an exciting

and

energetic

force”

Our CLAHRC has reached its second

birthday and has become a real col-

laboration between health research-

ers, clinicians, engineers, manage-

ment scientists and commissioners.

It's a lively mixture that is fast becom-

ing an exciting and energetic force,

well and truly on the map locally and

nationally and tackling some key

problems concerning mental health,

learning disability, and old age needs.

On our second anniversary, 1st Octo-

ber, I attended Cambridgeshire's

"Storm Two" event, a gathering of the

health and social care economy to

brainstorm the implications of the

recent White Paper, 'Equity and Ex-

cellence'. Andrew Lansley, Secretary

of State for Health & Social Care

opened proceedings with an impres-

sive speech - followed by an equally

impressive and engaging

Q & A session.

But the true effects of shifting the

balance of power to GP commission-

ing groups will take a while to unfold

as the tectonic plates of primary,

secondary and social care grind

against each other.

Whether we end up with the

Himalayas or the Mariana trench is, (Continued on page 2)

November 2010

Issue 1

Fellows programme launched

Drawing on previous work done by

SEARCH Canada who ran a similar

programme from 1996 to 2009,

we have established a CLAHRC

Fellowship Programme. Thirteen

fellows have been appointed with

a focus of bringing research closer

to practice in mental health care.

Most are practising clinicians from

around the Eastern Region and

they will work for a day a week

with our themes, bringing their

expertise to existing research

programmes and, in turn, taking

the knowledge they gain and the

mission of CLAHRC back into their

own organisations.

Leading the

programme

will be a

part of the

remit of Dr.

Christine

Hill, who we

recently

appointed as Consultant in Public

Health.

Christine has been working with

us for over a year, supporting the

public health theme and the

CLAHRC in general, and we

welcome her into this senior role.

An invitation from the National

Institute for Health and Clinical

Excellence

(NICE) has creat-

ed an oppor-

tunity for local

research to be

applied at a na-

tional level. The institute has

asked Dr Stephen Barclay, who

leads CLAHRC CP’s research into

end of life care, to become a GP

advisor to a national working

group.

The ‘A’ in CLAHRC, the ‘applied’

aspect, is very important to me’

says Dr Barclay, who works in a

Professor Peter Jones city GP practice in addition to his

academic research.

“The ‘A’ in

CLAHRC, the

applied aspect,

is very

important”

Applying research will be central

to Dr Barclay’s role with NICE. The

working group will be developing

end of life quality standards for

the NHS, creating the foundations

for guidance on palliative care

across all settings; hospital,

hospice, care home and home.

(Continued on page 2)

Inside this issue:

Message from

Peter Jones

2

Local research,

national impact

2

Adult service

user engage-

ment

2

CLAHRC CP at

the SDO confer-

ence

3

Prize winning

contribution

3

What is the

CLAHRC?

4

Welcome to CLAHRC CP News Nine Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and

Care were set up in 2008 to facilitate the translation of research into

clinical and social care practice. The CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and

Peterborough (CLAHRC CP) focuses on understanding mental health

and learning disability across the life span. We hope this newsletter

will give you an idea of our purpose and some of the highlights of our

work to date.

Local research, national impact

Dr. Christine Hill

What is the

CLAHRC?

See the back

page to learn

more about how

our CLAHRC is set

up, who is

involved in it,

and the areas on

which our

research is

focused.

support over a long period of

time.

To help us achieve this, service

users from the Oliver Zangwill

centre who have received spe-

cialist neurorehabilitation, and

men and women with intellec-

tual disabilities who are service

users of the integrated teams

managed by the Cambridge-

shire Learning Disability part-

nership are working closely

One of the adult theme’s main

goals is to understand how

community based teams, bring-

ing together practitioners from

different backgrounds, might

best provide good outcomes for

men and women whose diffi-

culties often require complex

multi-agency interventions and

alongside us.

The Service User Advisory

Group (SUAG), for people with

intellectual disabilities, has now

met three times and is working

very well together.

For more information please

contact Liz Jones, Practitioner

Researcher, on telephone

number 01223 746152.

to a considerable degree, in our

own hands.

Supporting these changes now

shapes the agenda for

CLAHRCs. We need to help GP

commissioning achieve quality

and value. The fact that my

wife, a local GP, and I were

together in the same strategy

(Continued from page 1) meeting for the first time in a

decade was a personal meta-

phor for what's to come: it

could be good!

Writing this as I return from a

national CLAHRC "Learning

Together" event in Sheffield,

I'm reminded that our task

concerns the wide exchange of

knowledge, not just its crea-

tion. In our CLAHRC we have

built dynamic multidisciplinary

research teams and strong links

with those who can use the

knowledge created, guide the

questions we answer and the

way we approach them.

I hope that this newsletter will

provide you with a sense of our

vision and intent.

Message from Peter Jones, Director of CLAHRC CP

Local research, national impact

national impact has come from

Dr Barclay’s role as a GP repre-

sentative on the national steer-

ing group for the End of Life

Care Intelligence Network.

‘The NHS

has data on

what hap-

pens in hos-

pitals, but is

concerned

that there

is very little

data on the 40% of people who

die in the community or in resi-

dential and care homes' states

Dr Barclay. The network is

working with the end of life

theme to capture data on what

the NHS does in the communi-

ty, which, as their research has

identified, ‘is where the majori-

ty of people would like to be

when they die’ .

The members of the end of life

theme work closely with care

providers and commissioners

locally. Current CLAHRC CP end

of life projects include a GP and

district nurse survey, designed

to find out the learning needs

of general practitioners and

community nurses regarding

end of life care, and a collabo-

rative project being conducted

jointly with NHS Cambridge-

shire exploring the setup of a

new palliative care telephone

advice line for practitioners.

The members of the theme are

optimistic that these local

relationships, coupled with the

national initiatives described

above, will increase the chanc-

es of their research in this chal-

lenging field having a positive

impact on those whom it is

intended to benefit.

For more information contact

knowledge@cpft.nhs.uk.

The ultimate goal is for these

guidelines to inform the Quality

and Outcomes Framework

(QoF), a set of indicators

against which GP practices are

rated. A high rating leads to fi-

nancial rewards for the practice

– so the incentives to follow

these indicators are strong.

‘This is a new initiative and a

real opportunity to make an im-

pact’ says Dr Barclay. ‘People

will be judged against these

quality standards - and the

standards need to be informed

by evidence. What I do at NICE

will utilise the work being done

by the end of life theme in the

CLAHRC, so this gives us the op-

portunity to influence policy

and clinical practice at a nation-

al level’.

A further opportunity to make a

(Continued from page 1)

“This is a

new

initiative and

a real

opportunity

to make an

impact”

Page 2 CLAHRC CP News

Adult service user engagement

Dr. Stephen Barclay

“Our task

concerns the

exchange of

knowledge,

not just its

creation”

The Herchel Smith

Building on the

Cambridge Biomedical

Campus is home to the

community of scientists

investigating mental

health and disorder,

including members of the

Department of Psychiatry

headed by Professor Peter

Jones.

A report from Terry Dickerson,

Research Co-ordinator for the

Engineering Design Centre

The NIHR CLAHRC for South

Yorkshire conference on 6-7th

October was titled

“Collaborating to improve our

health service through research

and its implementation”. At-

tendees came from all nine na-

tional CLAHRCs. In total there

were over two hundred academ-

ic, service provider, commission-

er and service user delegates.

This report contains a snapshot

of my experience.

CLAHRC CP dele-

gates contributed a

number of oral

presentations and

posters. Professor

Dame Sandra Daw-

son from the Judge

Business School

(JBS) is a member

of the CLAHRC CP

board. She gave one of the

keynote presentations; it was

particularly well received with

many of the subsequent

presentations referring back to

the ideas she discussed.

This included the concept

of ‘road blocks’ to imple-

mentation, particularly

those created by institu-

tional silos – organisations

working in isolation from

each other. She discussed

using ‘boundary span-ers’,

people whose roles cross

the boundaries between

research and practice, to bridge

these gaps and to navigate the

road blocks.

CLAHRC CP at the Learning Together Conference

“the aim was

to show some

of the

challenges that

are faced in

bringing

engineers

together with

practitioners”

Page 3 Issue 1

Professor Dame Sandra

Dawson

Further contributions from

CLAHRC CP included a presenta-

tion from Dr Eivor Oborn from

the JBS in the Learning Together

Event; and five posters from

across the themes.

I am pleased to report that Eva-

Marie Hempe of the Engineer-

ing Design Centre (EDC) won a

best student prize for a poster

based on her work with the

CLAHRC CP adult theme.

A further best poster

prize was won by an

entry from the Oliver

Zangwill Centre staff

(who work with the

adult research theme)

and the EDC. Dr Alex

Komashie from the

EDC was the lead

author. The prize was

awarded, we were

told, as it had an

“instructive message” with

“humour used well”. The aim of

the poster was to show some of

the challenges that have been

faced in bringing design engi-

neers together with practitioners

in CLAHRC CP’s work.

One of the light hearted cartoon

strips that were used to rein-

force the serious message is

reproduced here. The poster

included three cartoon strips.

This particular one was titled

‘Mind your language’.

The posters will be on display in

Douglas House for the next few

months.

Prize winning contribution

Members of the Judge

Business School in Cam-

bridge work within the

CLAHRC to explore

knowledge exchange

principles and implemen-

tation of research. Profes-

sor Dame Sandra Dawson

is a member of the

CLAHRC Board.

The Engineering Design

Centre is a part of the

Department of Engineer-

ing. Applying design princi-

ples to healthcare is one of

the innovative aspects of

the work of CLAHRC CP.

The cartoon above is one of three that were included in a poster

called ‘Observations from Collaborative Service Design’.

CLAHRC CP

Douglas House

18 Trumpington Road

Cambridge

CB2 8AH

Telephone: 01223 746083

E-mail: clahrc@cpft.nhs.uk

Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs) were set up in

2008 in response to the Cooksey report of 2006. This report highlighted the gap between

research and its implementation, and emphasised the need to ensure that publically funded

health research is carried out in the most effective and efficient way, facilitating the rapid

translation of research findings into health and economic benefits.

The CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (CLAHRC CP) is one of nine CLAHRCs

nationally and has a unique focus on mental health across the life course. Its research is split

into three areas, referred to as research ‘themes’. These are outlined below.

Childhood and adolescence

This theme is led by Professors Ian Goodyer and Simon Baron-Cohen. The research focuses on

the early detection of autism, the treatment of teenage depression, and transitions from child

to adult mental health services.

Adults with learning disability and acquired brain injury

This theme is led by Professor Tony Holland. It focuses on two groups - people with enduring

neurodevelopmental conditions, primarily learning disabilities, and men and women with

acquired brain injury - both of whom experience complex mental health and/or behavioural

difficulties, physical problems, and chronic social exclusion.

Old age and end of life

The theme is led by Dr. Tom Dening and Dr. Stephen Barclay and has a wide project portfolio

which covers areas ranging from the scoping of a dementia register, to studies which focus on

improving the understanding of patient choice at the end of life.

Implementation themes

The CLAHRC has two implementation themes, whose role is to work with the research themes

and bring a multi-disciplinary perspective to the process of translating research into practice.

The public health strand provides relevant public health analysis, aiming in particular to

evaluate public health interventions following policy implementation and service redesign to

assess effectiveness and sustainability. The Process Design and Change theme brings together

the Judge Business School and the Engineering Design Centre to support the process of

improving service design and facilitating knowledge exchange.

The Public Health Theme is led by Professor Carol Brayne. The lead for the Engineering Design

Centre strand of the Process Design and Change theme is Professor John Clarkson, and the

Judge Business School input is led by Dr. Eivor Oborn and Dr. Michael Barrett.

For more information about the themes, and the people who are involved, please go to

www.clahrc-cp.nihr.ac.uk.

Contact Us

Organization

w w w . c l a h r c - c p . n i h r . a c . u k

What is CLAHRC CP?

Douglas House accommodates

the CLAHRC CP central support

team led by Mrs. Diane Cook.