Completed Projects

This project will review strategies to promote patient involvement and patient safety, undertake a study to explore patient views and attitudes with respect to patient involvement and patient safety and perform a pilot study to evaluate the acceptability of selected patient involvement strategies (joint with the University of Dundee and Bradford Hospitals Trust).

Link to project. 

The programme consists of a series of inter-related projects integral to the theme of the evaluation of acupuncture for chronic illness in primary care.

Link to project.

Identifying people who could benefit from prevention and rehabilitation for their vascular disease is a major challenge for the NHS.

Link to project.

Translating key research messages into local action and innovation is central to successfully delivering a 21st Century NHS.

Link to project.

This project examined the decision making of Heart Failure Specialist Nurses. The project had two phases. In phase one a sample of HFSN were observed in practice and interviewed about their decision making. In phase two they completed a number of paper patient cases, to enable us to analyse in detail how they made clinical decisions. This project was funded by a Hull York Medical School (HYMS) pump priming award and was completed in August 2007.

The aim of this study was to improve the management of VTE in patients with advanced cancer, according to current best practice guidelines, leading to improved symptom control and quality of life.

The research project proposes to address questions using a controlled before-and-after-study design. The study will take 27 months to complete with a 12 month intervention phase and pre and post measurement phases each lasting six months. Link to project.

This project examined nurses' use of computerised decision support technologies (funded by the Department of Health’s Policy Research Programme). This was a collaborative project with the Universities of Southampton and Loughborough. The project consisted of a systematic review of computerised decision support systems (CDSS) in nursing, a national survery of CDSS used by nurses across the NHS in England, secondary analysis of existing data sets and a case site analysis of how nurses used CDSS in practice. The study was completed in September 2007.

This research study will harness the untapped potential of hospital volunteers to promote wider implementation of PRASE (Patient Reporting and Action for a Safe Environment) and put patients at the heart of safety. Link to project.

This project will be building on capabilities-based ideas. We will work with health professionals and other stakeholders to develop an extended conceptual analysis, conceptual model and illustrative vignettes that will be designed to support clinical judgement, including via professional education and quality improvement work.

Link to project.

This study is about people with serious mental health problems such as schizophrenia who are twice as likely as the general population to smoke and die approximately 25 years earlier as a consequence. This group get poor access to effective interventions to help them quit or cut down on their smoking. This study will develop a 'bespoke smoking cessation' service targeted to meet the needs of those with SMI and will test the clinical and cost effectiveness of this approach in a randomised controlled trial.

The aims and objectives of this study are to:

• describe numbers, types and roles of assistant staff (at levels 2, 3 and 4) delivering services and care in NHS adult district nursing services
• examine how assistant roles impact on the organisation, management and supervision of work across these settings, particularly where new integrated organisational models and ways of delivering services exist
• explore how current (or planned) use of assistants in these settings impacts on (or has the potential to impact on) healthcare professional workload, service user experience and choice, service delivery and quality, and potential costs and cost savings of assistant staff being part of the district nursing team
• synthesise findings and recommendations from the study for policy makers, service users, commissioners, providers, practitioners, managers and researchers.

This research study will focus on 'high impact' clinical practice recommendations from NICE clinical guidelines and NHS Quality Standards where a measureable change in clinical practice can lead to significant patient benefit. 

Link to project.

In this study we will develop a decision tool designed to help healthcare professionals assess which type of urinary incontinence (UI) people have more effectively. This should lead to better management of the condition. Using paper-based descriptions of patients, the tool will be tested to make sure that healthcare professionals use it consistently, and that it does have the potential to improve the types of decisions healthcare professionals make about the management of UI. We will then test the tool in practice, with health care professionals and patients, to see what effect if may have on the type of care that women with UI receive.

This project is modeling the judgments and decisions of acute care nurses in the UK, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands (funded by the Department of Health’s Nursing and Allied Health Professionals Fellowship Scheme).