The inaugural London-wide Brian Turley Patient and Carer Involvement Awards took place at the NIHR CLAHRC North West London Spring Collaborative Learning Event on the 26th April 2018. The awards, presented by Simon Denegri (below centre), National Director for Patients and Public in Health Research, celebrate and promote patient and carer involvement in healthcare research and improvement.
The Awards were created in 2017 by NIHR CLAHRC Northwest London in memory of Brian Turley (below) a dedicated and committed patient advocate and disability rights campaigner who worked closely on a project that developed the ‘My Medication Passport’. The awards aim to sustain Brian’s values and commitment to partnerships between professionals and patients, carers and the public in research and service improvement work across the capital.
There were fifteen entries from CLAHRC-funded and supported work across the capital, and feedback on the quality of entries from judges and those interested in the results was positive –
“Once again, it is been a pleasure to read about all of the projects and my sense is the quality of the applications overall is even better than last year which is heartening. Lots of useful tips and the common theme seems to be, we should have started involving patients and carers earlier. Very useful!”
Brian Turley Award Judge Jocelyn Cornwell, Director Point of Care Foundation
“It was an honour for me to be involved in this way. I found the detail of the submissions very interesting and informative. It was reassuring to see so much good work being done”
Brian Turley Award Judge Iain Baxter, Service User
“The nominations were varied and interesting projects, the inclusion of different stakeholders was very good…. As a first-time judge I felt that this was an opportunity to learn and develop a new skill”
Brian Turley Award Judge Charity Gondwe, Carer
The winners were awarded with the opportunity to work with graphic artist Sandra Howgate to prepare a visual representation of their work to promote and share their story with others.
The winners
Patient / Service user / Carer with influence Award
Sophia Kotzamanis – a parent representative for BUDS [Better Use of data to improve parent satisfaction), an Chelsea & Westminster Hospital initiative to improve the experience parents have when their baby is admitted to a neonatal unit. Sophia has also just been awarded a place on the NIHR CLAHRC NWL Improvement Leader Fellowship.
See how Sophia worked with artist Sandra Howgate to capture her work
Team working with patients, service users, carers, families and communities Award
St Mark’s Hospital Patient-Centred Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Care Model at London Northwest Healthcare NHS Trust – The team involved patients and the public in a programme to improve outpatient monitoring for patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) by addressing the mismatch between ‘need’ and ‘access’ to services.
You can see how the team worked with artist Sandra Howgate here
Early Career Researcher/PhD student/Service User Researcher/ Fellow Award
Stuart Green, Public Health Research Fellow based at Imperial College London – Stuart was an integral part of a quality improvement initiative within a mental health trust which aimed to improve cardiometabolic screening of patients through the introduction of a comprehensive physical health assessment.
See the results of Stuart’s work with Sandra Howgate here
Runners up for the awards were
Team working with patients, service users, carers, families and communities Award
The Alcohol research team at CLAHRC South London – Tackling the stigma of alcoholism
Early Career Researcher/PhD student/Service User Researcher/ Fellow Award)
Physio at Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Emma Dunphy – for designing a website for people recovering from knee surgery
Patient / Service user / Carer with influence Award
Robin Lomas who worked with UCL researchers to co-investigate the – Impact of Welfare advice in GP practices
Each CLAHRC convened a panel of judges including senior researchers, early career researchers and members of the public and patients to consider the nominations and supporting evidence provided by entrants. In all cases they were impressed by the sheer variety of work in research and service improvement going on across the three London CLAHRCs, and the uniformly high standard of entries.
“Seeing experience and involvement embraced and championed is so fantastic. Working in this way is the future of healthcare; we need to embrace partnership working. Patients are part of the solution”
Brian Turley Award Judge Ellie Wharton, Project Manager
“As a newcomer to CLAHRC, coming from a social science research context, it has been an interesting and illuminating experience to be a judge for the Brian Turley Awards”
Brian Turley Award Judge Sam Miles, Researcher
We have shared detailed feedback with all entrants and strongly encouraged them to seek channels to share their involvements stories through newsletters, websites and in journals.
