No Smoking Day – 11 March 2015

no-smoking-ProudToBeAQuitterBU is proud to support national ‘No Smoking Day’ on Wednesday 11 March, which is one of the longest running and most successful stop smoking campaigns in the world.

Daily smoking rates in England have halved and are continuing to decline [GASP – health education resource]; tobacco advertising is banned; all workplaces and enclosed public places are smoke free; on 1 October 2015 legislation is being brought in to prevent smoking in cars where children (under 18) are present and there are UK-wide networks of stop smoking support groups.

www.gosmokefree.nhs.uk

www.quit.org.uk

www.dorsetsmokestop.co.uk

www.nhs.uk/stopsmokingtreatments

Despite these huge changes in smoking culture, No Smoking Day still achieves a large health impact, with up to 1 million smokers using the day each year to make an attempt to quit. Researchers estimate that up to 1.75 million smokers have quit for good since No Smoking Days’ launch.

The theme for 2015 is ‘Proud to be a Quitter’ which features photos and testimonials from ex-smokers. Smoking is the single biggest killer of people in the UK, with over 4,000 chemicals in one cigarette, including rat poison, toilet cleaner and nail varnish remover.

There are many health benefits of quitting smoking (as well as the obvious financial benefits – the average smoker spends around £2,300 per year on tobacco!);

  • A reduction in the risk of developing illness, disability or death caused by cancer, heart or lung disease (a smoking related disease kills one out of every two smokers)
  • Breathing becomes easier within just 72 hours
  • Improved taste and smell after 48 hours
  • In 2-12 weeks circulation is improved throughout your body
  • In 3-9 months lung capacity improves by up to 10%
  • After 5 years, you half the chance of having a heart attack compared to when you smoked
  • After 10 years, you have halved your chances of getting lung cancer, and reduced the risk of a heart attack to the same as someone who has never smoked!

As well as supporting staff and students who wish to quit smoking, it is important to remember that BU also has a duty to protect all individuals from the harmful effects of tobacco smoke. We would therefore also like to take this opportunity to remind all smokers about the No Smoking Policy and on-line resource which details the University’s No Smoking guidelines.

Keeping your Medical Centre appointments

The Student Medical Centre is experiencing a high volume of missed appointments – here are our top tips to make sure you’re not one of them:

Ask to be sent reminders

The team can call or text you the day before your appointment,

Phone the team

If your plans change call to reschedule your appointment on 01202 965378.

If you start to feel better or just want to cancel your appointment, phone or use the online appointment cancellation service .

Visit the Student Medical Centre

If you’re on campus, it’ll only take you a few minutes to walk to Talbot House and speak to the reception team – and with spring on the way, it’ll be a good opportunity to grab some fresh air!

Remember, each missed appointment means a delay for another patient, so take a few minutes out of your busy day to do the right thing.

Make the most of your placement – tips from BU Nursing students

Final year nursing students at BU recently contributed to a doctoral study about learning on practice placements.

Amanda Alexander, Joanne Hewitt, Teresa Pearce, Elinor Suter and Clare Taylor volunteered to share their top tips to help new nursing students make the most of their placement experience.

Whether you’re a nursing student or not, if you’ll be starting a placement soon, their tips may help you too:

See what team members do:

Spend time with different people in the team. They’ll teach things in different ways – some may ask you to observe while others expect you to practice a technique or activity. Officially request a day working with different members of staff so that you can focus on what you are learning.

Build your confidence:

Do your homework before arriving on placement, and while you’re settling in, take notes and be prepared to ask questions. The first few days or weeks of a placement can be overwhelming, and for healthcare professionals, things like shift handovers can be challenging, especially when there’s lot of jargon being used. Make sure you know who you are working with so you know who to refer questions to, and familiarise yourself with processes quickly so you can make even small contributions. At the end of each day, ask yourself ‘What have I learned?’

Build your knowledge base:

Learning is your priority on placement and everything is a learning opportunity, from practicing a procedure or process to observing how colleagues make complex decisions. Ask questions, request feedback and make the most of time with your mentor to discuss your learning outcomes and how to achieve them.

Stand firm on important issues:

Some staff can resent placement students because of their protected role or lack of expertise, so try and build a good rapport with everyone, keeping your views and actions professional. If you feel that your learning experience is being affected by an individual’s attitude, initiate a conversation with your mentor or your university link tutor. Be assertive in seeking confirmation of who your mentor is on each shift (or project) as it’s important for your learning to know who’s supervising you. If you need more practice with a procedure or process, ask and keep asking – it’s too late to regret or complain once you’re back at uni.

The students’ top tips were originally published in Nursing Standards magazine on Wednesday 28 January 2015.

BU ambulance adds touch of reality to paramedic training

Paramedic Science students at Bournemouth University will be training in the most realistic of environments as an ambulance has been donated by the South West Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.

The ambulance, which will be situated in the car park of Studland House, will be used to teach Paramedic Science students how to react and respond to emergency situations.

Martin Handford, Facilities Manager in the School of Health and Social Care, said “This is a brilliant piece of equipment for the university and makes us one of the few universities in the country to have its own ambulance as a skills training centre. It will greatly enhance our students learning experience, giving them the most realistic skills environment to practice in.”

The ambulance is the latest in a series of equipment additions within the School of Health and Social Care and will give students the chance to hone their skills in realistic practice scenarios.

Martin Handford continued, “It shows the commitment of Bournemouth University in providing up to date skills training facilities and is a great addition to the 15 practice skills rooms that we already have.”

Pictured: Emma Church and Ian Mulhall, first year Paramedic Science students at Bournemouth University, Martin Handford, Ursula Rolfe, Programme Leader in Paramedic Sciences and Andrew Sanders, Fleet Engineer at South Western Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust.

Face blindness formally recognised by NHS Choices, after work by BU academic

Following work with Dr Sarah Bate from BU’s Centre for Face Processing Disorders, NHS Choices have formally recognised prosopagnosia (face blindness) as a condition.

The ‘Introduction to Prosopagnosia’ can be viewed on the NHS Choices website here.

Dr Bate said: “I’m delighted by this news and so pleased to have been a part of the process. This small action will really help to increase understanding among the general public and ensure that people with prosopagnosia receive the recognition and support they need.”

Since 2004 Dr Bate and her colleagues have been researching this little-known condition, which is characterised by the inability to recognise faces. Until the last decade it was thought the disorder was very rare, acquired following a brain injury. We now know 2% of the population are born with a developmental form of the condition. This includes 300,000 children in the UK alone.

Prosopagnosia can vary depending on severity. Some sufferers struggle to put a name to a face whereas others simply cannot recognise people they have known their whole lives. It can be as severe as not being able to recognise your own child at the school gate or even to pick out your own face from a line-up of photos.

It is the effects that are most problematic though. In extreme cases people can withdraw socially, become depressed, leave their job, or suffer endless embarrassment.

The action by NHS Choices comes after Dr Bate’s extensive outreach programme instigated the tabling of an Early Day Motion to raise awareness of face blindness in the House of Commons.

Local MPs asked questions in Parliament on her behalf and in July 2013 Minister of State for Care and Support, Norman Lamb MP made the commitment.

“NHS Choices will be including information about prosopagnosia in the A to Z of medical conditions on its website,” he said. “This will help to promote better understanding among the wider general public and ensure that people with prosopagnosia receive the recognition and support they need”.

The NHS Choices page on prosopagnosia is informed by Dr Bate’s work and links to BU’s Centre for Face Processing Disorders. It is hoped this will help people to recognise prosopagnosia and direct them to the best possible support available for them.

“Now prosopagnosia is formally recognised by the NHS we’ll be in a much better position to tackle our next goals,” explained Dr Bate.

“Prosopagnosia is a very challenging condition. People experience social isolation, often leading to depression and other difficulties. It affects their education, working life and relationships.

“Ideally we think prosopagnosia should be covered in GP training, teacher training and in school special needs provision. Only then will people really get the recognition and support they so desperately need.”

Just last week Dr Bate hosted a roundtable in the Commons calling for greater public awareness of the condition. Read more about this event and the outcomes here.

We’re supporting the Nursing Times Speak out Safely Campaign

Featured

SOSlogo200Our School of Health and Social Care are supporting the Nursing Times Speak out Safely campaign which encourages NHS organisations and independent healthcare providers to develop cultures that are honest and transparent, to actively encourage staff to raise the alarm when they see poor practice, and to protect them when they do so.

We encourage our students and staff to raise concerns about poor practice or wrongdoing by following our whistleblowing concerns protocol, knowing that these concerns will be supported, investigated and acted upon accordingly.

The pledge

This Nursing & Health Care School supports the Nursing Times Speak Out Safely campaign. This means we want every member of our staff and students to feel able to raise concerns about wrongdoing or poor practice when they see it and confident that their concerns will be addressed in a constructive way.

We promise that where staff or students identify a genuine patient safety concern, we will support them, help them to ensure their concern is fully investigated and, if appropriate, act on their concern. We will also give them feedback about how service providers have responded to the issue they have raised, as soon as possible.

Whether you are a staff member, or a student, please speak up when you feel something is wrong. We want you to be able to Speak Out Safely. Visit the Nursing Times website for more details on our pledge.

 

Professor Jane Reid’s report featured on The Conversation UK

Bournemouth University’s Visiting Professor of Nursing, Jane Reid, had her article featured on news website ‘The Conversation UK’, talking about surgical “never events” and what they are.

The Conversation UK is a new and quirky website that presents and delivers the news using academic opinion and expertise.

Surgical “never events” are extremely serious incidents that should never happen because “they’re entirely preventable”.

Most never events prove devastating, such as having the wrong testicle removed, retained foreign objects post operation and severe scalding of patients. However many are fatal, preventable events: Suicide using collapsible rails, maternal death due to post-partum haemorrhage after elective caesarean sections, wrongly prepared high-risk injectable medication and maladministration of Insulin.

“Unfortunately, too many health professionals, managers and boards continue to tolerate unacceptable practices that are ultimately endured by patients.” Jane Reid said in the article.

See the full article here.

Dean Eastmond

Dean is a student at Budmouth College in Weymouth, who is working at Bournemouth University in the Press and PR Department. He joined BU on a Sir Samuel Mico Scholarship, which provides 10 students from his college with essential work experience for four weeks over the summer.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen talks patient safety on BBC Radio Solent

By Dean Eastmond

Bournemouth University’s Professor Edwin van Teijlingen featured on BBC Radio Solent, explaining his views on a new report looking at the NHS and patient safety.

The major report by Professor Don Berwick into the NHS suggested the introduction of a lawful offence if a nurse, doctor or medical worker is found to willfully neglect a patient.

Professor van Teijlingen, who researches public health, was interviewed on the BBC Radio Solent Drivetime show about the report.

“Lots of the mistakes the NHS makes that have been in the news in the past ten years or so are mistakes of the system not an individual,” he told presenter Steve Harris.

“They are not bad nurses or doctors or healthcare professionals doing things wrong. They are problems in the system.”

He continued: “I would agree that we need a minimum of nurses on a particular kind of ward for the staff to be available for proper care,”

But he added that, just as important as the number of staff were the jobs that they were having to fulfil, saying: “more and more of the staff time is spent on filling in forms and bureaucracy.”

Dean is a student at Budmouth College in Weymouth, who is working at Bournemouth University in the Press and PR Department. He joined BU on a Sir Samuel Mico Scholarship, which provides 10 students from his college with essential work experience for four weeks over the summer.

Dr Ann Hemingway defends nurses on Three Counties Radio

By Dean Eastmond

BU’s Dr Ann Hemingway featured on BBC Three Counties Radio, explaining how she does not feel that nursing is deficient in care.

Recent reports claimed that nurses felt they are too busy to comfort distressed patients and fulfil their roles.

Dr Hemingway, a lecturer in Public Health, said that she felt the NHS should be targeted rather than nurses, and explained that she did not feel that care standards have declined.

“Quite recently my mother was in hospital and she had an excellent experience,” she said.

“The job has changed enormously over the past few years which people don’t understand. Patients are much sicker now in hospital than when I trained as a nurse”

She continued: “The key thing is which isn’t really discussed is that nursing care is just as important as cure. If someone gets a bad bedsore, they can die from that.

“It’s incredibly worrying and it needs to be challenged by the nursing and midwifery council”

It was then passionately explained by Dr Hemingway that there are elements of sexism in the recent news, as nursing and midwifery are typically female dominated roles.

There are no reports about surgeons and other medical jobs lacking in care standards.

“I don’t see why nurses should be singled out”

Dean is a student at Budmouth College in Weymouth, who is working at Bournemouth University in the Press and PR Department. He joined BU on a Sir Samuel Mico Scholarship, which provides 10 students from his college with essential work experience for four weeks over the summer.