News

6th Mackenzie Lecture

Mackenzie Lectures are hosted annually by the Health Informatics Centre in honour of Sir James Mackenzie, a pioneer in research in general practice and the safe use of medicines. This year's Lecture was delivered by Dr John Halamka

John Halamka is Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, CIO of Harvard Medical School, Chairman of the New England Healthcare Exchange Network (NEHEN), Chair of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), co-Chair of the HIT Standards Committee, and a practicing Emergency Physician.

The session took place at Dundee University on 26th May 2011 and was chaired by Derek Feeley (Acting Director-General Health and Social Care and Chief Executive of NHS in Scotland).

To view the video of the lecture please go to the SHIP Website.

Professor Frank Sullivan is awarded with a fellowship from Royal Society of Edinburgh

We are pleased to announce that Professor Frank Sullivan, Director of SSPC has been awarded in the 2011 election of new Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . He is recognised within his peer group as having achieved excellence within research for Primary Care.

New Fellows are elected after a rigorous four-stage selection process culminating in a ballot of the entire Fellowship. Once admitted to the RSE, Fellows are encouraged to contribute to the aims and objectives of the Society, including the provision of expert policy advice to Government and Parliament, outreach education programmes for young people, and public engagement events including conferences and discussion forums.

NHS Highland Provide 4 Bursaries for Research Active GP Trainees

Including support from the RCGP North of Scotland Faculty, four bursaries are available for research active GP trainees working in NHS Highland to cover the costs of attending the SSPC Annual Conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Edinburgh on 19th & 20th April 2011. The bursary will cover the full conference and dinner bed and breakfast at the hotel. Written applications in the form of a covering letter and a CV should be emailed to Angus Watson , Director of Research and Development, NHS Highland by 15th February. For further conference details, see the conference page.

SSPC STUDY HOPES TO PERSUADE ONE MILLION SCOTS TO SIGN UP FOR RESEARCH REGISTER

A pilot study looking at how researchers can overcome objections to participation in studies and trials has been launched by the Universities of Dundee and Edinburgh. Upon completion, the researchers leading the study hope to use their findings to persuade up to one million Scots to volunteer for research trials which would help develop new drugs and treatments, and improve the health of the nation.

Professor Frank Sullivan, Director of the Scottish School of Primary Care at the University of Dundee, is currently leading the pilot with Edinburgh's Dr. Brian McKinstry. They are examining the type of people who volunteer, the reasons why they may do so, and the objections raised by those who choose not to. Upon completion of this phase, they plan to move on to the main project, which will see the team attempt to recruit an army of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 volunteers from across Scotland up to one-fifth of the nation's population for a new Scottish Population Health Research Register. He says that Scotland's technical ability to conduct research is not yet matched by a practical capability to approach possible subjects directly with the consequence that recruitment to research is much more difficult than it might be and that some projects consequently fail.

"We want to engage with patients who suffer from, or who have suffered from, all kinds of diseases as well as healthy people," he said. "We want to be able to ask all manner of people to take part in trials and studies. Researchers across Scotland will be able to draw on this large database and match up suitable volunteers for their studies." "That is why we are looking to connect with a huge number of people who are potentially willing to take part in research. This might mean clinical trials, interviews, observations studies, and follow ups. We can do a lot just by accessing records if patients have given permission to do so. "If we can generate a database of this size then there will be huge benefits. It will improve the ethical situation surrounding research projects, and there will be a huge efficiency gain for future studies. There will be less expense recruiting volunteers in future, and the process will be speeded up. This means drugs and treatments will potentially reach the market more quickly and that patients will hopefully receive better care."

The initial, £70,000 pilot project is already underway and will run until March. In that time, the project funded by the Chief Scientist Office, Tayside Academic Health Service Collaboration, and Lothian Academic Health Service Collaboration will be working with five practices in the Tayside area and a further five in Lothian to persuade patients to sign up to research they may be eligible for. Professor Sullivan's team will be writing to patients from these practices as well as leaving information for them in the GP surgery. As well as adding the names of the volunteers to the database, they will also analyse who agrees to take part, who doesn't, and why this is. The factors influencing their decision will be considered ahead of the main project. If funding is received, the extensive recruitment campaign will be rolled out across Scotland over a three-year period.

"This is an infrastructure project that we must undertake to get the main project right," continued Professor Sullivan. "The research will ask people how often they are willing to take part in studies. They will have the option not to take part in certain types of research, and they will also be able to have their details removed from the register at any time. At the moment, a patchwork of different registers exists, but there is no central database bringing together groups of people who may appear disparate in isolation but together constitute a large enough constituency for specific types of research. Some clinics might have a large group of dementia-sufferers, which is a difficult group of people to reach for many researchers but the proposed Scottish Population Health Research Register would allow a large number of scientists to access this group. Other groups are much easier to reach, with up to 90% of sufferers taking part in research. Anyone over the age of 16 is eligible to take part, as it’s just as important to have healthy people in the database as we need to find out what it is about them that means they don't become ill when others do. We have many ideas about how to recruit volunteers, but one of the most important things for us to deal with is the perfectly legitimate concerns many people may have about taking part in research studies and seeing how we can overcome them."

For media enquiries contact: Grant Hill

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SSPC Visiting Professorship Scheme

SSPC received 3 applications for the Visiting Professor scheme from candidates with primary care research expertise in cancer care and support, telemedicine and multiple morbidity. We invited the SSPC Consortium HEIs not involved in supporting these applications to review them in addition to two external reviewers.

We are pleased to announce that Prof Jane Gunn from the University of Melbourne has been selected by reviewers as the successful candidate.

Quote from Professor Gunn "am delighted to accept the invitation to be appointed as a SSPC Visiting Professor. I am looking forward to further strengthening the links between the SSPC, my Department of General Practice at The University of Melbourne and the wider Australian primary care research community. The focus of my appointment on developing a programme of research to better understand the challenges that multiple long term conditions place upon individuals, their families and our health care systems is exciting and challenging. I look forward to meeting with you over the coming two years and welcome anyone making the trip to Australia to spend some time in Melbourne with us!"

The reviewers were also very impressed by the other two applications and Frank Sullivan and I would like to explore other possible sources of funding their applications with them.

Many thanks to all of those who have been involved in this selection process

Primary Care Vacancies

Please see the SSPC vacancies page for all current Primary Care vacancies around the UK.

BMJ Research Paper of the Year

Professor Frank Sullivan and colleagues from the Scottish School of Primary Care won the BMJ Research Paper of the Year Award with "Early treatment with prednisolone or acyclovir in Bells palsy" (New England Journal of Medicine 2007;357:1598-607) at the awards ceremony on 2nd April in The Marriot Hotel, Grosvenor Square London.

Congratulations to the whole team for the hard work put into this paper and for the support from everyone involved.

For more info and pictures please see BMJ Awards Winners

To dowload the winners brochure please see Awards Brochure