Taking Action
Quarterly
e-Newsletter -
January 2008
With our compliments….
Happy New Year and welcome to the first edition of Taking Action for 2008 which highlights how teaching and learning underpins any action to transform lives. Whose lives are transformed depends however on the quality and focus of the learning undertaken.....
There's a risky theme to this issue with several inspirational stories involving CVD risk factors. You'll also find details on how you can gain maximum advantage from our new arrangement with Medendium Group Publishing Ltd for our subscribers to freely access their eGuidelines site.
There are also links to a new resource on our website which will help you to identify allergic rhinitis in your asthma patients.
Special thanks to past Education for Health student Karen Stevens, and current trainers Chris Ennor, Gillian Fiumicelli and Joanne Haws for contributing their stories.
If you want to share your news on how you are taking action to transform lives then drop us an email, we’d love to hear from you:
Email Taking Action
Vicki Golding
On behalf of the Communications Team
Education for Health
Taking action, educating people and transforming lives worldwide
Summary
Taking Action
- New collaborative arrangement enables free access to eGuidelines for our e-News readers
- Case Study: Audit in action - targeting those at risk. Guest writer: Karen Stevens, PN Manager, Maidenhead
- Detect allergic rhinitis in your patients with asthma – FREE resource for practices
- ‘Beating the Blues’: A programme of computerised CBT for depression. Guest writer: Joanne Haws, CVD Service Lead, Norfolk PCT
- A Revolution for Resolutions!
Educating People
- TB Quiz – Winner announced
- Case Study: ‘MyAction’ – an innovative preventive cardiology programme. Guest writer: Gillian Fiumicelli, Cardiac Nurse Specialist, Bromley PCT
- New Announcement – 2008 Course Programme
- My Student Journey. Guest writer: Chris Ennor, Practice Nurse, Dorset
- Join our Research Network for FREE: develop your research skills and contribute to research that will improve patient care
Transforming Lives Worldwide
- Harm reduction in nicotine addiction: helping people who can’t quit
- A practical guide to Nurse Prescribing – Conference Report, 14th January, London. Liz Bryant, Programme Lead, Education for Health
- FREE new journals – developed specifically to meet the needs of primary care nurses in managing respiratory diseases, CVD and diabetes
- King’s College London – to run two new allergy courses at St Thomas’ Hospital, endorsed by the BSACI
Taking Action
New collaborative arrangement enables free access to eGuidelines for our e-Newsletter readers
Education for Health and Medendium Group Publishing Ltd have been collaborating on some exciting new projects and we have arranged free of charge registration to eGuidelines.co.uk for our readers…
For more information and to subscribe:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/eguidelines.pdf
Case Study: Audit in action - targeting those at risk. Guest writer: Karen Stevens, Practice Nurse Manager, Maidenhead & Education for Health Student in CVD & Secondary Heart Failure
As a practice we were looking to reduce the number of visits our patients with more than 1 concomitant disease had to make to the surgery. Following on from an audit of these patients we were interested to see that the majority had hypertension. Which came first would involve further investigation, but it made us think about our patients with hypertension who didn’t have any identified disease…
Find out more about this audit:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/audit_in_action.pdf
Detect allergic rhinitis in your patients with asthma – FREE resource for practices
ARIA guidelines recommend that patients with asthma are appropriately evaluated for rhinitis. Dr David Shepherd (Leicestershire Primary Care Audit Group) has constructed a template which primary care clinicians can download on to their practice computer systems. Based on the 6-Point Asthma and Allergic Rhinitis Status Measure (developed by GPIAG and Allergy UK), this template will help clinicians identify patients with asthma and allergic rhinitis, and update relevant patient READ codes…
For more information and to download the template:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/about_us/press_releases_news.asp#asthma1
‘Beating the Blues’: A programme of computerised CBT for depression. Guest writer: Joanne Haws, Cardiovascular Service Lead, Norfolk PCT
Beating the Blues is a computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (CCBT) programme for individuals suffering with depression and anxiety. The programme was developed and evaluated by Ultrasis plc in collaboration with a team of researchers based at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London…
Find out more about this study:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/ccbt1.pdf
A Revolution for Resolutions!
So how many New Year’s resolutions did you make then? And how many of those are still going strong?! Every year many of us trot out the same old weary plans to eat more healthily, lose weight and do more exercise. Why do we bother? Well according to figures from the Department of Health, we should most certainly bother and there most definitely is a point because the UK is one of the flabbiest and most unfit nations on earth. The simple fact is that we still have some of the worst statistics for CVD in Europe…
Read the full article:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/resolutions.pdf
Educating People
TB Quiz – Winner announced
Thank you to all our readers who entered the TB quiz in our last e-Newsletter, it was a close run competition. Congratulations go to Linda Jordan from North Devon who identified the correct word against each statement relating to TB…
See the quiz answers and find out more about our TB courses:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/tbquiz1_answers.doc
Case Study: ‘MyAction’ – an innovative preventive cardiology programme. Guest Writer: Gillian Fiumicelli, Cardiac Nurse Specialist, Bromley PCT & Coronary Heart Disease Trainer for Education for Health
MyAction is a nurse-prescriber led integrated community based multidisciplinary preventive cardiology programme for individuals at high cardiovascular risk and their families. It is based on the largest ever European-wide preventive cardiology project, EUROACTION, which spanned eight countries (including the UK) and 24 hospital and general practice centres, in a cluster randomised controlled trial. I work as a cardiac nurse specialist for Bromley PCT and in June 2007 we launched a pilot of the MyAction programme in Bromley in South East London…
Learn more about the ‘MyAction’ programme: http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/myaction.doc
New Announcement – 2008 Course Programme
Education for Health has more than 50 continuing professional education courses and programmes in respiratory, cardiovascular and allergic disease and offer one of the largest flexible distance learning programmes in the world…
View our Course Programme for further details:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/course_prog_jan08.pdf
My Student Journey. Guest writer: Chris Ennor, Practice Nurse, Dorset & Education for Health Trainer
The last 12 months have been an amazing year for my family, not least because it saw 3 graduations - our two daughters and myself. My graduation was the culmination of 2 ½ years of ‘journeying’ which had the highs and lows of a rollercoaster ride and at times felt more like a marathon. Those reading this who know me, will realise that I was one of the rather more ‘mature’ students, having started my journey at 50!...
Travel on a student’s journey: http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/student_journey.pdf
Join our Research Network for FREE: develop your research skills and contribute to research that will improve patient care
The Research Network is a group of enthusiastic health professionals interested in research conducted by Education for Health. Join us and you will receive a monthly email including details of a range of research studies that you might like to be involved with. The extent of your involvement is up to you. You may prefer just to participate in a study that you find interesting, or you may take this opportunity to expand your research skills, for example by helping us design a study protocol. Even if you decide not to participate in a study you will receive our articles ‘hot off the press’…
To obtain further information or join our Research Network: http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/research/research.asp#Research5
Transforming Lives Worldwide
Harm reduction in nicotine addiction: helping people who can’t quit
The above report was published in October 2007 by the Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians, and makes the case for harm reduction strategies to protect smokers who cannot quit. The report suggests that if nicotine was available in a form which is acceptable and effective as a cigarette substitute, millions of lives could be saved. Therefore the Royal College of Physicians recommend that the report is read by all health professionals…
Read the full report:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/nicotine_addiction.pdf
A practical guide to Nurse Prescribing - Conference Report, 14th January 2008, London.
Liz Bryant, Programme Lead & Head of Student Support, Education for Health
This conference targeted independent and supplementary nurse prescribers, wherever they worked, and offered a forum for updating on recent national changes, and best practice debates from both secondary and primary care. I was there to lead a session on shared decision-making in primary care prescribing. Community nurses in particular need new approaches to open up the consultation for patients who are very accustomed to a directive model. We looked at examples of qualitative research exploring the patient’s perspective…
View the full Conference Report at:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/_documents/nurse_prescribing1.pdf
FREE new journals for the needs of primary care nurses in managing respiratory diseases, CVD and diabetes
Two unique British Journals of Primary Care Nursing:
- Respiratory Diseases and Allergy
- CVD & Diabetes
For further information and to register for either of these journals free of charge go to:
http://www.educationforhealth.org.uk/pages/bjpcn.asp
King’s College London – to run two new allergy courses at St Thomas’ Hospital, endorsed by the BSACI
Practical Paediatric Allergy is an intensive clinically oriented 3 day taught course for health professionals who look after children with allergic disease.
Drug Allergy for Clinicians is a more specialist one day seminar featuring international experts in the field…
More details can be found at: www.allergycourses.org
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