NIAA eNewsletter: February 2015
Anaesthesia & Perioperative Care Priority Setting Partnership
Prioritisation Survey
Over 3 million patients have an anaesthetic every year.
What research would help to improve their care?
Our initial survey in summer 2014 produced almost 1500 research suggestions. It's now time to choose the most important ones. Visit our prioritisation survey during February - March 2015 to tell us what you think are the biggest priorities for future research.
Vote for your top 10 and help shape the future of anaesthesia and perioperative care by clicking here.
Click here for more information about the PSP.
Vacancy: Director, UK Perioperative Medicine Clinical Trials Group
The NIAA wishes to appoint a Director to lead the development of a national Clinical Trials Group (CTG) for perioperative medicine, capable of supporting world-class multi-centre trials from idea to publication and dissemination.
The postholder will be expected to develop a national network of hospitals and investigators to recruit to trials and develop and implement a transparent and robust process for identifying and selecting studies to be considered by the CTG. He/she will also need to engage the appropriate stakeholders in the project and work effectively with the NIAA and its founding and funding partners and trainee research networks.
The post is a three-year fixed-term appointment, subject to annual review.
Further information about the role including the job description and person specification can be found by clicking here.
Closing date for applications: Friday 1st May 2015 at 12 noon
Shortlisted candidates will be contacted and interviews will be held on: Tuesday 9th June 2015.
Vacancy: Trainee Representative on NIAA Board
The NIAA will shortly be advertising a vacancy on its Board for a trainee representative. Trainees who hold a National Training Number in Anaesthesia, are either Academic Clinical Fellows, Academic Clinical Lecturers or are undertaking/have completed an MD(Res) or PhD are eligible to apply. A job description and details of how to apply will be uploaded to the NIAA homepage shortly.
NIAA Grants
Round 1 2015
Round 1 2015 of the NIAA Grants has now opened and details can be found here.
This will be a large round so if you have an idea for a research proposal do take a look at the 12 categories available and also share details with any colleagues who might be interested! The deadline for applications is noon on Friday 24 April 2015.
All NIAA grants are reviewed by a lay member of the grant panel and this review does have a bearing on the outcome of applications. If you don't have any input from a lay person, you may wish to apply for support from the NIAA Health Services Research Centre's Patient, Carer & Public Involvement Group. You can find out more on our PCPIE pages here.
Please note!
All successful applicants will know that the NIAA requests a first year, interim and / or final progress report for publication on the NIAA website and forwarding to the funding partner. At the recent Research Council meeting it was agreed that as of now applicants who do not submit their progress reports on time may not be permitted to apply for further funding until the outstanding report is provided. If you do have an outstanding report we would be very grateful if you could contact us and provide an update on when you might be able to submit. Thank you!
NIHR CRN Anaesthesia, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management Specialty Website
The Clinical Research Network (CRN) is part of the National Institute for Health Research.
The CRN (www.crn.nihr.ac.uk) provides researchers with the practical support they need to make clinical studies happen in the NHS, so that more research takes place across England, and more patients can take part.
This practical support includes:
- Reducing the "red-tape" around setting up a study
- Enhancing NHS resources, by funding the people and facilities needed to carry out research "on the ground"
- Helping researchers to identify suitable NHS sites, and recruit patients to take part in research studies
- Advising researchers on how to make their study "work" in the NHS environment.
The Anaesthesia, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management Specialty is one of 30 specialties within the CRN, which bring together communities of clinical practice to provide national networks of research expertise. See: www.crn.nihr.ac.uk/anaesthesia.
The John Snow Anaesthesia Intercalated BSc Awards
The application deadline for the John Snow Anaesthesia iBSc awards is 5 pm on Tuesday 31 March 2015. Designed to encourage medical student interest in anaesthetics and related disciplines, the awards go direct to medical students as a contribution towards living costs. This year the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland/Anaesthesia, the British Journal of Anaesthesia/Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Neuroanaesthesia Society of Great Britain & Ireland and the Obstetric Anaesthetist's Association, will all be contributing awards.
Click here to find out about the application process.
Results from Round 2 2014
A total of ten awards were made to a value of £547,839 in Round 2 2014. Click
here to read all about the successful applications.
Small RCoA grants
Details of the small RCoA education, travel and research grants available this year are now available. Please click here for full details. Applications are also invited for the Macintosh Professorship, the Maurice Hudson Prize and the Payne Stafford Tan Award. The deadline for all these awards is 5 pm on Friday 28 August 2015.
Trainees
Introduction to Academic Anaesthesia Bursary
The NIAA will offer 3 bursaries of £500 to support a course for trainees on any branch of academic anaesthesia, including improvement science, but excluding simulation or other medical education based courses. The course must be planned to run between July 2015 and June 2016. For more information or to apply for one of these bursaries, please click here.
The Anaesthesia History Prize - deadline extended to Friday 27 Feb
The AAGBI and the History of Anaesthesia Society will award £500 to trainee members for an original essay. The topic of the essay should be related to the history of anaesthesia, intensive care, or pain management.
The deadline for submissions had been extended to 27 February 2015.
The £500 prize and an engraved medal will be awarded for the best entry, and the winner will be invited to present the paper at the GAT Annual Scientific Meeting in Manchester, 17-19 June 2015.
Please click here for more information.
Principles of Quality Improvement and Research
This quality improvement day, hosted by the North West Research & Audit Group (NWRAG), is aimed at trainees and will cover why systematic reviews are so important and answer questions about publishing papers and the use of statistics in research.
Confirmed speakers include Dr Malachy Colomb, Professor Tim Cook and Professor Jennifer Hunter.
The event is free to North West Anaesthesia trainees and £50 for other trainees and will be held at the Royal Bolton Hospital on Monday 18 May 2015.
Please click here for further details and to register.
HSRC
Sprint National Anaesthesia Projects
The data from the first SNAP audit conducted in May 2014 (SNAP-1) is currently being analysed. Some initial results will be presented at the HSRC/QuARC meeting taking place on 17th March 2015 at the RCoA.
The leads plan to submit manuscripts of the main results before summer 2015 and, depending on the speed of the peer review process, expect to see some journal publications of results before the end of 2015.
NAP4
There are currently 197 Airway leads covering 230 hospital sites. Dr Alistair McNarry has written an article for about the Airway Leads which will feature in the March 2015 edition of the RCoA Bulletin.
NAP5: Accidental Awareness during General Anaesthesia
A wide range of NAP5 resources are now available on the NAP website. These include:
- Full report and individual report chapters - click here
- Professional launch presentations (click here) and videos (click here)
The Anaesthetic Awareness support pack is now available to help clinicians analyse reports of AAGA and to help ensure that affected patients receive appropriate psychological support. The pack can be downloaded here.
NAP6: Perioperative Anaphylaxis
A stakeholders' meeting was held in January in order to garner the views of organisations and individuals with an interest in perioperative anaphylaxis and perioperative care. The meeting was attended by individuals representing 15 organisations, including professional organisations, regulatory bodies and patient groups.
Invitations to join the NAP6 steering panel have now been issued and the first meeting is in March.
Information on the project and the start date of data collection will be available shortly on the
NAP website.
QuARCs (Quality Audit and Research Coordinators)
The HSRC has established a network of local Quality Audit and Research Coordinators (QuARCs) within 179 Trusts and Health Boards across the UK. The QuARCs act as a single point of contact for national audits, quality improvement projects, multicentre research and other academic matters.
The current geographical spread of QuARCs is:
- 84 QuARCs covering 152 Trusts/Health Boards to date
- 31 Trusts/ Health Boards are currently without a QuARC
Airway Leads (AWLs)
One of the key recommendations of NAP4 on Major Complications of Airway Management in the UK was that each hospital should have a nominated Airway Lead. This recommendation has been endorsed by the College and the Difficult Airway Society. For further details please
click here.
A database of Airway Leads can be found on the HSRC website to allow Airway Leads to contact each other. There are currently 49 Trusts and Health Boards without Airway Leads on this database. To see if your organisation has an Airway Lead, please click here.
If you are interested in the Airway Lead role or already fulfil this role at your hospital but are not on our database, please contact us here.
National Emergency Laparotomy Audit
The 1st of December 2014 marked the beginning of Year 2 of the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA) patient data collection period, with the 27th of January the final day by which audit participants were asked to complete and lock all Year 1 cases. The NELA Project Team has now begun the process of analysing the first year's patient data and writing the first Patient Report.
The Project Team is incredibly pleased with the audit's case ascertainment figures for Year 1; with over 20,000 patient cases submitted we have seen 100% site participation from the 191 hospitals taking part in NELA.
For further information about the audit please click here to visit our website. Here you will be able to find the latest copy of our Proforma questionnaire, inclusion/exclusion criteria and our FAQs. The website is also home to the NELA Organisational Report published in May 2014, as well as our monthly NELA Newsletter.
Events
Joint Royal College of Surgeons & NIAA Meeting - Perioperative Clinical Research: Wednesday 4 March 2015
This joint meeting will look at opportunities for surgical and anaesthetic collaboration and will include reports on upcoming trials such as OPTIMISE II and DREAMS II. There will also be an opportunity to present your own study proposal in a Dragon's Den style session! Please click here to find out more and to register.
BJA/NIAA Research Methodology Workshop: Monday 9th March 2015
A joint workshop with the BJA and the NIAA to introduce participants to the way in which good research should be conducted and presented.
The workshop will be useful for anaesthetists of any grade who are already involved in research or those who are about to embark on a research project. Post FRCA Specialist Registrars and Lecturers will find this meeting to be particularly appropriate to their needs since knowledge of research methodology is one of the non-clinical topics which form an important part of Post FRCA training. Even if actual research is not undertaken it is considered essential for trainees to acquire an understanding of research methodology so that they are able to critically appraise research reports in the literature.
Please click here for full details about this course.
RCoA Anniversary Meeting: Wednesday 11-Thursday 12 March 2015
The NIAA HSRC John Snow Oration will be delivered by Professor Nick Black and will be followed by two HSRC lectures. NELA will also have a stand at the meeting to answer any questions you may have on the audit. For more details, please click here.
Quality Audit & Research Coordinator Meeting: Tuesday 17 March 2015
A meeting specifically designed for the HSRC's Quality Audit and Research Coordinators (QuARCs). The day will update QuARCs on key areas of activity such as the National Audit Projects and Sprint National Anaesthesia Project initiative, as well as reflect on the role of the QuARCs and opportunities for engagement with other research-focused networks. Click here for further details.
Joint UK Perioperative Care Research Forum & Anaesthetic Research Society Meeting: Tuesday 21 - Wednesday 22 April 2015
This joint meeting will cover updates on upcoming research opportunities, patient and public involvement in research, and will include an interactive workshop facilitated by staff from the NIHR Evaluation, Trials and Studies Co-ordinating Centre (NETSCC). During the workshop, delegates will be invited to share and discuss their ideas for HTA research around perioperative care. Click here to find out more.
Keep up to date with NIAA activities and follow us @NIAAResearch!
