Category: Uncategorized

  Emails – love them or loathe them, they have definitely increased during the last 12 months whilst we have been navigating home working during a global pandemic. You know the feeling when you open an email or even read the subject header, and although the words are fine, spelling is good and grammar satisfactory,… Continue reading A Generous Assumption – Jo Smith

                      The NIHR funded Dementia-Person Aligned Care Team (D-PACT) project https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/primarycare/dementia/dementia-person-aligned-care-team, aims to develop and evaluate a person-centred Dementia Support Worker (DSW) intervention based in primary care. The project is based across two sites in the South West (SW) and North West (NW) of England,… Continue reading Enhancing opportunities for researcher-practitioner shared understanding during Covid-19: experiences from the D-PACT study – Hannah Wheat, Sarah Griffiths and Hayley Rose

  We are Research Fellows on the NIHR funded Dementia-Person Aligned Care Team (D-PACT) project which aims to develop and evaluate a person-centred Dementia Support Worker (DSW) intervention based in primary care. Interviewing people with dementia and carers, about their experiences of receiving the support intervention, has substantially informed our learning during the feasibility phase. In May… Continue reading Interviewing people with dementia and carers remotely – Sarah Griffiths and Hannah Wheat

Scoping out the Issues in the Rapid Scaling Up of Remote Triage and Consulting in the Covid-19 Pandemic – November 25th 2020 Public Health England’s ‘Open for Business’ campaign has been an attempt to reassure the public that they should still access primary care services if they have concerns about their health. However, as practices… Continue reading Is Primary Care Open for Business? – Sarah Rybczynska-Bunt and Richard Byng

I am a qualitative researcher on the NIHR funded Dementia-Person Aligned Care Team (DPACT) project (https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/primarycare/dementia-person-aligned-care-team). We are looking at whether quality of life for people with dementia and their carers can be improved by having a dedicated support worker to provide individualised support and help with navigating the complex dementia ‘journey’.  I have been… Continue reading Interviewing people with dementia – Sarah Griffiths

Well, the milestone of publishing my first academic journal article has been reached. What can I say other than I am excited about my contribution to an article being published in Health Expectations. Hopefully sometime this month the article will be in print: Taylor C, Gill L, Gibson A, Byng R, Quinn C. (Forthcoming). ‘Engaging… Continue reading My first academic journal article – Laura Gill

Early intervention has been in the policy spotlight in the UK recently thanks to an inquiry by the House of Commons Select Committee for Science and Culture broadcast on Parliament Live TV. The first session, on 20th February, offered some insight into contrasting perspectives in the field as regards the desirability of early intervention as… Continue reading Early intervention in the spotlight – Nick Axford

In the midst of the twittersphere furore surrounding Johann Hari’s high-profile book Lost Connections, stating that there are better alternatives to antidepressants, patients and practitioners around the country are unheard as they wrestle with difficult decisions. Sadly, as clinicians, we often don’t share our worries with patients, and vice versa. Prescription rates continue to rise.… Continue reading Difficult decisions about antidepressants, a person centred approach to untangling the evidence. A sceptical physician’s perspective – Richard Byng

Session 3: Organisational support for person centred approaches and scaling up. “System change – working with multiple local initiatives and top down policy dictats: Exploring context and capabilities for Integrating Care” This workshop entailed the beautiful and relevant and experiment to get a diverse set of stakeholders that mostly did not know each other to… Continue reading Reflection on primary care conference Nov 2017 – Felix Gradinger

Not a million miles away from where I write this lies a once-grand seaside resort now better known – at least in parts of the media – for high rates of personal debt and teenage pregnancy. In an attempt to change this, planners had a bright idea: if they built a new road to the… Continue reading Applying ‘dark logic’ in practice – Nick Axford