Resources: Blogs

How often are children attending the emergency department for a non-urgent attendance?

In this study, we aimed to explore differences in non-urgent attendances and urgent attendances in children to ED and determine which children present in this way and when.

Creating Playful Urban Spaces: Lessons from Bradford

In today's rapidly urbanising world, ensuring children have access to safe and appealing play spaces is crucial for their health, wellbeing, and development. However, opportunities for outdoor play in urban areas have declined in recent years, and access remains unequal.

Digital exclusion of older people

We have received a far better response to a survey than we expected. Now there’s a sentence that no researcher ever really expects to write! In March 2024 the INCLUDE study sent a survey to nearly 6,000 older people in North and West Yorkshire, asking about their use and experiences of the internet. Half of those recipients returned completed surveys, far exceeding the response rate we expected.

What are ‘avoidable emergency transfers of care’ and what do care home residents, their families and staff involved in transfers suggest to reduce them?

In England, care home residents are disproportionately likely to attend A&E departments compared to other older people. Attendance has risks, including hospital-acquired infections and deterioration in residents’ health. It also increases pressures on hospitals and demand for beds.

A mixed methods evaluation of the impact of frailty and respiratory virtual wards in South Yorkshire

High demand for hospital care is placing increasing strain on emergency services. Recent statistics have shown that over 95% of hospital beds are consistently filled. High bed occupancy reduces the smooth flow of patients through hospitals, contributing to crowding in A&Es and causing ambulances to queue outside departments unable to respond to 999 calls.

Reflections on becoming a lived-experience academic mental health researcher.

In this blog, Ruth Naughton-Doe shares experiences of becomming a lived-experience academic mental health researcher aiming to improve support for new parents.

De-implementation will be vital if we are going to sustain our health systems but that would require changing how we think about safety and implementation

In this blog Kristian Hudson interviews Robyn Clay-Williams, a Professor of Human Factors, exploring de-implementation and patient safety.

Recovery contexts, not outcomes: An alternative way to evaluate non-clinical interventions for serious mental illness

Relying on outcome measures to determine if an intervention can aid recovery from serious mental illness, is a fallacy. Outcome measures simplify a complex and personal experience, and are hard to predict, particularly within non-clinical community interventions. Yet intervention efficacy is often dependant on such measures, determining access to funding and even access to services. Given that establishing a context for recovery is within the control of facilitators, intervention contexts present an alternative approach to evaluating intervention success.

What are the benefits when health and social care staff get involved in applied health research?

Back in 2019, we wrote our first blog about the potential benefits for staff getting involved in applied health research with colleagues from the Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Translational Research Centre

Taking Steps Towards Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Yorkshire & Humber ARC Research

We want all people and communities in YH to benefit from our research. To do this we aim to follow best practice and have the highest standards of equality, diversity and inclusion in all our research. The NIHR Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs) are leading efforts to put the latest NIHR Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy into practice within their research programs. Some ARCs have developed toolkits while others have developed strategies focused on "mainstreaming" EDI.

Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) on a pain and frailty study – reflections on involvement, engagement, and impact 

The The YH ARC supported Pain in Older People with Frailty (POPPY) Study is a 3-year NIHR-funded study hosted by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (commenced April 2022). The study aims to provide service guidance to improve access and support for older adults living with frailty to better manage their pain.

Implementation researchers’ perspectives on bridging the research-practice gap

In our blog earlier this year, we talked about simplifying implementation science, and making it more accessible to frontline staff. In this blog we will share critical insights that the implementation team, based at the Improvement Academy, has gathered while supporting, and facilitating putting evidence into practice.