Things in the library 28 Oct ...

Things about cystic fibrosis...

You may have heard in the news this morning about new drugs for Cystic Fibrosis. This relates to 12 abstracts presented yesterday (27 Oct 2016) at the North American CF Conference. You can see the official press release from the sponsoring pharmaceutical company here and the details of the Clinical Advances in Cystic Fibrosis Research sessions here.

Things about autism...
Also in the news this week has been the impact of early intervention in children with severe autism. This programme of treatment aimed to mainly focus on the parents, who were trained to pick up on communication cues from their child, which are usually much more subtle than in other children. The original article can be read freely online here. The Behind the Headlines analysis states
"This study seems to provide some much-needed good news for parents of children with autism, and has been welcomed by experts and campaigners. However, the lack of statistical significance of some of the results mean we can't be sure the findings are reliable....However, most [experts] seem to think that the results are promising, especially for an intervention that does not require the intensive time and commitment of some other autism treatments."

Things about Familial Hypercholesterolemia screening...
Child–parent screening for familial hypercholesterolemia has been proposed to identify persons at high risk for inherited premature cardiovascular disease. The preview of the article can be accessed here and if you sign in with your NHS Open Athens account you can access the full text. A discussion of the issues from Behind the Headlines can be found here.

Things about Professional Qualifications...
The Dept of Health has just published a response to 'Consultation on the transposition of the revised Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications' a European Directive. In their conclusion they state "Concerns have been expressed that the Directive unduly constrains the ability of regulatory bodies to carry out robust checks of both the clinical and language skills of health professionals from the EEA seeking to practice in the UK. The Governments is mindful of these concerns, and the UK’s decision to exit the European Union will provide an opportunity to review the adequacy of checks on the skills and competence of overseas health professionals that are currently carried out."


Things about medical education...
The GMC have published their 'The state of medical education and practice in the UK report: 2016'. This is their sixth annual report about the state of medical education and practice. They consider some of the current challenges facing the profession and the systems in which it works. They also look at how the make-up of the profession continues to change.
They have published an extensive online resource of the GMC’s registration, education and fitness to practise data. By publishing this information, they aim to promote discussion and debate about some of the practical steps they and others could take in better supporting doctors and improving patient care.

How we can help to alleviate stress...

It is National Stress Awareness Day on Wednesday 2nd November 2016 so we thought we would remind you that the library has colouring sheets and crayons available for you to come and use whenever we are open. We also provide comfy chairs and sell drinks and chocolate biscuits if you need to get away from your work environment for a break. Our selection of Leisure reading includes many books from the Mood Boosting selections as well as Quick Reads.

Things about the NHS and a vision for it future...

NHS five year forward view: a progress report Two years on from the publication of the NHS five year forward view, the King's Fund assess how much progress has been made and what still needs to be done to align policies with the plan.




Things cobwebby...
As the end of the month and the end of Bake off are in my mind (along with plenty of cobwebs!) I thought you might like to combine the two events with this creepy cake!

Things in the library 21 Oct...

Things about literature searching...

The Health Databases Advanced Search (HDAS) was relaunched on October 17th with a new look and some differences in functionality. Help documentation is available or ask us for help in the library. All saved searches and alerts set up from 2008 onwards in old HDAS have been migrated to the new system but you will need to import them. When you log in you will see an Import link at the top of the page, next to Saved Results and Alerts:

- click on the Import link and you will see a drop-down list of years
- select a year, and then you will see the list of your saved searches and alerts from that year

- select the ones that you want to import.

Things being reviewed...
NHS England has announced more details of the accelerated national reviews into paediatric critical care and specialised surgery for children. The reviews, which are part of NHS England’s regular round of specialised commissioning service reviews, would normally take up to two years to complete, but have been fast tracked to run in parallel with other work on new nationally agreed standards for congenital heart disease.

Things about coeliac disease...
A new Quality Standard  on coeliac disease has been published by NICE it  covers the recognition, assessment and management of coeliac disease in children, young people and adults.

Things about changes to drugs and other technology appraisals...
NICE and NHS England have launched a 12 week consultation on changes to the arrangements for evaluating and funding drugs and other health technologies appraised through NICE’s Technology Appraisal (TA) and Highly Specialised Technologies (HST) programmes. Consultation closes 13 Jan 2017 if you have views or feedback you would like to express.

Things about tuberculosis...
WHO has published a global TB report every year since 1997. The main aim of the report is to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the TB epidemic, and of progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease at global, regional and country levels. This is done in the context of recommended global TB strategies and targets endorsed by WHO’s Member States and broader development goals set by the United Nations.

Things about Health Education...
The mandate to Health Education England (HEE) sets out the government's objectives for HEE to provide healthcare education and training. The Health Education England mandate for 2016 to 2017 reflects strategic objectives around:
- workforce planning
- health education
- training and development
The mandate looks at how the healthcare workforce can be developed to improve care for patients through education and training.

Things off the shelf...
A reminder that the Off the Shelf literary festival is now underway in Sheffield with events for all from 'Children's Illustration Workshops' to the 'Science behind the Game of Thrones' - answering questions such as Do dragons actually exist? How does wildfire win wars! Check out what is available here.






Things serendipitous... 
I had never seen or heard of fougasse bread before the current series of 'Bake off' however on our weekend in Barcelona our hotel was above a fabulous bakery - see what I spotted! If you want to try making one the recipe is here.

Things in the library 14 October

Things about Journal Club..revived...
NEXT MEETING - Audience needed!  Thurs 20th Oct 8am - 9am
Presenter:​Sam Armitage  Location:  Education and Skills Centre, F Floor
Paper: Meta-analysis of family-centred helpgiving practices research

Journal Club is open to all health professionals and is a fun, informal way of learning to criticise papers and gather evidence to change practice. At each meeting a speaker presents a critical appraisal of a research paper, using CASP, a recognised appraisal tool. Group members then have an informal discussion to determine whether or not current practice should be altered in light of the presenter's findings. If you do not get a chance to read the paper do not worry just come along. Muffins: Of course!

Things to give your feed back on...
Journal Club needs to know what you think of it, can contribute to it and want from it; also when would be the best times to meet - have your say now

Things about e-learning...
NICE Guidance - Evidence into Practice is an e-learning resource for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), primarily aimed at medical undergraduates. The e-learning offers practical advice about how to use evidence based medicine in daily practice. The information has been adapted from NICE Guidance and illustrates application of the guidance with practical examples.
Eight sessions of e-learning cover the following four topics:

• Evidence-based medicine
• Principles of decision making in healthcare
• Changing clinical practice
• Audit and feedback

The NICE Guidance Programme is also available to NHS healthcare staff via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). Accessing this e-Learning via ESR means that your completions will transfer with you throughout your NHS career. Find out more

Things about attachment...

NICE has published a quality standard Children’s attachment (QS133). This document covers the identification, assessment and treatment of attachment difficulties.  It focuses on children and young people up to age 18 who are on the edge of care (those considered to be at high risk of going into care); looked after by local authorities in foster homes (including kinship foster care); in special guardianship; adopted from care and in residential units and other accommodation.

Things about child protection services...

In the news this week is the National Audit Office  report on Children in need of help or protection.This report examines the Department for Education’s progress in improving the system to help and protect children.

Things about predatory journals...

A recent article in Journal of Nursing Scholarship aimed to identify predatory journals in nursing, describe their characteristics and editorial standards, and document experiences of authors, peer reviewers, and editors affiliated with these journals. This prompted me to also direct you to this article in Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. So how do you decide if an Open Access journal is a legitimate place to publish or not? Using this website Think Check Submit might give you some useful pointers. Prof. Jeffrey Beall, University of Colorada Denver librarian, maintains a list of potential predatory publishers and stand alone journals. Follow the link  to check if a publisher or journal has been flagged as possibly predatory. 

Things dusty...

For many years our bound journal volumes have not had a dust - though we do the rest of the books every year when we stocktake. From next week there will be some occasions when cleaners are in the library taking volumes off the shelves and cleaning the books and the shelves. We hope to keep disruption to a minimum but please bear with us whilst we make ourselves sparkingly clean!

Things Spanish...

I am off for the weekend to celebrate my 60th birthday in Barcelona so thought I would get into the mood by featuring these tapas recipes.... really looking forward to all the Gaudi architecture!

Things in the library 7th October...

Things about medicines for children...
NHS England has launched a 30 day public consultation on a clinical commissioning policy proposition for commissioning medicines in children.  There has already been extensive engagement on this national policy, it has been developed with the support and input of lead clinicians and patient and public representatives. This approach has helped ensure that the views of key stakeholders have informed and influenced the development of this policy to date. They now wish to test them further with wider groups of stakeholders.


Things about acute paediatric services...
The RCPCH is developing a set of service level measures designed to support acute paediatric services to monitor the effects of service change at a local level, and to facilitate quality improvement. They are doing this:

• To enable and support child health services to monitor the effect of service interventions at a local level.
• To provide a strong evidence base for the development and revision of service standards, such as the Facing the Future suite of standards.
• To identify and share examples of best practice, to aid the improvement of child health outcomes across the four UK nations

The future of the NHS?...

Good Governance (GGI) has published ‘The Future of the NHS’ that critically examines and provides some context to the direction in which the NHS is headed – consuming more and more public money to provide an increasingly worse service. With commentary from eminent colleagues including former secretaries of state for health, the publication Sir William Wells, presented his concerns at a seminar hosted by GGI in Westminster.

Things about TB...

Public health England have published their 2016 report (presenting data to end of 2015)

Mental health of Girls...

Girlguiding has published a report on the mental well-being of girls. Key findings include: girls of all ages face compounding pressures across all areas of their lives including sexist pressures; girls tend to dismiss or play down the issues they face and feel they should be able to cope alone. Recommendations include: all decision-makers need to listen to girls’ voices and engage them in the decisions that affect their lives; schools should take a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment; Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) should be a statutory entitlement for all young people.

Things about numbers...

"Numbers needed to mislead, meta-analysis and muddled thinking" a lecture  at ScHARR by Honorary Professor Stephen Senn FRSE on Wednesday 26 October 2016 at 17.15 - 18.00pm Lecture Theatre 4, The Diamond. 

Free - book tickets here  Professor Senn says "The ardent espousal by the evidence based medicine movement of numbers needed to treat (NNT) as a way of making difficult statistical concepts simple and concrete, has had the unintended consequence of sowing confusion. Many users, including many in the evidence based movement themselves, have interpreted these statistics as indicating what proportion of patients benefit from treatment. I shall explain this, with the example of a recent Cochrane Collaboration meta-analysis of paracetamol against placebo in trials of tension headache for which the plain language summary is plain wrong" 

Things about childhood obesity...

Public Health England outline their priority for reducing the proportion of overweight children leaving primary school in their Childhood Obesity Plan

Things about understanding sustainability and transformation plans ...

STPs are place-based, multi-year plans that are built around the needs of local areas and their populations, rather than the activities of individual organisations. In the NHS shared planning guidance 2015, NHS England asked every local health and care system in England to come together to create their own ambitious local STP to accelerate the aims of the Five Year Forward View, including addressing the funding gap, improving service quality and enhancing population health and wellbeing.

This briefing discusses the policy context, development to date, the timetable for further development and implementation, as well as the key messages from local political, commissioning and provider leaders on how the STP process could most helpfully develop in the coming months.

Something warm and comforting...

Seeing as the weather is feeling more nippy we thought this looks a nice weekend eat - Melting meatball macaroni....mmmm must be nearly lunchtime now!