ETATMBA Teleconference
Thursday 19th December 2013 at 08:30hrs GMT
NOTES
Present: Paul O’Hare (Chair), David Davies, Doug Simkiss, David Ellard, Francis Kamwendo,
Chisale Mhango, Senga Pemba, Staffan Bergström, Anne-Marie Brennan
Unable to contact: Godfrey Mbaruku, Chimwemwe Mvula, Chikayiko Chiwandira
1.
Apologies
Siobhan Quenby, Alan Davies, Ed Peile
2.
Minutes of last teleconference held on 14th November 2013
Approved.
3.
EC update
PO’H reported that Warwick Medical School has contacted the desk officer’s supervisor, who as
agreed to speak by teleconference today (19th December).
PO’H explained that the July meeting with the EC had not provided the support or advice which
was needed. The Description of Work was revised on the advice of the desk officer; this was
submitted for review and later for formal amendment, without only minimal response received.
There are two processes underway or planned: an external review of the project and a formal
amendment request. It is not clear how these two procedures interact with each other. It is
hoped that the situation will be clarified following the EC teleconference.
Action: Warwick to report outcome of teleconference to partners.
4.
Second periodic report
PO’H suggested we report against the progress that has been made, with explanatory
paragraphs where relevant.
Action: PO’H to produce overview of scientific progress
Action: WP leads to report on their own sections
Action: AMB to send (i) first periodic report and (ii) EC’s guidelines on report-writing
Deadline: Drafts to AMB by Tuesday 14th January 2014.
5.
WP1 Training
PO’H will work on this with GM.
Action: PO’H to contact GM separately.
6.
WP2 Guidelines and Research
DE, DD and SB will work on this.
DE reported that research is now progressing well in both Tanzania and Malawi, with a clear
plan for data collection.
7.
WP3 Clinical education, leadership, networks
DD reported that progress here is good with the exception of the implementation of the
guidelines, where there has been more progress in Malawi than in Tanzania.
In Malawi there is a need to be clear how the guidelines and protocols were implemented.
There is also a difficulty as the person-months were over-estimated (based on the assumption
that the task would be much greater in terms of the primary development of guidelines which in
practice were already in place).
SB emphasised that the guidelines form part of a much wider context involving several different
bodies. DS commented that, based on the objectives as they stand, a narrative could be
written to justify progress and to show we have taken the process as far as possible.
FK commented that audit has been key in Malawi as the clinical officers have shown how
outcomes improve by utilising best practice. This exercise could be repeated in Tanzania, but
not without release of further funding.
Action: FK to pursue contact with Airtel, who have not yet responded to the proposal for
supported air time.
8.
WP4 Dissemination
PO’H reported that EP is currently managing Exeter Medical School (until approximately June
2014) and therefore has limited time available.
DE said that all staff are committed to producing papers (to justify their own time as much as to
meet the EC’s requirements) and that it should not be a problem to assign leads to the papers
as the need arises.
Action: PO’H to meet EP in January for an update.
PO’H commented that there is a plan for an international conference at the end of the project.
There is also the need for the Malawi students to graduate, so it might be possible to use one
visit to cover these two events. There is a conference in Cape Town at the end of September
“Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research” (30/09-03/10/14) which could be a
suitable vehicle for dissemination.
Link: http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org/
Abstracts for this need to be in as follows: organised session abstract submission closes
15 Jan; individual abstract submission closes 3 March. It was proposed that abstracts on
leadership training and networks and the project to date be prepared.
9.
WP5 – Project management
AMB reported that the finance officers of all partners have been asked to return preliminary
drafts of Form C via the EC’s Research Participant Portal by 21st February. AMB suggested
that all partners actively assist their finance offices but completing the detailed template of costs
as we did for the justification of the Period 1 costs.
9.
Any other business
a) SB asked FK to send any updated protocols and guidelines as soon as possible.
Action: FK to send updated protocols and guidelines to SB and AMB.
b) With reference to the Malawi students’ Professional Project, PO’H would like to incorporate
the guidelines into this. DS said that the tasks had already been outlined in some detail to the
students during the recent teaching module, but that there is an opportunity to steer them
towards this when they return their one-page outline of work in January.
11.
Date of next teleconference
The next teleconference will be on Thursday 16th January 2014 at 8.30am UK, 10.30am Malawi
and 11.30am Tanzania.