Summer 2014
Achievements
Dr Chris Millet awarded a
prestigious NIHR Research
Professorship
Dr Paul Aylin promoted to
Professor
We were very pleased to hear about our recent
successes in applications for promotion. Dr Chris
Millett was successful in his application for an NIHR
Research Professorship. This is a highly competitive
process with only five awards made in England in
2014. Dr Paul Aylin was promoted to Professor and
Dr Josip Car was promoted to Clinical Reader. Dr
John O’Donoghue and Dr Petra Wark joined our Global eHealth Unit. Our
Annual GP Teachers Forum was held in June and was attended by over
100 GPs from across England. The day was a great success and provided
an opportunity for the GPs who teach our medical students to meet
Imperial College’s academic staff.
The School of Public Health has successfully
renewed its Silver Athena SWAN award. The
School was one of 89 successful departments
out of a total 125 applicants.
Dr Josip Car promoted to
Clinical Reader
As the only department in the Faculty of Medicine to secure the three-year award,
this key achievement will be presented to the School in July at a national meeting for
women in science. It is highly
motivating not just for female
academics in the department, but
all staff and students. We hope it
will attract a higher quality of new
recruits to join the School and we
are pleased to be a beacon
department within the College in
demonstrating our commitment
to supporting women in science
Athena Swan Opportunities Committee
careers. (Continued inside)
Showcase Highlights
To celebrate the success of its research,
innovative teaching and renewal of the Athena
SWAN Silver Award, the School held a
showcase on 22 May at the St Mary’s campus.
Professor Elio Riboli (left) opened the event
with a warm welcome and thanked everyone
for their contributions. Within PCPH there
were outstanding presentations from Tom
Cowling (To A&E or Not to A&E), Dr Sonia
Kumar (Survival of the Sickest); and Dr Jamila
Sherif (Arts-based Observational Skills
Dermatology Workshop).
The vote of thanks and close went to Dr Sonia
Saxena who we’d like to extend special thanks
to for her hard work and dedication in ensuring the renewal of the award. Sonia will be
stepping down as the Chair of the Opportunities Committee.
“In the School of Public health we have used
the Athena SWAN process to leverage real
change – improving working practices and
opportunities to boost career development
for women to ensure that they fulfil their
potential as academics…We’ve also worked
hard to increase the visibility of female role
models across the School though initiatives
such as our annual Athena Swan lecture
given by inspiring and successful women.
Our work in this area is continuous, but we
are thrilled to have our efforts recognised
once again with this award.”
Dr Sonia Saxena, Chair of the School of Public Health’s
Opportunities Committee.
Dr Jamila Sherif
Dr Sonia Kumar
Tom Cowling
SPH Athena SWAN Family Friendly Event - Kew Gardens 2014
Athena SWAN events are planned throughout the year. The School organised a family
friendly event at Kew Gardens at the end of July, with a walking tour and refreshments
provided. These events are networking activities that all staff can enjoy, whether or not
they have children.
In September the School will host the Annual Athena SWAN lecture. Check the website
for further developments.
Three new members have joined the Unit: Miss Samantha
Wilkinson, Dr Violeta Balinskaite and Dr Toshitaka Morishima.
Sam is interested in healthcare quality. She joins us from
McGill University (Canada) where she completed her MSc in
Epidemiology. She is a research assistant looking at mortality
alerts and how the alerts impact on care.
Violeta is a research associate looking at the risk of adverse
birth outcome in pregnant women undergoing non-obstetric
surgery. Originally from Lithuania, she obtained a PhD in
Statistics at the University of Bologna (Thesis title: ‘Maternal
Smoking Impact on the Delivery Cost: a population-based
study in the Emilia-romagna region’). Her areas of interest are
causal inference, counterfactual approach, structural
modelling, and cluster analysis.
Toshitaka Morishima is a visiting post-doctoral researcher from
Japan. His area of interest is the quantitative analysis of
institutional and regional variations in the provision of
healthcare services based on large administrative datasets. He
will spend a year within the Unit looking at what relationships
there are between proxy measures of quality of care used in
the Care Quality Commission (CQC) Hospital Intelligent
Monitoring.
Dr John O’Donoghue (formerly Director of Health Information
Systems Research Centre at University College Cork) and Dr
Petra Wark (formerly Research Fellow & Course Organiser of
the MSc in Epidemiology and International Course in
Nutritional Epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology
and Biostatistics at Imperial College London) have recently
joined the Unit as Deputy Director and Assistant Director
respectively, as well as Dr Hariklia Eleftherohorinou who joined
as a Research Fellow in eHealth and bioinformatics.
We have been redeveloping the Global eHealth Unit website
with the new site going live soon and a Twitter account to
follow.
Finally, we hold a weekly eHealth forum every Friday. This is a
platform where staff members and students discuss issues
relevant to mHealth, eHealth and public health. We also
regularly welcome external speakers. If you would like to share
your work with us, or if you know of someone who might want
to present their work to our group, please do get in touch.
Following on from a Memorandum of Understanding signed
between King Saud University (KSU) and Imperial College
London last year, a high level Imperial College London
delegation (Professor Elio Riboli, Professor Azeem Majeed,
Professor Salman Rawaf and Dr Josip Car) visited KSU earlier
this year. A programme of joint collaboration in research,
undergraduate teaching and postgraduate training was
discussed between the two Universities across four faculties:
Medicine, Engineering, Natural Sciences and Business.
There was also a discussion about supporting medical student
electives and five medical students from King Saud University
came to London for a one-month elective in General Practice
and Cardiology in May 2014. This is an important development
as a number of Imperial students have expressed interest in
travelling to KSU for their elective. Professor Rawaf and his
team are coordinating the process.
We would like to welcome some new
members of Staff to our Team. Dr
Anju Verma and Dr Lucile Abrahams
have joined the faculty development
team as Primary Care associate
community leads.
Farewell to Dr Caroline Collins
(pictured) who has been the course
lead for Year 5 throughout the last
year and now leaves us for more
adventures in Sweden. Welcome to Dr
Neil Browning who will be replacing
her from 16th July.
Buthaina Ibrahim is a new research assistant working on
prematurity and birth cohorts in the Child Health Unit.
Thomas Hone’s study on the Turkish Health System has been
accepted as a poster at this year’s prestigious Third Global
Symposium on Health Systems Research. The symposium takes
place in Cape Town, South Africa in early October.
Access to general practice and visits to A&E departments in England
Dr Tom Cowling’s article on GP access and A&E attendances highlights that the
annual number of unplanned attendances at accident and emergency (A&E)
departments in England increased by 11% between 2008–2009 and 2012–2013.
The researchers’ national review of urgent and emergency care has emphasised the
role of access to primary care services in preventing A&E attendances.
The full article, published in the British Journal of General Practice, has received the
highest Altmetric score (79) for any article ever published in the BJGP. The Altmetric
score is a measure of the
conventional media and
social media impact of an
article. Dr Tom Cowling, lead
author, is an NIHR Doctoral
Research Fellow based in the
department.
Responses to the article by
the British Medical
Association (BMA), Royal College of GPs (RCGP), and College of Emergency Medicine
can be found in the press articles below.
Sky News The Times The Telegraph The Mail Online The Guardian The Independent
A paper produced by the Child Health Unit and
funded by NIHR was featured in Imperial College
News. The research, carried out by Dr Myat
Arrowsmith, Professor Azeem Majeed, Dr John T
Lee and Dr Sonia Saxena, is the first study to
investigate trends in GP prescriptions of LARCS.
The publication, Impact of Pay for Performance
on Prescribing of Long-Acting Reversible
Contraception in Primary Care: An Interrupted
Time Series Study has been published in PLOS
ONE.
The Global eHealth Unit is a multidisciplinary team lead by Dr Josip Car, which
consists of over 20 staff members from diverse backgrounds such as admin,
teaching, medicine, computer science and engineering, epidemiology, public
health research, psychology, and law. The work of the Global eHealth Unit
encompasses the areas of mHealth, eHealth, Health Services Research,
Biobanking, and eLearning.
The Unit has produced a number of systematic
reviews and reports that have evaluated the
impact of various eHealth and mHealth
interventions (e.g. text messaging, email
consultation, telemedicine and smartphone
apps) on the self-management of long-term
conditions; the quality and safety of healthcare;
and the collection of health-related data in
clinical and population settings. The report for
the NHS Connecting for Health Evaluation
Programme, The Impact of eHealth on the
Quality & Safety of Healthcare, is a good
example of this work. We have also evaluated
the quality and safety of the educational
content and self-management tools included in
asthma and diabetes apps, and the factors that
motivate people to start using these apps. Our
work provides a strong evidence base not only
for influencing healthcare delivery and policy,
but also to inform the design of our own
eHealth interventions.
The Global eHealth Unit was a key partner in
the development of two apps which are
available from the AppStore: SiKL and
VitalSigns. SiKL is a personal handheld record
for people living with Sickle Cell Disease and for
parents of children with this condition.
This app allows them to keep
track of their sickle cell crises,
blood test results, medical
history and medication, and
to store contact details and
information for emergency
care. VitalSigns was created
to offer staff members at
Imperial College Healthcare
Trust tools to stay healthy,
and health information. This
app also features a Hopper
Bus Timetable. The Unit was
also involved in the
development of a web app for
the Talk Lab Project. This project is an
attempt at improving communication
between young people with Sickle cell disease,
their parents, and clinicians. There are also a
number of apps in the pipeline: an asthma app,
a data collection and information sharing app,
and an app to help prevent surgical site
infections.
We have also successfully applied for funding
from the European Institute of Innovation &
Technology (EIT ICT Labs) to conduct a number
of small pilots to evaluate the use of wearable
devices for the collection of health data. These
pilot studies will allow us to test and validate
the claims that data collected through these
devices can successfully predict someone’s
risk profile.
With regards to health services research, the
Global eHealth Unit was involved in the
evaluation of the North West London
Integrated Care Pilot. Using a mixed methods
approach, the Global eHealth Unit contributed
to assess patient and professional views of this
pilot. Regarding its biobanking theme, the Unit
is part of two very exciting projects: the NIHR
Imperial Population BioResource and the
Cognitive Health in Ageing
Register for the Investigation,
Observation and Trials in
Dementia Research:
Prospective Readiness
Cohort (CHARIOT:PRO)
study. The former is part of
an NIHR initiative to create a
resource of participants who
are willing to be recalled to
take part in clinical studies
looking at the role of genes
and the environment in
disease development. The
Imperial Population
BioResource is led by the
Department of Epidemiology and
Biostatistics at Imperial College London, and is
one of eight BioResource centres in the
country. The CHARIOT: PRO is a collaboration
with the Department of Neuroepidemiology
and Ageing and aims to develop a register of
cognitively healthy individuals living in South
and North West London who are willing to
take part in dementia prevention studies.
Recently, we were commissioned by the
World Health Organization to conduct a
systematic review to assess the effectiveness
of eLearning for delivering undergraduate
medical education. The resulting report (soon
to be published) will be used to inform
policies to tackle the global shortage of
healthcare professionals. This piece of work
is also the first step of a more comprehensive
evaluation of this new educational approach,
and will inform the design and development of
our own eLearning materials to deliver GP
education in North West London.
Round-up of the visitors PCPH have had the
pleasure of meeting
AMAR Foundation Conference – Health in Iraq
The WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Training and Education participated in
a 3-day conference organised by the AMAR foundation entitled ‘Health in Iraq’ in March
2014, held at the University of Oxford.
The conference explored key issues in health and
the effectiveness of AMAR’s health programmes,
as well as examined next steps for future
interventions, while providing an opportunity for
partnership with AMAR and the government of
Iraq.
The conference involved 60 participants with
representatives from the Ministry of Health Iraq,
the World Bank, UNFPA and Chatham House. This
was followed up by a visit of the Iraqi delegates,
representing the Ministry of Health, & the AMAR
team to London and a warm welcome at Imperial
College London’s Department of Primary Care and
Public Health at the School of Public Health. The
aim of the visit was to introduce the delegation to
the British Health System (NHS), the work of
Imperial College London and the WHO
Collaboration Centre. The groups also explored
bilateral collaboration in teaching, research,
capacity building and service development in the
fields of expertise relevant to both parties.
The delegates at Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
Senior faculty visit from Al Mustansiriyah University - Iraq
Associate Deans of Al Mustansiriyah University,
Baghdad, Professor Sadik Al Hammash and Assistant
Professor Husseein Mahmood Ghazi visited a team from
Imperial College London, as well as hospitals, such as
the Royal Brompton, in May. The visit aimed to explore
opportunities for collaboration with Imperial College
London in the field of medical education and research.
Delegation from the Ministry of Health in the Republic of Kazakhstan visits
Imperial College London
In June, the Department of Primary Care and Public Health hosted a senior delegation from the
Ministry of Health in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The aim of the visit was to brief the delegation
about primary health care in the UK, including the education of medical students and the training
of primary care physicians (general
practitioners). The visit included a stimulating
discussion about whether some aspects of
primary care in the UK could be used in
Kazakhstan. Among the speakers from the
department were Professor Azeem Majeed, Dr
Sonia Kumar, Dr Sami Hasan, Dr Graham Easton
and Professor Salman Rawaf. The delegation
from Kazakhstan was accompanied by Professor
Rory Shaw, the Medical Director of UK Trade
and Investment.
eHealth Conference: Barcelona
On the 4th of June, Dr Elena Barquero attended a
conference about e-health in Barcelona where she
shared experiences of various health blogs. The
conference also underlined the importance of GPs
digital profile and online reputation. Delegates were
encouraged to practice ego-surfing to check the
information available on them. Additionally, it was noted
that writing a blog and using Twitter and Linked In are all
good ways of having ownership of one’s digital footprint.
Dr Barquero has a special interest in nutrition and weight
loss and in her blog: she shares easy tips for healthy
living. There’s also a section with a translation for English
speakers. There are some great summer recipes to be
found.
A Nordic Reflection on eHealth
Innovation
by Stewart Lee Loong
With the likes of crowdsourcing and KickStarter helping potential business
and investments get off the ground – the European Institute of Technology
ICT LABS held a Health and Wellbeing Post-Master Summer School in
Kiilopää, based in Lapland - high above the Arctic Circle in Finland. Through a
series of lectures, presentations, case studies and group work, the course
provided a perfect example of how different perspectives, professions and
disciplines could be brought together to create interventions for healthier
living. Daily ‘public corners’ offered a space for reflection on the notion,
practice and potential of implementing behavioural change to improve
mental, physical and social wellbeing.
To achieve these aims, 24 students
across 5 European Institutions (VTT
Technical Research Centre of Finland;
Technical University in Tampere (TUT),
Finland; University of Trento, Italy;
Technical University in Eindhoven,
Netherlands; and Imperial College
London, UK) came together with
diverse backgrounds in Engineering,
Public Health, Medicine,
Neuroscience, Law, Health Research
and Social Sciences, swapping their
labs and offices to become budding
entrepreneurs for one week.
Members of the Global eHealth team
The focus of the school was in innovative
technology and behavioural change
theory, highlighting how to improve user
experience and acceptance in aiming to
consider design aspects that help users
trust and adopt smarter eHealth solutions.
Combining our diverse
experiences – both as users
and providers – we assessed
the current market to see
how unmet health needs
could be helped in designing
ubiquitous and mobile health
behaviour interventions.
“…the most precious
resource we all have
is time”
Steve Jobs
Among copious amounts of
coffee, saunas and hikes into
the pine-filled wilderness
where the midnight sun never
sets, it was a great knowledge
exchange and opportunity in
networking - challenging
participants to work together
in a short amount of time to build an
effective brand, company and ideas in a
health orientated business setting as a
start-up. Ideas ranged from smart stickers
placed in the local environment, to peerled stress-reduction apps and solutions,
smarter health research and asthma
management, with 6 teams giving a final
entrepreneurial pitch to a jury at the end
of the week. Filippos Filippidis, Eva RiboliSasco and Cybele Wong from Imperial
with Hari Honko from TUT were
eventually judged to have the best idea –
‘Appy Baby’ a mobile app
to help newborn parents.
Many key lessons were
learnt in the value of
developing a start-up and
the competitive healthcare
market whilst trying to
balance viability, ease of
use, brand value and
effectiveness.
Finding a truly unique and
original idea was a
challenge. Many “original”
ideas we had, on further
investigation, seemed to
have been thought of
before, if not in existence
already. In spite of this, we
learnt that innovation,
functionality and user
experience triumphs over
originality. Improvements
on their features (such as
sharing data with your physician or
creating a digital health-related game),
target demographic groups and health
information management were key in
helping to improve health needs through
technology. As Steve Jobs once said, “It’s
really clear that the most precious
resource we all have is time”.
Effectiveness of a smart phone app on improving
immunization of children in rural Sichuan Province,
China
Risk Factors for Hospital Admission with RSV
Bronchiolitis
A planned study in China involving Ms Michelle Van
Velthoven, Dr Josip Carr and Professor Azeem Majeed
will aim to assess the effectiveness of a smart phonebased app (Expanded Program on Immunization app,
or EPI app) on improving the coverage of children's
immunization.
In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, Dr Jo
Murray and colleagues examined the timing and
duration of hospital admissions from respiratory
syncytial virus (RSV) bronchiolitis among term and
preterm infants in England to identify risk factors for
admission. The team carried out a population-based
birth cohort with follow-up to age 1 year, using the
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) database from 71
hospitals across England.
Although good progress has been achieved in
expanding immunization of children in China,
disparities exist across different provinces.
Information gaps both from the service supply and
demand sides hinder timely vaccination of children in
rural areas. The rapid development of mobile health
technology (mHealth) provides unprecedented
opportunities for improving health services and
reaching underserved populations. However, there is
a lack of literature that rigorously evaluates the
impact of mHealth interventions on immunization
coverage as well as the usability and feasibility of
smart phone applications (apps).
This cluster randomized trial will take place in
Xuanhan County, China. Thirty-six villages will be
randomly allocated to the intervention arm (n = 18)
and control arm (n = 18). The village doctors in the
intervention arm will use the app while the village
doctors in the control arm will record and manage
immunization in the usual way in their catchment
areas.
This study is the first to evaluate the effectiveness of a
smart phone app for child immunization in rural
China. It will contribute to the knowledge about the
usability and feasibility of a smart phone app for
managing immunization in rural China and to similar
populations in different settings. More Info
85% of the infants who are admitted to hospital with
bronchiolitis in England are born at term, with no
known predisposing risk factors for severe RSV
infection, although risk of admission is higher in
known risk groups. The early age of bronchiolitis
admissions has important implications for the
potential impact and timing of future active and
passive immunisations. More research is needed to
explain why babies born with Down's syndrome and
cerebral palsy are also at higher risk of hospital
admission with RSV bronchiolitis. Full Article
Drugs cut need for surgery by more than half in
patients with Crohn’s disease
A study involving Drs Ghasem Yadegarfar, Sonia
Saxena, Laura Gunn, and Professor Azeem Majeed
concluded bowel surgery is dramatically reduced by
up to 60% in patients who develop Crohn's disease if
they receive prolonged treatment with drugs called
thiopurines. The findings have been published in the
latest edition of American Journal of
Gastroenterology.
Crohn’s disease affects more than quarter of a million
people in the UK, often leading to an inflamed
intestine. Researchers from St George’s, University of
London, St George's Hospital, London and the
Department of Primary Care & Public Health at
Imperial College, London analysed data from the
medical records of more than 5,000 patients in the UK
living with Crohn’s disease for more than 20 years and
looked at the effect of thiopurine drugs that suppress
inflammation in the gut.
Patients taking thiopurines, such as Azathioprine, for
more than 12 months had a 60% reduction within the
first 5 years of diagnosis. Thiopurines have been used
in the treatment of inflammatory bowel conditions
like Crohn’s disease since the 1970s, but their longterm benefits have just come to light. There has been
a major increase in the number of patients who
receive these drugs in the past decade and rates of
surgery in patients with this condition have dropped,
partly as a result of these and other treatments. But
up to a quarter of patients still go on to have their first
corrective surgery to remove the worst affected areas
within 5 years of being diagnosed.
A new review has shown that the health of Iraqis will
continue to deteriorate unless there is an
improvement in living conditions
Despite enormous investment in Iraq’s health system
in the 10 years since the US-led invasion, the health
condition of Iraqis has worsened. A review led by
Professor Salman Rawaf from Imperial College London
concludes that continual investment in health services
is crucial to elevate the health status of the Iraqi
population, but that progress will be limited without
improvements in housing, water and sanitation,
electricity, transport, agriculture, education and
employment.
Published in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
the study involved several field visits to Iraq between
2011 and 2013. Professor Rawaf, from the School of
Public Health at Imperial College London, said, “There
have been many attempts to come up with solutions
that can help channel the resources needed to make
Iraq’s health system more effective. But our review
showed that strategists and planners have a blind spot
when it comes to the work that needs to be done to
improve all aspects of living which play a vital role in
positively affecting the health status of the people”.
The authors found that housing conditions in Iraq are
in a dire state for the majority of the population, with
half a million people living in squatter settlements.
While the government is building 25,000 housing units
a year, the current need is for three million. The
infrastructure for water and sanitation is too old and
is a source of illness for many people. Even in oil-rich
Basra the water supply is not suitable for human
consumption.
Professor Rawaf said, “Living in Iraq today is not easy;
nonetheless it is not all doom and gloom. The
monumental investment to improve the health
system, via national and international efforts, is very
promising but needs significant and equal
contribution in other aspects of life affecting health
and quality of life”.
He added, “Iraq’s abundant natural and human
resource base can be a valuable source for the revival
of its economy and coherent social structure. Iraq’s
contribution to the regional development will be
significant”. Full Article
Eszter Panna Vamos MD, PhD Specialist Registrar in
Public Health & Academic Clinical Fellow, has been
awarded the Michael O'Brien Prize for achieving the
top mark in the UK Faculty of Public Health Part A
Examination in 2014.
The prize was awarded at the Annual Meeting of the
Faculty of Public Health by John Ashton, the President
of the Faculty of Public Health.
Dr Elinor Gunning received second prize in the
Trainee Excellence Awards in the category of Research
and Academia. This is a London GP trainee award
hosted by Health Education London (formerly known
as the deanery). She also won the best poster prize at
the National Primary Care ACF Conference in Oxford
on the 23rd April 2014.
Dr Paul Aylin has been awarded NIHR funding of
nearly £377,000 for a package of work within the new
Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU). The vision
for HPRUs is that of universities working in
partnership with Public Health England (PHE), to
support excellent health protection research relevant
to the needs of PHE across a number of priority areas.
The Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in
Healthcare Associated Infection (HCAI) and
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) at Imperial College
was established on 1 April 2014 for an initial 5 year
period with a budget of nearly £3.7m.
Paul will run a programme of work consisting of
Applied Data Linkage, Syndromic Surveillance and
Modelling. Full Story
Dr Matt Harris, Walport Clinical Lecturer in Public
Health, has finished his Public Health training and
entered on to the Specialist Register for Public Health
Medicine.
Dr Suzanne Bartington, Academic Foundation Year 2
Doctor and Honorary Research Fellow, has been
awarded an Academic Clinical Fellowship in Public
Health at the University of Birmingham and will be
based in the Department of Occupational and
Environmental Medicine.
Academic ST4, Dr Emma Richards, received the prize
for Learning and Development in the Trainee
Excellence Awards, London GP trainee awards (Health
Education London) and has been put forward for
trainee of the year. She will present at the July
conference.
Duncan (Chad) Hockey has won the London Deanery
GP Trainee of the Year Award.
This is a great achievement for Chad and the Imperial
Scheme. There
were five
categories and
each of the
winners was
invited to
present at the
conference.
The overall ‘GP
Trainee of the
Year’ was then
chosen from
these
presentations.
Winning the leadership category of the excellence
awards, Chad then went on to win the overall ‘GP
trainee of the year’ award by showing how his work
had:
- Benefited GP training in London
- Improved education for trainees
- Improved services for patients
- Promoted and developed primary care
- Delivered sustainable change
Candidates also had to demonstrate publications,
show contributions to research and outline any work
completed outside of the Vocational Training Scheme
(VTS). Presentations were judged by their visual
impact and audience engagement.
We congratulate our PhD candidates who have all
successfully passed their vivas.
Anthony Laverty
Thesis title: ‘Effect of the public release of performance
information on patient numbers in the English NHS’
What the future holds: I am now enjoying postdoc life,
conducting research with funding from the DoH on a
project called ‘Health and economic benefits of providing
free bus travel to older people in England.’
Commenting on his achievement, Chad said, “To be
honest I don't think I could have done this on any
other scheme and think it is the VTS that should be
getting this award- the opportunities I've had have
been amazing”.
rd
Anthony Laverty 3 from Left
Will Palmer
Thesis title: ‘Evaluating the quality and safety of healthcare
using specialty-specific indicators based on routinely
collected hospital administrative data: a feasibility study’
New course: E-Health Leadership and Strategy
Imperial College London, through the Department’s
WHO Collaborating Centre for Education and Training
and its Global eHealth Unit, an innovative course on Ehealth Leadership and Implementation Strategy in
Iraq is now on offer.
Jointly developed and delivered by WHO CC and the
Global eHealth Unit at the Department of Primary
Care and Public Health, the course encapsulates a
variety of skills-development disciplines, including
mobile health, electronic patient records and the
implementation of e-health strategies.
The learning objectives are achieved with the means
of interactive teaching and hands-on experience
through highly skilled tutors, demonstrations, case
studies and problem-based learning. Although this
course is designed for Iraq, it can be tailor made to
any scenario.
What the future holds: Returning to
the full-time life writing reports for
Parliament on the health service; the
current study being on how funding is
allocated to local areas. But, that said,
I'm about to submit one of the PhD
studies - on weekend obstetric care for publication and happy to give
advice to Imperial colleagues about
what is the best day to give birth!
Macide Artac
Thesis title: ‘Evaluation of a National Cardiovascular Risk
Assessment Programme (NHS Health
Check)’
What the future holds: I have been
appointed to a Lecturer position in
Cyprus International University in. I
am now a Dr Lecturer and I will be
assistant professor after a short
period of time.
On Friday, 13 June 2014, Imperial College London held its Annual GP Teachers’
Conference, organised by the Department of Primary Care & Public Health. The
event was attended by over 150 GPs who teach within the local community.
Distinguished speakers, including Dr Martin
Lupton and Dr Roger Neighbour whose
presentation, ‘Would Einstein have made a
good GP?’, were very well received.
There was a diverse range of workshops
covering topics such as Health Coaching,
Resilience and Yoga and How to become a GP
Trainer. Attendees were joined by the Head of
the Medical School, Dr Martin Lupton, who was
very keen to hear from the GP teachers.
In the afternoon, time was taken to praise the
community teachers and the quotes from
students were very heartfelt. One Year 5
student told of his GP teacher, Dr Libby
Pearson, “…if I could have given up the rest of
medical school then and joined that practice to
work, I would have”. It was clear that students
value their GP placements highly.
Additionally, prizes were awarded in a variety
of categories to both students and teachers. A
full list of winners is available.
The Department of Primary Care and Public
Health would like to thank all of the wonderful
GPs who attended the day for doing such an
amazing job and being shining role models in
their teaching.
Each issue we feature a member of the PCPH Admin team—those
key, behind-the-scenes-people who keep the department running.
What is your role within the department and how long have you been here?
I am the new Primary Care & Public Health Department Administrator. I started working in the department in March.
What does your job involve?
I am responsible for the finances of the department; I support the various investigators in preparing grant proposals. I liaise
with the Joint Research Office for the management of the finances of research projects. I support the various department units
and unit administrators.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
I like the variety that comes with my role, having so many responsibilities makes my day very interesting. Also being the
department administrator, I interact with a lot of people on a daily basis and I like it.
Tell us about outside interests
I like photography a lot. One hobby of mine
that probably people would not imagine is
riding motorcycles. While I was living in the
US, I rode my motorcycle from Seattle (North
West of the States) to Monterey (North
California)--about 1,000 miles each way, on
an incredible road trip.
Tell us something about your
background
I am originally from Rome, Italy. I have lived
in London for three years now and before
London I lived in Seattle, Washington (US) for
7 years. In my previous role I worked as a
project manager for a study on Influenza.
Overall I have worked in medical and
behavioural research for the last 6 years and prior to that I worked as a counsellor.
What are you looking forward to in 2014?
I am looking forward to fully settling into my role as Department Administrator and learning as much as I can about the
department and the great people who are part of it.
Why PCPH?
I decided to work in Primary Care and Public Health because I believe in the importance of ensuring good health to people.
Our department achieves that via research and training the future generations of GPs; I am really honoured to be part of it.
WHO CC-UNICEF Health
Management and Leadership
Training – Nairobi, August 2014
The WHO Collaborating Centre is
working in project partnership with
the UNICEF Somalia country office
to deliver an intensive 5-day
course on Advanced Leadership
and Management in Nairobi for 20
high-level delegates from the
Somali Ministry of Health. The
course will cover many topics that
enable health managers and
decision-makers, in today’s
challenging health systems and
services, to obtain the skills and
adopt the right tools to inspire and
influence those around them.
Film Award
Congratulations to Anthony
Khaseria for having his short film
‘Reflections’ selected as one of
five winning films to be premiered
at the Tribeca Film Festival in New
York as part of The ‘Imagination’
Series. Entries were received from
all over the world with a judging
panel lead by Geoffrey Fletcher.
You can watch Anthony’s award
winning short film on YouTube.
The PCPH Autumn Seminar Series
will be organised by Tara Stewart
and Jamila Sherif. Please contact
them if you have suggestions for
speakers or would like more
information.
Village Fete
Reynolds Building Coffee Shop
Summer Picnic
The Reynolds
Cafe is now
closed until
6 October
PCPH Autumn Seminar Series
Good food, important networking,
lovely sunshine and even a bit of
fun was had by all at the annual
PCPH picnic, held in Frank Banfield
Park. Thanks to Pirkko for
organising and Azeem for doing a
sun dance to guarantee perfect
picnic weather.
The annual Support Staff Village
Fete was held on 8 July at South
Kensington to thank support staff
for their contribution to the
College, and marked the College’s
birthday. The event was well
attended and a good time was had
by all as reported in Imperial news.
We welcome feedback on the newsletter
and are taking submissions for future
issues. Email your news, events,
achievements and stories to us.
PCPH eMagazine is taking a welldeserved summer break. But keep
sending us your news, stories,
updates and photos. We’ll be back
in the autumn for another
incredible issue. We wish you a
happy, sunny summer!
PCPH eMagazine Team
Javier Gallego
Sherry Morris
Copyright © 2014
Department of Primary Care & Public Health,
Imperial College London