Transformative Innovation in Health and Social Care

Professors Thilo Kroll and Huw Davies, Co-Directors of SDHI along with colleagues

Dr Margaret Hannah, Director of Public Health, NHS Fife
Professor Vikki Entwistle, Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen
Professor Brendan McCormack, School of Nursing, Queen Margaret University
Professor Belinda Dewar, University of the West of Scotland
Graham Leicester, Director, International Futures Forum
Nicola Gray, Programme Manager, Scottish Improvement Science Collaborating Centre

have been awarded funding from the Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII) for a project entitled Understanding, forming and fostering a culture of transformative innovation in health and social care

This proposal focuses on the kinds of transformative innovation that are needed within services and communities to address pressing concerns about the appropriateness and sustainability of health and social care provision across whole populations. It brings together leading Scottish and international thinkers and practitioners from three key areas of research and practice development, and provides a structured but flexible programme within which they can generate synergistic insights into the conditions that can enable the kinds of cultures of transformative innovation that could foster the provision of health and social support consistent with the best aspirations of humanity.

The three areas of practice and development that underpin the programme are: (1) Fifth wave thinking (ideas oriented to deal with the contemporary challenges of public health for which previous major developments in public health are proving insufficient); (2) Person-centred care (a cluster of ideas about both what is humane and morally appropriate in health and social care provision and how people can contribute to their own health and wellbeing); and (3) Transformation (studies of transformative rather than less radical or far-reaching forms of innovation).

Building out from existing collaborations within the three areas, programme partners and participants have been drawn from universities and from state and third sector policy leaders and health and social care providers. Supported by a strong commitment particularly from the International Futures Forum, a series of webinars and workshops will enable a sharing of current understandings and perspectives and facilitate fresh, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral conversations oriented both to understand and promote positive transformation both during and beyond the span of the programme.

The objectives of the proposed work are:

1. Create the space for creative and productive cross-boundary and inter-disciplinary ‘facilitated dialogue’ to scope out the relevant bodies of work and strands of thinking that can underpin transformative innovation in health and social care and public health;
2. Build a cumulative vision of the relevant organisational and system features of transformation-enabled public services around population health and care;
3. Map a series of actions for key influencers within the system that may help to bring about the conditions for transformation capacities and capabilities;
4. Define the means by which we can develop an assessment of the progress towards building such transformative capacities and capabilities;
5. Create an action-focused research agenda to provide a better evidence base for the underpinnings of transformation through innovation in health and social care and public health.
6. Prompt the emergence of new collaborations that can take forward investigations and actions in support of both research and transformative change.

PhD Studentships: exploring research-informed service change in the Scottish NHS

Funded PhD opportunities are available, hosted jointly by The Scottish Improvement Science Collaborating Centre (SISCC), the Research Unit for Research Utilisation (RURU), and The Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI) at the Universities of Dundee & St Andrews. These studentships (fees plus stipend at Research Council rates) are to explore aspects of research-informed change in the Scottish NHS. More details can be found here or through links at www.siscc.dundee.ac.uk and www.ruru.ac.uk.

PhD Studentships: exploring research-informed service change in the Scottish NHS

Funded PhD opportunities are available, hosted jointly by The Scottish Improvement Science Collaborating Centre (SISCC), the Research Unit for Research Utilisation (RURU), and The Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI) at the Universities of Dundee & St Andrews. These studentships (fees plus stipend at Research Council rates) are to explore aspects of research-informed change in the Scottish NHS. More details can be found here or through links at www.siscc.dundee.ac.uk, and www.ruru.ac.uk

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the SDHI Research Showcase and Fair on 1 December 2014

We were pleased to see so many colleagues, students and friends join us at our recent Research Showcase and Fair in St Andrews. The event marked a cross-section of current and recent research and activities that SDHI affiliated researchers have been involved in and also created opportunities for cross-disciplinary and inter-university discussions. For 11 years SDHI has been working with NHS colleagues and NGOs and the business sector to generate high quality research of impact. The day also generated refreshed impetus to work across institutional and disciplinary boundaries in the future and to ‘connect to transform lives’ locally and globally in line with SDHI’s current strategy.



UK-IN Active Implementation Frameworks workshop

The UK Implementation Network are hosting a workshop The Science and Practice of ‘Active Implementation Frameworks’ in improving services to people in London on Friday 24th October

Further details are available here

Making your research matter: engaging with #social #media

SDHI is delighted to announce the following Webinar ‘Making your research matter: engaging with #social #media’ which will be led by Emma Burnett, Lecturer and Researcher, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Dundee.  This webinar will be held on Thursday 6th March at 3pm (GMT).  If you would like to join this webinar please contact Rosanne Bell (r.c.bell @dundee.ac.uk)

For further information please see webinar flyer

‘Dismantling the fence’ Day 3 @APHA

On the first day of the conference I reflected on the contrast between the life on the streets of San Francisco and the ‘protected’ and sealed off environment of the conference (how many homeless people got to attend and have a say?). Both so close and perhaps, even connected in content and practice but at the same time worlds apart. This impression stayed with me throughout my days here and was reinforced on the walk from and back to the hotel where a very heteregoneous community of the dispossessed desperately push for some visibility in this world of shiny displays of upmarket jewellery and fashion stores. They are kept outside in the doorways, park benches, gutters and may only find temporary access to the indoor world in a subway, parking garage or overnight shelter. They are shunned, made different, a line is drawn between them and us. Perhaps, the accelerated step when rushing past them, the averted glance, the raised voice to silence their request for a bit of hope in the form of money – perhaps, all this is just our way of maintaining the divide between them and us so that we do not have to confront the reality that they at one point also played a role on our side of the fence. And that our life path could catapult us very quickly into ‘their world’. Now why am I writing this? The point is that we are taking this dividing line into our research. Most public health or other health-related research is still ABOUT people and populations. It is not conducted WITH people who are the immediate stakeholders. Participants in studies are still relegated to being ‘subjects’ in academically pre-conceived studies that seek to fill a gap in the segregated world of evidence-based practice. The number of truly emancipatory and participatory action research projects is ridiculously small. And this approach is frowned upon by many traditional empiricists and frequently rejected as unscientific as the population, the intended outcomes, and the intervention processes may change in the context of the study. BUT, this type of ‘research’ produces immediate change that is driven by the community as the principal stakeholder. It is a research WITH, not ABOUT. To be fair there may have been brilliant examples – and I know there indeed have been – of this way of working at the APHA conference but I would still maintain that very few community representatives could afford participation at the conference. We need more ‘WITH’ in our applied health and social research. There is so much to gain: greater ecological and external validity, buy-in and support of the research from Day 1, more rapid change, fulfilment of human rights on inclusion and the dismantling of the socially constructed fence between ‘them’ and ‘us’.

Seminar: ‘Research, evidence and practice: from knowing to doing’

The Centre for Medical Education are hosting a seminar presented by Professor Huw Davies (University of St Andrews and Co-Director of SDHI) on Wednesday 26th September at 1pm in Tay Park House, 484 Perth Road Dundee.

This seminar is aimed at helping us better understand the relationships between knowledge created from – or informed by – research, and its subsequent use, influence and impact. How to maximise knowledge ‘translation’ from research.

For further information please see flyer CMDN Seminar Huw Davies 26 Sept 2012