Blog posts

Why sharing leadership in healthcare matters

By Dr Lisa Aufegger, Research Associate

Alongside the inherent challenges of the job itself, working in acute healthcare teams comes with another layer of complexity.

On a regular basis, staff will interact with highly specialised professionals from across different disciplines. This means that team members such as anaesthetists, nurses and surgeons need a high level of shared understanding, not only in relation to their main objective but their roles and responsibilities, too.

Shared leadership (SL) – where leadership working relationships are distributed and team members’ unique roles defined – has been proposed as a way to foster effective team performance in such situations.

Experiences of Shout-ing for Mental Health

By Lily Roberts, NHS Digital Academy Teaching Fellow

“I’m really struggling, is someone there?”

“Hi there, my name is Sophie and I’m here for you tonight. Tell me a bit about what’s on your mind.”

“I can’t cope anymore, I just want to end it all…”

While this exchange is fictional, it is a representation of a very real problem.

A Shout out for mental health

By Dr Emma Lawrance, Mental Health Innovations Fellow

These are hyper-connected times. We’re told we can get what we want – from dinner to a date – at the tap of a phone screen. And yet, even with the world seemingly at our fingertips, when we are in an emotional crisis or struggling with our mental health, it can be hard to know where to go. And hard to know what to say, when one of our loved ones is brave enough to express what’s truly on their mind.

Let’s talk about young people’s mental health

By Dr Lindsay H Dewa, Research Associate, NIHR Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken”. C.S. Lewis

Project SAPPHIRE: Making the most of precious health data

By Joshua Symons, Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation’s Big Data Analytical Unit

Patient data is precious. It’s a resource that many researchers and clinicians use to improve healthcare and therefore the lives of patients and health professionals. That’s why we want to make sure it’s used in a way that’s both effective and safe.

Our Co-production Journey: From Sandpits to Bird Boxes

By Anna Lawrence-Jones (co-written with Jean Straus).

This article originally appeared on the UCL Public Engagement blog and has been reposted with permission. Visit the blog to read more about the UCL Centre for Co-Production in Health Research. 

In my former job at Cancer Research UK, I organised Sandpit Innovation Workshops that brought together researchers, healthcare professionals and innovative thinkers to come up with novel research ideas to help solve a health challenge. Normally a three-day event, sandpits are a way to generate research ideas – which are inevitably more innovative and daring in this spontaneous environment – and get them funded quickly.

How nurses and midwives are essential to achieving universal health coverage

By Nicolette Davies, IGHI’s Head of Operations

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a basic human right. The WHO’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, continues to highlight the importance of UHC by focusing its World Health Day on this topic. Dr Tedros’ top priority is equity for health for all, but how will we achieve the World Health Assembly’s ambitious target of 1 billion more people benefiting from UHC within five years?

Where are the ‘Toyotas of healthcare’ we need for universal health coverage?

By Jonty Roland, IGHI Honorary Research Fellow and Independent Health Systems Consultant.

By dedicating this World Health Day to universal health coverage (UHC), the WHO is continuing to relentlessly bang the drum for ‘health for all’ under its charismatic Director-General. This is a beat that more and more countries are now marching to, with dozens of governments having announced UHC-inspired reforms since Dr Tedros took office two years ago.

Why patient engagement matters

By Dr Lisa Aufegger, IGHI Research Associate

Patient engagement has become a key priority in today’s health and care systems. And some have argued it’s essential for the sustainability of the NHS.

Patient engagement (PE), the involvement of patients in their medical process, is not a new concept. It first appeared in the late 80s, when the US Food and Drug Administration brought together patients, government, industry, and academia to identify and remove barriers to successful HIV drug and treatment development. Since then, PE activities have blossomed across clinical and non-clinical areas, and generated meaningful insight into and impact on quality improvement in healthcare service and delivery.