Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a contagious communicable disease, with a high incidence in children aged under 10 years. It is a mainly self-limiting disease but can also cause serious neurological or cardiopulmonary complications in some cases, which can lead to death. Little is known about the burden of HMFD on primary care health care services in the UK.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of syndromic surveillance is to provide early warning of public health incidents, real-time situational awareness during incidents and emergencies, and reassurance of the lack of impact on the population, particularly during mass gatherings. The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) currently coordinates a real-time syndromic surveillance service that encompasses 6 national syndromic surveillance systems reporting on daily health care usage across England. Each working day, UKHSA analyzes syndromic data from over 200,000 daily patient encounters with the National Health Service, monitoring over 140 unique syndromic indicators, risk assessing over 50 daily statistical exceedances, and taking and recommending public health action on these daily.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rapid diagnostic clinics (RDCs) provide a streamlined holistic pathway for patients presenting with non-site specific (NSS) symptoms concerning of malignancy. The current study aimed to: 1) assess the prevalence of anxiety and depression, and 2) identify a combination of patient characteristics and symptoms associated with severe anxiety and depression at Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation Trust (GSTT) RDC in Southeast London. Additionally, we compared standard statistical methods with machine learning algorithms for predicting severe anxiety and depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChickenpox is a common childhood disease caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV). VZV vaccination is not part of the UK childhood immunisation programme, but its potential inclusion is regularly assessed. It is therefore important to understand the ongoing burden of VZV in the community to inform vaccine policy decisions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Contin Educ Nurs
September 2023
This article reports the results of aligning the new (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021) with the continuing education needs of nurses who work in justice settings and with justice-involved populations. Much progress in considering the development of the "future" nurse is generated by and intended for academic institutions. Although the readiness of health care agencies (employers) is being discussed, continued professional development of currently employed nurses to help them transition smoothly to work with this "future" nurse has received less attention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The Oxford-Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) is one of Europe's oldest sentinel systems, working with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and its predecessor bodies for 55 years. Its surveillance report now runs twice weekly, supplemented by online observatories. In addition to conducting sentinel surveillance from a nationally representative group of practices, the RSC is now also providing data for syndromic surveillance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) COVID-19 dataset is one of the largest international databases of prospectively collected clinical data on people hospitalized with COVID-19. This dataset was compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic by a network of hospitals that collect data using the ISARIC-World Health Organization Clinical Characterization Protocol and data tools. The database includes data from more than 705,000 patients, collected in more than 60 countries and 1,500 centres worldwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo evaluate the impact of the pandemic on the well-being of cancer staff and determine the uptake of opt-in mitigation strategies. Staff at Guy's Cancer Centre (London, UK) participated in an anonymized survey between May and August 2021. Of 1182 staff, 257 (21.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic Imperial College School of Medicine developed a structured volunteering programme involving 398 medical students, across eight teaching hospitals. This case study aims to explore the relationship between the processes, context, participant experiences and impacts of the programme so that lessons can be learned for future emergencies and service-learning programmes.
Methods: Using an illuminative approach to evaluation we invited all volunteers and supervisors to complete a mixed-methods survey.
Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being
December 2021
Purpose: This review articulates current understanding of the aesthetic, artistic and creative contributions that Dance makes to Health and Wellbeing across the lifecourse within publications 2000-2019, an under-researched area.
Methods: Review Questions: What are the aesthetic, artistic and creative contributions that Dance makes to Health and Wellbeing across the lifecourse? And what methodologies are appropriate for investigating these contributions? A database keyword search identified 769 articles and 91 evaluations. 109 documents were identified for further in-depth analysis and rating, resulting in 24 papers (11 articles, 3 PhD studies, 10 evaluation reports), which were thematically analysed.
J Correct Health Care
June 2021
In 1984, Jameton defined moral distress in nursing practice as the negative experience that occurs "…when one knows the right thing to do, but institutional constraints make it nearly impossible to pursue…" (p. 6). Little research has been done about the magnitude and impact of moral distress among nurses working in correctional settings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The aim of the current study was to assess the feasibility, safety, and effectiveness of a newly developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention developed specifically to address the unique context of pregnancy and parenthood. The intervention was delivered to women accessing a specialist Perinatal Community Mental Health Service (PCMHS).
Design: An open-label pilot study was conducted of an 8-week, group-delivered ACT intervention targeting women with moderate-to-severe mood and/or anxiety disorders during pregnancy and/or postpartum.
The COVID-19 pandemic is exerting major pressures on society, health and social care services and science. Understanding the progression and current impact of the pandemic is fundamental to planning, management and mitigation of future impact on the population. Surveillance is the core function of any public health system, and a multi-component surveillance system for COVID-19 is essential to understand the burden across the different strata of any health system and the population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To examine and synthesise current evidence on the factors that affect recruitment, retention, participation and progression within the clinical academic pathway, focusing on equitable participation across protected characteristics including gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
Design: Scoping review and meta-thematic synthesis.
Data Sources: Web of Science, Google Scholar.
Background: Established surveillance systems can follow trends in community disease and illness over many years. However, within England there are known regional differences in healthcare utilisation, which can affect interpretation of trends. Here, we explore regional differences for a range of respiratory conditions using general practitioner (GP) consultation data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Acute lower respiratory tract infections (ALRTIs) account for most antibiotics prescribed in primary care despite lack of efficacy, partly due to clinician uncertainty about aetiology and patient concerns about illness course. Nucleic acid amplification tests could assist antibiotic targeting.
Methods: In this prospective cohort study, 645 patients presenting to primary care with acute cough and suspected ALRTI, provided throat swabs at baseline.
Purpose: Presentation with acute lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) in primary care is common. The aim of this study was to help clinicians treat patients presenting with LRTI in primary care by identifying those at risk of serious adverse outcomes (death, admission, late-onset pneumonia).
Methods: In a prospective cohort study of patients presenting with LRTI symptoms, patient characteristics and clinical findings were recorded and adverse events identified over 30 days by chart review.
The aim was to aid diagnosis of pneumonia in those presenting with lower respiratory tract symptoms in routine primary care.A cohort of 28 883 adult patients with acute cough attributed to lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) was recruited from 5222 UK practices in 2009-13. Symptoms, signs and treatment were recorded at presentation and subsequent events followed-up for 30 days by chart review.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring winter 2014-15, England experienced severe strains on acute health services. We investigated whether syndromic surveillance could contribute to understanding of the unusually high level of healthcare needs. We compared trends for several respiratory syndromic indicators from that winter to historical baselines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A key component of strategies to reduce antimicrobial resistance is better antimicrobial prescribing. The majority of antibiotics are prescribed in primary care. While many existing surveillance systems can monitor trends in the quantities of antibiotics prescribed in this setting, it can be difficult to monitor the quality of prescribing as data on the condition for which prescriptions are issued are often not available.
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