Can you spare 15 minutes to shape the future of technology enhanced learning in healthcare?

Health Education England’s Technology Enhanced Learning Programme is working on the Department of Health mandate to find digital solutions to some of the challenges presented in accessing, creating and sharing online teaching and learning resources.

HEE is conducting a short survey looking at the current use, attitudes and views toward online learning resources. The findings from this research will go towards improving access to learning resources, greater collaboration and sharing of information, and the avoidance of costly duplication.

Please can you spare 15 minutes to undertake this survey?

This survey is part of a wider user testing exercise that is cross-checking existing research. All data you provide in your answers remains anonymous, and you will not be asked to provide your name or your specific place of work. They would ask you to answer all questions to the best of your ability. You do not need to spend very long on each question and there are no right or wrong answers. It may seem that some questions are asked more than once but this is part of the chosen methodology.

Please forward this email to your colleagues across any/all of your networks as HEE want opinions from as wide an audience as possible.

Your help is very much appreciated.

Go to HEE survey

If you would like to find out more about the programme, please visit the website or email [email protected]

Cavell Nurses’ Trust Survey

Cavell Nurses’ Trust, a national charity giving money and support to nurses, midwives, health visitors and HCAs facing hardship, is carrying out research to find out more about the extent of hardship in the nursing profession. The results will help the charity to develop its service and be here for more of the deserving people that need its support.

As part of the research, the charity is looking for as many nurses, midwives, health visitors and HCAs as possible to complete a short survey and for the chance to win a £250 shopping spree!

The survey is live at: www.marketingmeans.co.uk/Cavell2016b. It takes about 10 minutes to complete.

The survey closes on 19 August 2016. All responses will help Cavell Nurses’Trust to support more nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants.

Everyone who completes the survey will also be entered into a prize draw to win one of four £250 high street shopping vouchers.

Go to Cavell Nurses' Trust survey

Professional development survey and prize draw opportunity from The Communication Trust

The Communication Trust is a coalition of over 50 not-for-profit organisations, they support everyone who works with children and young people in England to support their speech, language and communication.

They are seeking the views of those who work with children and young people about their experiences of professional development opportunities around speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). They’ve developed a short survey to gather the views of a wide range of practitioners including health visitors.

The Trust wants to hear from everyone, whether you’ve never had any CPD or initial training around children’s communication, or have accessed a number of development opportunities in this area, your views are vital to their work.

Go to Communication Trust Survey and enter a £50 Amazon voucher prize draw

Please note that the survey closes 15 July.

Once you’ve completed the survey, please do forward the link onto all of your relevant colleagues to help them gather as many views as possible.

Contraception Priority Setting Partnership Survey

Working with our partners

We are sharing a survey from one of our partners – The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The goal of the Contraception Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) is to create – by democratic consultation- a ‘Top 10’ priority list of research uncertainties for contraceptive care, put together by patients, their partners and health professionals.

The Contraception PSP hopes this ‘Top 10’ will help guide researchers in answering questions that are equally important to all people affected by contraceptive care. It is an invaluable opportunity to work collaboratively with patients and professionals to identify pertinent research priorities which otherwise might have been overlooked by researchers themselves or the pharmaceutical industry.

The aim of the survey is to generate questions for future contraception research.
The survey is open to health professionals (from all fields and clinical settings) and members of the public (both male and female, whether they have used, are using or are thinking about using contraception).
They are interested in all questions people may have about: contraceptive methods (how they work, side effects, conflicts with other medical condition or drugs, the decision making process when choosing to stop or start contraception) and services that provide contraception.
The unique selling point of the priority setting partnership is that it is a collaboration between health professionals and patients/the public. Therefore they emphasise the importance of the response of clinicians as well as service users.

They would really appreciate some input from health visitors!

Go to Contraception PSP survey

For more information please contact Hayley Atkin, Project Co-ordinator at [email protected] or visit the Contraception PSP website.

Children’s Centre Partnership Survey

4Children is conducting a survey to understand more about the impact on children and families of partnership working involving children’s centres.

This survey is for staff with direct experience of working in partnership with children’s centres, for example by sharing data, working in a children’s centre, or referring or receiving referrals from children’s centre staff. It is aimed at a wide range of partners including: Health Visitors, social care, employment support, voluntary sector, early years and childcare providers, housing, education, Troubled Families teams, criminal justice, volunteers and carers.

The survey will take around 20-30 minutes to complete. Respondents can remain anonymous and have the option of being entered in to a prize drawer to win a £50 One4All voucher. A short report will be published in the summer based on the survey findings.

4Children is also setting up focus groups in a number of local areas to explore these themes further.

If you are able to help facilitate a focus group, or with any questions, please contact Jessica Southgate, Head of Policy, [email protected]

Go to 4Children survey

Institute of Health Visiting calls for significant financial investment for infant mental health

Following the announcement that NHS England will invest an extra billion pounds a year to tackle mental illness, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) is urging the government to specifically invest more into the first two years of life – arguing that this would reduce later expenditure on mental illness and its consequences.

The Mental Health Taskforce report, published on 15 February, reported that one in four people will experience a mental health problem in their lifetime and the cost of mental ill-health to the economy, NHS and society is £105 billion a year.

A strong research base demonstrates that the foundation for later emotional wellbeing starts when babies are still in the womb, and is established in the early months of life. Positive infant mental health (IMH) lays the foundation for mental wellbeing in a baby’s early years and ensures better social and emotional health in later life.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director of the Institute of Health Visiting, said: “Recent iHV surveys into infant mental health show that over eighty per cent of health visitors use their antenatal visit to talk to parents about infant mental health. However, post-birth, they do not have sufficient contact with mothers in order to give adequate ongoing support. Over 50% of health visitors believe that the mothers they visit should be talking to their babies more, as this helps develop the babies sense of security and belonging – an early sign of mental health.

“Helping parents to understand how to interact with their babies, from day one, helps all children to have the best start in life and, in many cases, helps to prevent later mental health issues from developing. New local authority commissioners must ensure that all health visitors have the training, capacity and support to provide sufficient advice to all new parents.”

Read full press release

iHV stock photography from Croydon area. Picture by: www.matthewwalkerphotography.com