Medical Centre

Medication error is a frequent, harmful and costly patient safety incident. Research to date has mostly focused on medication errors in hospitals. In this study, we aimed to identify the main causes of, and solutions to, medication error in primary care. The resuls of the study were published in BMC Family Practice . In the study, we used a novel priority-setting method for identifying and ranking patient safety problems and solutions called PRIORITIZE. We invited 500 North West London primary care clinicians to complete an open-ended questionnaire to identify three main problems and solutions relating to medication error in primary care. 113 clinicians submitted responses, which we thematically synthesized into a composite list of 48 distinct problems and 45 solutions. A group of 57 clinicians randomly selected from the initial cohort scored these and an overall ranking was derived. The agreement between the clinicians’ scores was presented using the average expert agreement (AEA)....

On Tuesday 15 November 2016, I spoke to Academic Clinical Trainees at Imperial College London the topic of the NIHR Research Design Service). The Research Design Service provides support to NHS staff and academics preparing research proposals for submission to peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health or social care research. My presentation can be viewed on slideshare .

Complex and time-consuming memory clinic referral criteria may be contributing to delays in the diagnosis of dementia, according to a paper published today by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine . Around 850,000 people are living with dementia in the UK but the number thought to have dementia substantially exceeds those with a formal diagnosis. Early diagnosis is a priority for the government and the NHS. Currently GPs are responsible for referring patients for assessment and diagnosis by specialists, usually in dedicated memory clinics which set referral criteria. There is considerable variation in referral criteria, with requirements set by some memory clinics that exceed national guidelines. Requirements can include different combinations of cognitive tests, laboratory blood tests, urine tests and physical examination that vary between clinics. Lead author Dr Benedict Hayhoe, of the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, says: “ GPs have difficulty assessi...

On Thursday 3 November 2016, I spoke at a seminar at the Imperial College Business School on the topic of the impact of Brexit on the UK's life sciences sector (the NHS, universities, and pharmaceutical and biomedical companies). I emphasised the important role played in the life sciences sector by EU-trained professionals and the need to ensure that the UK continued to attract highly-qualified professionals to work, for example, in our National Health Service. I also discussed the need to increase spending on research and development to ensure that the UK remained a world leader in the biomedical industry. The other speakers at the seminar were Andrew Lansley (former Secretary of State for Health) and Richard Phillips (Director of Healthcare Policy at the Association of British Healthcare industries). The event was chaired by Andrew Brown. A copy of my talk can be viewed on Slideshare .