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Research carried out at the University of Southampton has led to the development of a new tool for detecting and managing malnutrition. The Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) has been rolled out to more than 80% of hospitals and care homes in England and 98% in Scotland, is part of national health policy in Finland and the Netherlands, and has attracted interest internationally. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence bases its current quality standard for nutritional support in adults on the MUST framework; only two NICE guidelines have saved the NHS more money. MUST has become an integral part of the UK's health policy framework, embedded in routine clinical care and supported by bodies responsible for clinical and care excellence. It is central to learning programmes on managing malnutrition.
Loughborough University's Improving Outcomes of Services for Children in Need research is a programme of interlinked studies that has had a substantial impact on the development of national and international policy and professional practice for the most vulnerable children. It has influenced the development of government policy on safeguarding children from abuse and neglect, placement in out-of-home care, and adoption throughout the United Kingdom and in Australia, Canada and countries in Western and Eastern Europe. The researchers have translated a number of findings into tools designed to shape professional practice: these include a computer application that introduces transparency into the comparison of costs and outcomes of services.
Impact: Health and wellbeing; commerce; studies and clinical trials of the effects of progesterone receptor modulators (PRMs) underpinned their application for the benefit of women of childbearing age.
Significance: UoE studies underpinned the application of PRMs as emergency contraception including over-the-counter availability and the treatment of heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB); changed clinical guidelines; influenced Pharma R&D.
Beneficiaries: Women of reproductive age; the NHS and healthcare delivery organisations; pharmaceutical companies.
Attribution: Studies were conducted by Critchley, Baird and colleagues (UoE).
Reach: Worldwide; annually 4M women seek emergency contraception in the USA, and in the UK 1M women seek help for HMB. Drugs targeting the PR are licenced in 67 countries. Multiple global Pharma are active in the field of PRM biology.
The Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) questionnaire is a clinical and research tool, which has fundamentally shifted dermatology from being doctor-centred to patient-centred. Previously, no standard method to quantify the impact of skin disease on patients existed. The DLQI was created by interviewing people with skin disease and made clinically useful through development and validation of score bands. NICE/SIGN require UK dermatologists to use the DLQI when assessing severe psoriasis and hand eczema. DLQI is used in national psoriasis guidelines in 14 countries, is available in 91 language translations, has been used in 678 clinical research studies and generated £881,236 in royalties to Cardiff University.
Impact: By showing the benefits of accurate identification and targeted treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome, UoE research has influenced worldwide medical practice and stimulated public and governmental debate.
Significance: Guidelines and policy debate have resulted in improved patient treatment, with associated economic benefit.
Beneficiaries: Patients with medically unexplained symptoms, policy-makers, clinicians.
Attribution: Work conducted at UoE in a team led by Carson and Sharpe.
Reach: The research affects the more than 25% of all GP presentations who have unexplained symptoms / chronic fatigue syndrome (40% in gastroenterology and neurology). Guidelines have been changed internationally including UK, USA, Australasia.
Our ground-breaking research has driven major changes in non-medical prescribing (NMP) legislation. As a result of our research, over 19,000 nurses and 2,000 pharmacists now independently prescribe medicines directly to patients across the most comprehensive range of medicines in the world. This amounts to four million prescriptions per year in England. NMP has improved the quality and efficiency of health care: patients can now access prescribed medicines faster and NMP has reduced the number of professionals required. Study results have also contributed significantly to a recent extension of independent prescribing powers to physiotherapists and podiatrists. Our research is widely cited in international NMP policy development, and our survey methods and evaluation measures are used to assess NMP quality and safety internationally.
The Rylands Cairo Genizah Project has had impact through its conservation, presentation, and interpretation of an internationally important archive of manuscripts which illuminate all aspects of the history, and the religious, social, and commercial life of the Jews in the Levant from the 9th to the 19th centuries. This collection is of deep interest to the Jewish community in the UK and abroad, and forms part of the cultural capital of this country, where the vast bulk of it is now housed. The project has also had an impact on heritage experts, by developing methods which have been applied to recording and disseminating other cultural assets.
The emergency care team at Warwick Medical School has a strong track record of high-quality health sciences research encompassing evidence synthesis, health-services research and clinical trials. Our trials of a 03b2-agonist (salbutamol) in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) have influenced therapeutic recommendations in the International Sepsis Guidelines (2013), reducing the use of this potentially detrimental therapy. Our cardiac arrest research informed the 2010 international guidelines on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) led to the generation of new intellectual property, and prompted industrial collaborations to build new technologies, such as TrueCPRTM (2013). These have led to improved CPR practice and improved patient survival. Furthermore, our research has led to major policy changes and to a redesign of UK emergency healthcare, improving cost efficiency, the patient experience and clinical outcomes (e.g. 95% of patients were treated within 4 hours - up from 65%; and people leaving without been seen reduced to less than 5%).
Femtocells provide short-range (e.g. 10m) wireless coverage which enables a conventional cellular communication system to be accessed indoors. Their widespread and growing use has been aided by the work in UoA11 by the University of Bedfordshire (UoB).
In 2008, while the femtocell concept was still in its infancy, researchers at UoB with expertise in wireless networks recognised that coverage prediction and interference reduction techniques would be essential if the benefits of that concept were to be realised.
Collaboration with two industrial partners (an international organisation and a regional SME) resulted in tools that enable operators to simulate typical femtocell deployment scenarios, such as urban, dense apartments, terraced house and small offices, before femtocells can be reliably deployed by users without affecting the rest of the network (a benefit of the technology). These tools have been deployed by those partners to support their businesses. A widely-cited textbook, written for network engineers, researchers and final year students, has brought knowledge of femtocell operation to a wider audience.
A Cardiff researcher has led an International 15 year programme resulting in multiple novel findings which have led to changes in the recommended diagnosis and treatment of acquired haemophilia A (AHA). The research has, for the first time, allowed the comparison of immunosuppressive regimens for inhibitor eradication and comparison of the efficacy of treatment strategies to control bleeds. Studies led directly to the production of UK and International guidelines on the management of AHA with 14 of the 18 specific recommendations in the UK guideline being underpinned by Cardiff-led research.