A prospective study comparing radiographer and clinician based localisation for patients with metastatic spinal cord compression (MSCC) to assess the feasibility of a radiographer led service.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate if there was parity between treatment fields localised by radiographers and clinicians, by comparing geographical variations and hence determining the feasibility of a radiographer led service. METHODS: 23 patients with metastatic spinal cord compression (MSCC) were prospectively sampled. 4 radiographers not involved in the original planning performed a localisation on each patient. The 92 localisations were compared to the clinicians approved field. Agreement was defined as ≤0.5cm between field length, width and 3 isocentre coordinates. To be feasible agreement was required in a minimum of 97% of the cases. The potential time saved with a radiographer led approach was also recorded. RESULTS: Agreement between clinicians and radiographers was 97.8%. For all field parameters, the average differences were <0.3cm and was significantly different from the 0.5cm median (p<0.0001) that would establish no agreement using wilcoxon signed rank test. The average (range) delay waiting for clinician approval was 54 minutes (4 minutes to 141 minutes). CONCLUSIONS: Strong agreement between radiographers and clinicians localisation was established. It was also highlighted that time could be saved in the patient's pathway by removing the need to wait for clinician approval. We believe this supports a radiographer led service. Advances in Knowledge: This article is novel as it is the first known comparison between clinicians and radiographers in the localisation of MSCC radiotherapy. This data shows the feasibility of introducing radiographer led practice and a methodology that could be potentially transferred to investigate the localisation parity for other treatment sites

Teacher Development Multi-Year Study Series: Evaluation of Australia’s Investment in Teacher Development in Lao PDR: Baseline Report

This report constitutes the Baseline Report of the multi-year study of the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) investment in teacher development in Lao PDR through the Basic Education Quality and Access in Laos program (BEQUAL). This Lao PDR study is part of a three-country multi-year study series on teacher development, in response to DFAT’s Office of Development Effectiveness’ 2015 Investing in Teachers report. This study is framed within the context of Lao PDR’s staged introduction of a new primary education curriculum, and accompanying in-service teacher professional development support. The overall aim of this study is to investigate the teacher professional development component to answer the question: to what extent does BEQUAL support improve teaching quality and student literacy in Lao PDR

Service user and carer involvement in the OSWE Project in England: the experiences of two service user researchers

The OSWE project set out to involve service user educators in the local projects in an advisory capacity and in the national projects as equal members of the action learning set.We describe our different experiences of involvement in two local OSWE projects in Anglia Ruskin University and Sussex University; and our experience of involvement in the national learning set in England.We review the involvement of service users and carers in the other participating universities in the OSWE project. Our reflections identify a number of the successes in actively involving service users and carers; we also consider the barriers to involvement which include: lack of time, lack of sufficient funding, breaks in continuity, inability to build effective relationships, lack of effective recruitment training and support processes.We discuss the best practice that has been already been developed to enhance user involvement in health and social care research and relate it to our experiences in this project.We then draw out our own recommendations that may promote improved processes in the future for involving service users and carers