The academic community must be ready to respond to opportunities to engage with the issues that are preoccupying policy makers

The Institute for Government has just published three new reports on the state of policy making in the UK government. They show concerns about the lack of knowledge in Whitehall, the lack of connection to new ideas and about the way in which evaluations are used. These all represent a big opportunity for academics who want to increase their impact, argues Jill Rutter, but they will need to change to meet policy makers’ needs if they are to fill those gaps

Undoing GOD’s work? gains made by women at the top of whitehall may prove short-lived

Jill Rutter discusses the state of women’s representation in the upper echelons of the UK civil service, noting that positive developments under the previous government may now be reversing

UK in a changing Europe: injecting social science into a polarised political debate

Reflecting on seven years of UK in a Changing Europe, Anand Menon and Jill Rutter discuss how the project has brought social science insights into the mainstream of a polarised public debate. Highlighting how this mode of engagement falls outside of orthodox ‘REF Impact’ and lessons learned, they suggest there are further opportunities to deploy similar models to other socio-political challenges

Governing without ministers: Northern Ireland power-sharing should be a priority for the UK government

Northern Ireland has been without a functioning Executive or Assembly since January 2017. Jill Rutter and Jess Sargeant detail the consequences, which would be particularly severe in the case of a no deal Brexit, and set out proposals for reform

Impact of pharmacy medicine information service advice on clinician and patient outcomes: an overview

Background Pharmacy‐led medicine information (MI) services are available in many countries to support clinicians and patients make decisions on use of medicines. Objectives To establish what impact, if any, pharmacy‐led MI services have on clinician and patient outcomes. Methods All published works indexed in Embase or PubMed, meeting this review's inclusion and exclusion criteria, that wholly or partially attempted to measure the effects of MI advice were retrieved and assessed. Results Twenty studies were reviewed. Five broad themes were identified describing study findings, three were specific to clinicians: their views on the effect MI answers had; actions they took; and influence on their decision making. A fourth theme centred on patient utilisation of advice, and the fifth on ‘process measures’ attempting to determine MI worth. Discussion Studies report on positive patient outcomes as a direct result of MI advice. Clinicians and patients acted upon the advice provided. Clinicians also reported using MI advice as a ‘safety net’, to check, reassure or confirm what to do. MI advice also demonstrated economic worth, although these studies are old. Conclusion MI Service advice appears to affect clinician and patient outcomes. However, study design limitations require findings be viewed cautiously

Prescriber use of Medicines Information Service advice in their decision-making and patient care: an exploratory qualitative study

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Pharmacy-led Medicines Information (MI) Services provide evidence-based advice to clinicians, with high levels of user satisfaction. However, satisfaction does not necessarily reflect improved patient care or patient outcome. This has led to MI research concentrating on the effect MI advice has on patients, despite a lack of agreed definitions of effectiveness and the construction of inappropriate outcome measures. Although the majority of prescribing happens in primary care, most MI research has focused on secondary care. The aim of this qualitative study was to better understand how primary care clinicians used MI advice in shaping their prescribing decision-making and subsequent patient care. Taking an interpretive, idealist perspective and using a generic qualitative, exploratory methodological approach, this study tried to understand how prescribers use MI advice in decision-making and patient care. Prescribers (general practitioners and dentists) across England who contacted MI Services with a medicine-related question, were interviewed by telephone. To expand on findings from these interviews, additional prescribers in North West England were interviewed face-to-face. All interviews (n=55) were analysed inductively using constant comparison to identify themes. Key findings of this study were clinicians describing using MI advice as a safety net to shape, support, or do their difficult research and make prescribing decisions, especially for complex or high risk cases. New knowledge was incorporated into their ‘mindlines’ and shared with their ‘community of practice’, for future decision-making. They valued advice provided by a trusted, expert ‘help desk’, which empowered them to make prescribing changes for their patients confidently and safely, and was also quicker than, and avoided, patient referrals. To conclude, this is the first study to describe the direct influence MI advice has on clinician decision-making and prescribing. In light of this work there is a need to revisit currently used definitions describing impact and outcome, with MI services working alongside health library services to achieve this goal. The role of medicines advice giving in prescribing models also needs to be recognised

Starting with Howard Gardner’s five minds, adding Elliott Jaques’s responsibility time span: implications for undergraduate management education

This article offers a perspective on management education derived from Howard Gardner’s five minds framework and Elliott Jaques’s responsibility time span. We describe the five minds (disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical) and discuss some of the criticisms raised about Gardner’s approach. We introduce Jaques’s time span concept and suggest its applicability to the structuring of roles in a school of management. Putting Jacques together with Gardner allows us to explore questions about the five minds that could be addressed by deans, department chairs, and faculty members, each with a different responsibility time span

The National Endoscopy Database (NED) automated performance reports to improve quality outcomes trial (APRIQOT) randomized controlled trial design

© 2020 The Authors. Published by Thieme Open. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://www.thieme-connect.de/products/ejournals/html/10.1055/a-1261-3151Background and study aims Colonoscopists with low polyp detection have higher post colonoscopy colorectal cancer incidence and mortality rates. The United Kingdom’s National Endoscopy Database (NED) automatically captures patient level data in real time and provides endoscopy key performance indicators (KPI) at a national, endoscopy center, and individual level. Using an electronic behavior change intervention, the primary objective of this study is to assess if automated feedback of endoscopist and endoscopy center-level optimal procedure-adjusted detection KPI (opadKPI) improves polyp detection performance. Methods This multicenter, prospective, cluster-randomized controlled trial is randomizing NHS endoscopy centres to either intervention or control. The intervention is targeted at independent colonoscopists and each center’s endoscopy lead. The intervention reports are evidence-based from endoscopist qualitative interviews and informed by psychological theories of behavior. NED automatically creates monthly reports providing an opadKPI, using mean number of polyps, and an action plan. The primary outcome is opadKPI comparing endoscopists in intervention and control centers at 9 months. Secondary outcomes include other KPI and proximal detection measures at 9 and 12 months. A nested histological validation study will correlate opadKPI to adenoma detection rate at the center level. A cost-effectiveness and budget impact analysis will be undertaken. Conclusion If the intervention is efficacious and cost-effective, we will showcase the potential of this learning health system, which can be implemented at local and national levels to improve colonoscopy quality, and demonstrate that an automated system that collects, analyses, and disseminates real-time clinical data can deliver evidence- and theory-informed feedback.Published versio