̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - National Health Service (NHS)

AI can be good for our health and wellbeing

cjb250 — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 08:00:08 +0000

Cambridge researchers are looking at ways that AI can transform everything from drug discovery to Alzheimer's diagnoses to GP consultations.

Cambridge Children’s Hospital moves ahead as plans for new hospital approved by ministers

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 11:18:44 +0000

Plans for Cambridge Children’s Hospital can move ahead following the news that the Outline Business Case for the project has been signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. ̽��ֱ��project has been given the green light to begin the detailed process of appointing a contractor, to build the ground-breaking new facility in 2026.

̽��ֱ��ministerial backing means that the Project’s Outline Business Case, the second stage of the business case process, has now been fully approved by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and HM Treasury. It was approved in principle in September 2023, subject to a capital affordability review by NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care’s Joint Investment Committee. That review took place in April 2024 and resulted in a recommendation to Ministers to endorse the decision.

In a show of further confidence in its plans, the Outline Business Case was signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in August 2024. This approval recognises that the hospital will meet the needs of patients and staff across the East of England and that the project has the appropriate funding streams in place, to deliver the specialist children’s facility.

̽��ֱ��hospital is being co-designed with the help of children, young people, families and healthcare professionals across the region to ensure the new hospital will meet the needs of patients, families and staff.

Dr Rob Heuschkel, Clinical Lead for Physical Health at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“We are absolutely delighted that we can now move forward to enter contracts with a construction partner, so we can finally start to see work happening on site.

“A huge amount of work has gone into finalising the designs and getting us to this point, and I want to thank our healthcare staff, young people and their families from across the region who have been contributing valuable feedback and helping us shape our plans, right from the very start.

“ ̽��ֱ��East of England is the only region in the UK without a specialist children’s hospital, and we look forward to changing that very soon.”

̽��ֱ��approval comes as a programme of groundworks preparing for the build was completed in July, and new access roads have now been installed where the new five-storey, 35,000sqm hospital will be located, opposite the Rosie Maternity Hospital, on Robinson Way and Dame Mary Archer Way.

In the coming weeks, people will be able to see hoardings installed around the site of Cambridge Children’s Hospital, the first hospital truly designed to bring mental and physical health care together for children and young people.

Dr Isobel Heyman, Clinical Lead for Mental Health at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“This really is fantastic news and an exciting moment in our journey to build a truly integrated children’s hospital for the East of England.

“ ̽��ֱ��current model of mental health care is inadequate. Many children with physical ill-health also have significant mental health needs, and vice versa.

“Cambridge Children’s Hospital offers a solution. By delivering holistic care for children, young people, and their families, this not only reduces stigma, but the revolutionary model of care really does act as a blueprint for the NHS and the future of healthcare.”

̽��ֱ��fundraising Campaign for Cambridge Children’s Hospital has now passed the halfway mark and the project remains on track to meet its £100m philanthropy target.

̽��ֱ��hospital will also house a ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge research institute, focused on preventing childhood illness and early intervention across mental and physical healthcare.

Professor David Rowitch, Clinical Lead for Research at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“By bringing clinicians and patients together with ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge investigators and industry partners, we aim to shift the medicine paradigm from traditional reactive approaches, to one based on early detection, precision intervention and disease prevention.

“Co-locating research efforts inside Cambridge Children’s Hospital will mean we can detect disease early or even prevent it altogether, personalise health care and prescribe treatments more appropriate for children and their individual health needs.

“We’ll also be able to foster collaborations to advance the power of advanced diagnostics, digital and telehealth technology to support healthcare professions from a distance, to deliver care closer to people’s homes, wherever they live in our region.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Children’s Hospital project is a partnership between Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Work now continues on the final stage of the business case for Cambridge Children’s Hospital – the Full Business Case.

Major milestone for first specialist children’s hospital in the East of England.

A montage of concept designs for Cambridge Children's Hospital

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Health Partners

Artist's impression of Cambridge Children's Hospital.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Having a ‘regular doctor’ can significantly reduce GP workload, study finds

sc604 — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 01:11:40 +0000

In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and INSEAD analysed data from more than 10 million consultations in 381 English primary care practices over a period of 11 years.

̽��ֱ��results, reported in the journal Management Science, suggest that a long-term relationship between a patient and their doctor could both improve patient health and reduce workload for GPs.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that when patients were able to see their regular doctor for a consultation – a model known as continuity of care – they waited on average 18% longer between visits, compared to patients who saw a different doctor. ̽��ֱ��productivity benefit of continuity of care was larger for older patients, those with multiple chronic conditions, and individuals with mental health conditions.

Although it will not always be possible for a patient to see their regular GP, this productivity differential would translate to an estimated 5% reduction in consultations if all practices in England were providing the level of care continuity of the best 10% of practices.

Primary care in the UK is under enormous strain: patients struggle to get appointments, GPs are retiring early, and financial pressures are causing some practices to close. According to the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust, there is a significant shortfall of GPs in England, with a projected 15% increase required in the workforce. ̽��ֱ��problem is not limited to UK, however: the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates a shortfall of between 21,400 and 55,200 primary care physicians in the US by 2033.

“Productivity is a huge problem across all the whole of the UK – we wanted to see how that’s been playing out in GP practices,” said Dr Harshita Kajaria-Montag, the study’s lead author, who is now based at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana ̽��ֱ��. “Does the rapid access model make GPs more productive?”

“You can measure the productivity of GP surgeries in two ways: how many patients can you see in a day, or how much health can you provide in a day for those patients,” said co-author Professor Stefan Scholtes from Cambridge Judge Business School. “Some GP surgeries are industrialised in their approach: each patient will get seven or ten minutes before the GP has to move on to the next one.”

At English GP practices, roughly half of all appointments are with a patient’s regular doctor, but this number has been steadily declining over the past decade as GP practices come under increasing strain.

̽��ֱ��researchers used an anonymised dataset from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, consisting of more than 10 million GP visits between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2017. Using statistical models to account for confounding and selection bias, and restricting the sample to consultations with patients who had at least three consultations over the past two years, the researchers found that the time to a patient’s next visit is substantially longer when the patient sees the doctor they have seen most frequently over the past two years, while there is no operationally meaningful difference in consultation duration.

“ ̽��ֱ��impact is substantial: it could be the equivalent of increasing the GP workforce by five percent, which would significantly benefit both patients and the NHS,” said Scholtes. “Better health translates into less demand for future consultations. Prioritising continuity of care is crucial in enhancing productivity.”

“ ̽��ֱ��benefits of continuity of care are obvious from a relationship point of view,” said Kajaria-Montag. “If you’re a patient with complex health needs, you don’t want to have to explain your whole health history at every appointment. If you have a regular doctor who’s familiar with your history, it’s a far more efficient use of time, for doctor and patient.”

“A regular doctor may have a larger incentive to take more time to treat her regular patients thoroughly than a transactional provider,” said Scholtes. “Getting it right the first time will reduce her future workload by preventing revisits, which would likely be her responsibility, while a transactional provider is less likely to see the patient for her next visit.”

̽��ֱ��researchers emphasise that continuity of care does not only have the known benefits of better patient outcomes, better patient and GP experience, and reduced secondary care use, but also provides a surprisingly large productivity benefit for the GP practices themselves.

Reference:
Harshita Kajaria-Montag, Michael Freeman, Stefan Scholtes. ‘Continuity of Care Increases Physician Productivity in Primary Care.’ Management Science (2024). DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.02015

If all GP practices moved to a model where patients saw the same doctor at each visit, it could significantly reduce doctor workload while improving patient health, a study suggests.

̽��ֱ��Good Brigade via Getty Images

Doctor examining a patient

Yes

A very healthy relationship: the ̽��ֱ�� and the NHS

cjb250 — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 15:40:21 +0000

As the NHS celebrates its 75th anniversary, we look at how the close relationship between the ̽��ֱ�� and the hospitals on its doorstep is driving major improvements in how we care for patients.

̽��ֱ��medical student tackling the taboo around periods

cg605 — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 09:06:13 +0000

Fifth-year medical student, Ashna Biju, is not afraid to talk about the topics that other people would rather avoid. She’s passionate about public health and getting out into the community to get to the very heart of an issue.

AI cuts waiting times for cancer patients in NHS first

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 08:00:18 +0000

'OSAIRIS' is saving many hours of doctors’ time in preparing scans and helping to cut the time patients have to wait between referral for radiotherapy and starting treatment.

Working alongside this AI technology, specialists can plan radiotherapy treatments approximately two and half times faster than if they were working alone, ensuring more patients can get treatment sooner and improving the likelihood of cure.

̽��ֱ��technology is currently being used at Addenbrooke’s for prostate and head and neck cancers, but has the potential to work for many other types of cancer, benefitting patients across the NHS.

Dr Raj Jena, oncologist at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, led the research for the NHS and ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. His research includes long- term collaborations with Microsoft Research on an AI research project known as Project InnerEye to develop machine learning techniques to support the global medical imaging community. To broaden access to research in this field, Microsoft Research made available Project InnerEye toolkits as open-source software.

With a £500,000 grant from the NHS AI Lab, Dr Jena’s team created a new AI tool, OSAIRIS, using open-source software from Project InnerEye and data from patients who had previously been treated in the hospital and agreed to contribute to the research.

OSAIRIS works by significantly cutting the amount of time a doctor needs to spend drawing around healthy organs on scans before radiotherapy. Outlining the organs, known as ‘segmentation’, is critical in order to protect the healthy tissue around the cancer from radiation. It can take a doctor between 20 minutes and three hours to perform this task, per patient. This complex but routine task is ideally suited to AI with the oncologist in control, checking every scan after OSAIRIS has done the segmentation.

Rigorous tests and risk assessments have been carried out to ensure OSAIRIS is safe and can be used in the day-to-day care of radiotherapy patients across the NHS. In masked tests, known as ‘Turing tests’, doctors were unable to tell the difference between the work of OSAIRIS and the work of a doctor colleague.

Dr Raj Jena said: “OSAIRIS does much of the work in the background so that when the oncologist sits down to start planning treatment, most of the heavy lifting is done. It is the first cloud-based AI technology to be developed and deployed within the NHS. 18 months of rigorous testing will enable us to share this technology safely across the NHS for patient benefit.”

“We’ve already started to work on a model that works in the chest, so that will work for lung cancer and breast cancer particularly,” he explains. “And also, from my perspective as a neurooncologist, I’m interested that we’re building the brain model as well so that we’ve got something that works for brain tumours as well.”

Aditya Nori, General Manager of Healthcare for Microsoft Research, said: “By combining the power of AI with the world-class clinical expertise of the NHS, we have an amazing opportunity for revolutionising healthcare together, while preserving the human element that is the essence of high-quality and safe care.”

“Healthcare offers the possibility not only to have technical impact but also societal impact, so I am really thrilled about this. ̽��ֱ��fact that we have AI finally in the NHS will also open the doors for other kinds of AI technologies to really reduce the burden that’s placed on clinicians, and more importantly, improve patient safety, outcomes, and experiences.”

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said: “Cutting edge technology can help us reduce waiting times for cancer patients, free up time for staff so they can focus on patient care, and ultimately save lives – and artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role.

“Backed by £500,000 in government funding, the team at Addenbrooke’s Hospital are utilising the innovative OSAIRIS tool to speed up radiotherapy scans at more than twice the normal rate - reducing the time it takes to start potentially life-saving treatment.

“It will also help ease the pressure on the NHS and cut waiting lists, one of the government’s five priorities.

“In the year the NHS turns 75 we are investing in its future and last week announced a new £21 million fund for Trusts to deploy AI tools in a safe and controlled way to speed up the diagnosis and treatment for a range of conditions.”

Artificial intelligence developed by and for the NHS at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge is reducing the amount of time cancer patients wait for radiotherapy treatment.

CUH

Dr Raj Jena

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Majority of NHS Trusts do not offer training to prevent sexual harassment, study finds

cjb250 — Fri, 05 May 2023 00:00:33 +0000

An analysis of data from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests found that fewer than one in five NHS Trusts in England provided active bystander training to address workplace harassment, sexual harassment and other forms of unacceptable behaviour like bullying and racism.

It found of those that did – the majority of which were in London – most did not deliver content specific to sexual misconduct and participation was voluntary.

Since 2017, when the #MeToo movement gained momentum around the world, sexual harassment in medicine has been recognised as both pervasive and harmful. This form of harassment – which includes a range of verbal, online and physical acts, ranging from poor taste jokes to unwanted touching to rape – can have a major impact on the individuals it affects and on the healthcare workforce itself.

In 2019, a survey by UNISON found that 8% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment while at work during the last 12 months, with more than half (54%) of these acts being perpetrated by co-workers.

Active bystander training encourages individuals to recognise and respond to poor behaviour, by equipping people with skills to intervene. Workshops and training programmes typically involve role-playing, case studies, and group participatory discussions.

To assess the extent to which such training programmes are being used within the NHS, researchers from Cambridge Public Health and the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge, submitted FOI requests to 213 NHS Trusts across England in December 2021. Their analysis is published today in JRSM Open.

Of the 199 Trusts (93%) that responded, only 35 offered active bystander training. Just five of the Trusts said their training addressed sexual harassment in some form, with the remaining 30 Trusts saying their training taught participants to challenge antisocial behaviour only in a general context. Only one Trust delivered content that specifically tackled sexual harassment in the workplace as its focus.

̽��ֱ��majority of the Trusts that offered active bystander training were in London – 22 out of the 35. But even 14 of London’s NHS Trusts offered no training, despite the training being paid for by NHS England, not individual Trusts.

Among the 164 Trusts not offering active bystander training, only 23 Trusts had plans to implement it in the future. One Trust stated that they were actively developing plans to develop sexual safety training that will incorporate active bystander training. Several Trusts suggested they would consider implementing it if there was, to quote one of these Trusts, a “need for this form of training”, while other Trusts suggested implementation would occur if members of staff or working groups within the Trusts’ organisation advocated for it.

Dr Sarah Steele from Cambridge Public Health and Jesus College, Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��NHS is failing to take advantage of a very effective training tool to address workplace harassment, sexual harassment and other forms of unacceptable behaviour such as bullying and racism. It’s a tool well used by the military, universities and educators, and which even the UN and UK government promotes.

“We found low uptake of active bystander training among NHS Trusts in England, particularly outside of London, and very little of the training that was on offer focused on sexual harassment. This is deeply worrying, given the continued problem of sexual harassment in the healthcare sector.

“Organisations need to encourage active bystander training from the very first days of undergraduate degrees through to the day of retirement. Without this, the problems of sexual harassment will continue to be a problem in the NHS and across wider society.”

Most of the Trusts used training programmes delivered by external companies – 27 out of the 35, with three Trusts not providing data. This meant that the researchers were unable to assess the content or effectiveness of the training programmes as they were commercial in confidence. While outsourcing training is meant to increase competition, the researchers found that one provider dominates.

Dr Ava Robertson, who carried out the research while part of the Population Health Sciences Partnership at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, said: “ ̽��ֱ��problem with turning to private providers is that training materials can’t be externally audited, making it extremely difficult to evaluate how effective the programmes are. In some cases, it also meant that attendees of the workshops weren’t allowed to share the toolkits they received with other colleagues, so the knowledge isn’t more widely disseminated.”

̽��ֱ��Home Office has been actively promoting active bystander training interventions to reduce sexual harassment and violence against women and girls more widely. Dr Steele, who sat on the campaign advisory group said cross-departmental learning from this campaign would support the Department of Health and Social Care, and the NHS, in thinking about behaviour change interventions amongst healthcare staff.

In 2021, on the back of the researchers’ work, Jesus College partnered with learning platform edX to offer free, online active bystander training available to anyone anywhere in the world.

Dr Steele who leads the course, and is Deputy Director of Jesus College’s Intellectual Forum said: “This course draws on up-to-date research and evidence on action and inaction, and offers real-world examples to help people respond at work, in public, and even at home. It can be accessed by anyone in the world for free so in the face of a lack of workplace training, individuals can still equip themselves with these essential skills.”

Reference
Robertson, A, and Steele, S. A cross-sectional survey of English NHS Trusts on their uptake and provision of active bystander training including to address sexual harassment. JRSM Open; 5 May 2023

Failure to implement active bystander training could thwart NHS attempts to tackle sexual harassment, say researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��NHS is failing to take advantage of a very effective training tool to address workplace harassment, sexual harassment and other forms of unacceptable behaviour such as bullying and racism

Sarah Steele

sturti (Getty Images)

Medical team strategy planning

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Minority ethnic doctors less likely to get specialty NHS training posts while some specialties show gender bias

cjb250 — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 23:01:16 +0000

Their analysis, published today in BMJ Open, also found that while female applicants are more successful overall, particular specialities tend to appeal to different genders.

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust examined data from applicants to Specialty Training Posts through Health Education England for the recruitment cycle 2021-22 to look at potential disparities in the success of applicants according to gender, ethnicity and disability.

During this period, there were just under 12,500 successful applicants to Health Education England for training posts – a success rate of one in three (32.7%). Overall, females were more successful than males (37.0% versus 29.1%).

̽��ֱ��researchers found clear evidence that certain specialities were more attractive to females or to males. Of note, surgical specialities and radiology had the highest proportion of male applicants (65.3% and 64.3% respectively), while obstetrics and gynaecology and public health had the highest proportion of female applicants (72.4% and 67.2% respectively).

Senior author Professor Sharon Peacock, from the Department of Medicine at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��success by female applicants in many specialties is a positive step towards gender balance, and perhaps reflects existing efforts to address disparities. But the skew in applications and subsequent recruitment by gender, particularly amongst surgical specialities, is concerning.”

Gender disparities are known to have knock-on effects. For example, a lack of female representation contributes towards a male dominated culture, which can then result in fewer female role models to inspire and encourage aspiring female doctors.

̽��ֱ��researchers say there are several reasons for these disparities. In surgical specialities, for example, a male-dominated workplace culture, bullying and harassment, few female role models, and career inflexibility, have been suggested as factors that deter females from applying. Female surgeons have reported quality of life and fewer unsocial hours as explanations of why women prefer other clinical specialities, in addition to the fear that working less-than-full-time or taking career breaks is perceived negatively.

Approximately half (50.2%) of the applicants were non-UK graduates. ̽��ֱ��overall success rate of UK graduates was 44.5%, compared with 22.8% for non-UK graduates.

When it came to minority ethnic groups, after adjusting for country of graduation, applicants from eleven out of fifteen groups (73.3%) were significantly less likely to be successful compared to White British. Those who fared worst were those of Mixed White and Black African ethnicity, who were only half as likely (52%) to be successful as White British applicants.

Dr Dinesh Aggarwal, the study’s first author, also from the Department of Medicine, said: “ ̽��ֱ��data suggests there’s a need to review recruitment policies and processes from a diversity and inclusion perspective. But the issues extend beyond recruitment – doctors from minority ethnic groups can struggle to progress within the NHS and report disproportionately high levels of discrimination from colleagues.

“More than four in ten of the medical and dental workforce in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England are from a minority ethnic group, and ensuring that they are able to work within an inclusive environment, that allows them to thrive and progress, should be a priority.”

Although only a very small proportion of successful applicants (1.4%) declared a disability, they were more likely to be successful (38.6% compared with 32.8% of non-disabled applicants). However, there were no disabled applicants to 22.4% of the specialities, and for a further 36.2% of specialities, no disabled applicants were accepted.

Dr Dinesh Aggarwal added: “It’s encouraging to see a high proportion of acceptances among individuals disclosing a disability. ̽��ֱ��NHS needs to ensure that application and recruitment processes are accessible and open to adjustments for all disabilities, eliminate any fear of discrimination, and provide assurance that all NHS workplaces will accommodate reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled doctors can carry out their work. This will not only help to encourage more disabled applicants, but also allow disabled clinicians to feel more comfortable disclosing this information.”

Professor Peacock added: “ ̽��ֱ��NHS is the largest employer in the UK and it’s vital that it nurtures diverse talent to benefit patient care. People from diverse backgrounds bring different lived experiences and perspectives, which in turn strengthens the pool of knowledge and skills within the NHS. A lack of workforce diversity can be detrimental to patient care, and research shows that inherent biases can influence how clinicians treat patients.”

Dr Aggarwal is a PhD student at Churchill College. Professor Peacock is a Fellow at St John’s College.

Reference
Aggarwal, D et al. Applications to medical and surgical specialist training in the UK National Health Service, 2021-22: a cross-sectional observational study to characterise the diversity of successful applicants. BMJ Open; 20 April 2023; DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-069846

Most minority ethnic groups are less successful than their White British counterparts when applying to specialty training programmes in the NHS, Cambridge researchers have shown.

̽��ֱ��NHS is the largest employer in the UK and it’s vital that it nurtures diverse talent to benefit patient care

Sharon Peacock

DarkoStojanovic

Doctor's white coat with stethoscope and pens

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

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