Posted on 10 August, 2020 by Olivia

Public Engagement Awards: Dr Walter Beckert – Constructive critique of a proposal for the Competition and Markets Authority’s approach to assess hospital mergers

This is the eighth and final blog in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced as Highly Commended in the category ‘Transforming Culture and Public Life’.

In February 2019 the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a working paper on the impact of hospital competition on rates of patient harm in the English NHS. The Health Foundation examined the central conclusion of the CMA paper – that the research provides ‘further empirical evidence that competition ultimately benefits patients’ – finding that this cannot be substantiated from the analysis. Dr Beckert’s project outlines how more rigorous well-designed research is needed to measure the impact of competition on the quality of care.

The CMA is responsible for overseeing all proposed mergers involving NHS Foundation Trusts. The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (2013) also significantly altered the regulation of competition and mergers by moving it from sector-specific oversight by NHS bodies and placing it within the remit of national competition regulation law, under the control of the CMA. The CMA’s remit currently includes the review of all proposed mergers involving NHS Foundation Trusts (assessing the potential for benefits to patients relative to a potential loss of benefits arising from reduced competition) and the power to block those mergers where insufficient evidence of patient benefit has been demonstrated. To date the CMA has allowed all the NHS mergers it has considered, with one controversial exception: the proposed merger between the Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The critical evaluation of the CMA’s methods to scrutinise mergers is therefore important and timely.

The main insights from Dr Beckert’s work with regard to the CMA’s approach are that it provides an underdeveloped understanding of the context in which the NHS in England operates; an underdeveloped theory of change as to how competition might lead to better outcomes; it uses suboptimal data; it uses suboptimal methods; and it draws conclusions that are unjustifiable in light of the questionable methods and data.

These insights go beyond the CMA’s present study: the CMA’s approach is shared by many similar studies by academics, economic consultancies and health market regulators. Thus Dr Beckert’s work is aimed at improving how future investigations are carried out, with a view to the empirical methodology, the data employed and the overall understanding of the healthcare sector. In doing so, the project combines the expertise of researchers in health services, health economics and competition economics, and econometrics and quantitative methods. The interdisciplinary nature of the project and the research team is a testimony to the complexity of the research task and, possibly, a blueprint for empirical research in the area of policy analysis in the future.

Birkbeck commends Dr Walter Beckert and his external partners on this critical study, which was Highly Commended in this year’s Public Engagement Awards in the Category ‘Transforming Culture and Public Life’.

Further information:

. Reply . Category: Business Economics and Informatics . Tags: CMA, Competition and Markets Authority, culture, hospital, NHS, public engagement, public life

Posted on 3 August, 2020 by Olivia

Public Engagement Awards: Dr Raluca Matei – What Should Musician’s Health Education Sound Like?

This is the seventh in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced the winner of the category ‘PhD and Early Research’.

Dr Raluca Matei and Dr Keith Phillips

‘What Should Musician’s Health Education Sound Like?’ targets the persistent lack of health education in higher music education institutions (i.e. conservatoires) even at a time when the literature on musicians’ health is growing. Emphasising the need for a holistic approach to health, this project engaged and recorded a messy myriad of views, in an effort to capture the wealth of applied experience and knowledge of specialists coming from a range of relevant fields.

Dr Raluca Matei and Dr Keith Phillips, Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at the Royal Northern College of Music, the leaders of this project, organised four workshops to foster exchange and learning among a total of 50 specialists from different areas of expertise: social scientists; experts in performing arts medicine; healthcare professionals working with musicians (e.g. physiotherapists, psychologists, and occupational nurses); health and music educators; musicians (students and professionals); and representatives of relevant organisations such as the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine, Musicians’ Union, and Help Musicians UK (given their knowledge of musicians’ issues at a national level).

Each workshop began with a summary of the evidence on musicians’ health and relied on Dr Matei’s own research on health education in European conservatoires and the methodological limitations of existing health promotion interventions. Throughout each session, participants were divided into small interdisciplinary groups, and were asked to discuss three comprehensive lists prepared by Dr Matei on the basis of systematic literature reviews. Such lists included psychology topics; health topics; and logical fallacies, cognitive biases, and critical appraisal tools that were thought of as relevant for musicians. The evidence basis allowed for rigorous discussions of relevant matters, and this format facilitated highly valuable interdisciplinary discussions among experts with considerable applied experience.

Birkbeck commends Dr Matei from Birkbeck’s Centre for Sustainable Working Life, as well as this project’s co-author, Dr Keith Phillips, for this exciting addition to the ongoing discussion on the topic of musicians’ health. We are proud to award this project with the title of Winner in the category ‘PhD and Early Research’.

Further information:

. Reply . Category: Business Economics and Informatics . Tags: awards, birkbeck, musicians, public engagement, research

Posted on 16 July, 2020 by Rebekah

Public Engagement Awards: Dr Alon Zivony – The limitations of attention in everyday life: can we overcome them?

This is the fifth in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced as Highly Commended in the category ‘PhD and Early Career Researcher’.

Alon Zivony

At any given moment, our senses are bombarded with vast amount of information. Our attention helps us manage this load and separate what’s important from what is not. However, attention is not perfect, and its limitations are not well understood in today’s society. This misunderstanding corresponds to adoption of poor strategies to deal with everyday tasks as well common and harsh self-judgement regarding one’s abilities.

Through a series of free, hour-long interactive lectures, designed to be accessible to a wide range of audiences, Dr Zivony, PhD student in the Department of Psychological Sciences, worked to shed light onto these issues, and dismantle misconceptions. Audiences have so far included teachers, retirees, pub-goers, students, and once even prisoners during a summer education program (Ayalon Prison), but Dr Zivony reckons that students and office workers might also gain significant benefit from his lectures, insofar as they are frequently required to juggle multiple tasks under tight deadlines: bad habits and misconceptions on these occasions lead to lower ability to concentrate as well as high anxiety. Moreover, Dr Zivony notes that volunteers engaged in charity work might be a key audience: while varied, these individuals can take easy to implement messages to improve their own work or to educate other people whom they help. Finally, Dr Zivony highlighted the need to work with underprivileged groups, whom he reckons are more likely to have negative a self-image regarding their cognitive abilities, and are less likely to have access to resources to dismantle this belief.

All engagements that constitute the basis of this projects have had the same structure: an hour-long lecture delivered by Dr Zivony, followed by 10-30 minutes discussion. During the lecture, the audience participated in a variety of tasks, added anecdotes and asked questions. The tasks (visual search, Stroop task, task-switching, etc.) exemplified the limitations of attention in an easy to understand manner. The discussion allowed participants to share their own personal experiences and personal challenges they face in everyday tasks, and get direct feedback and suggestions on ways to improve their habits.

Throughout his experience, Dr Zivony has gathered excellent feedback, and Birkbeck commends him on his impressive Public Engagement initiative. Dr Zivony was Highly Commended in this year’s Public Engagement Awards in the category ‘PhD and Early Career Researcher’.

Further information:

. Reply . Category: Science . Tags: awards, birkbeck, PhD, Psychological Sciences, public engagement

Posted on 25 June, 2020 by Olivia

Public Engagement Awards: Professor Sanjib Bhakta – ‘Joi Hok!’

This is the third in a series of blogs showcasing the Birkbeck 2020 Public Engagement Awards winners and highly commended participants. This project was announced a winner in the category ‘Community Engagement’.

A recent study exploring tuberculosis-related stigma in Kolkata, India, concluded that there is a need for more community awareness programs to dispel misconceptions on tuberculosis (TB). In spite of the presence of various awareness campaigns at local and national level in many of the high-TB prevalent countries in the world, the spread of misconception and TB related stigma are still prevalent in the community. Many are not aware of the dangers of drug resistant TB for which patients fail to comply with doctor’s advice and do not adhere to given medication.

Professor Sanjib Bhakta and Ms Sreyashi Basu, a graduate of University College London and founder of the ‘Joi Hok!’ initiative, envisaged a project to bridge the gap between laboratory science and public health research, with the goal to train and educate communities. The goal of Joi Hok! is to alter perception of TB amongst the local community through a network of local artists, musicians and health professionals. The initiative centres on educating the youth of today’s generation, through a series of routine workshops which take place in semi urban and rural schools. These workshops encourage children from underprivileged families who are disproportionately affected with disease – to engage, learn, discuss and respond to the health issues related to TB through a process of creative inquiry. Students are encouraged to be more comfortable to talk about TB within their household and become proactive in addressing concerns and misconceptions related to TB among their peers. They will then presumably transfer this knowledge to household members, which in turn could encourage completion of treatment over a stipulated time. Until the lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak was declared in India, Joi Hok! workshops were being carried out at rural and semi-urban schools in and around Kolkata, West Bengal, and they consist of the following:

A Puppet show: ‘Putul naach’ is the traditional string Puppet show which usually narrates an everyday story. This is a very common method of mass education in villages of Bengal, and is native to Tripura. A puppet show audio-visual is shown depicting the story of a young family man with the disease who is outcast by the village people. This will encourage students to discuss the social issues of neglect and discrimination TB patients face through the interactive quiz which follows after.

Presentation: A short informative animated powerpoint presentation on the basics of tuberculosis infection, transmission, treatment and antimicrobial resistance is shown to the students. Interaction is encouraged throughout.

Games: A picture card game was designed with images of TB symptoms and other attributes such as, Microscope, MDR-TB etc – helping the children to remember key terminology from the presentation.

Patachitra: Patachitra is traditional paintings from Mednipur done with organic dyes, and is constructed on handmade paper in a scroll format. Every Patachitra has a song related to it called ‘patua sangeet’ which is sung while unfurling these scrolls. Instruments and lyric sheets are distributed and the children sing along as a patachitra scroll on TB is presented. Following the music session, students will be encouraged to attempt patachitra sketching on paper to express their understanding of TB.

Birkbeck’s Public Engagement network commends Prof. Bhakta and Ms Basu on this outstanding public engagement project. They are the winners in the category ‘Community Engagement’.

Further information:

. Reply . Category: Science . Tags: awards, community awareness programs, public engagement, research, Tuberculosis