The liver disease project:
We know from research that liver disease is high and rising in certain populations, including the North East of England. It also seems that palliative care for those with liver disease is not being accessed equally. We think this may be due to difficulties with diagnosis or prognosis, perhaps as end of life care and palliative care are sometimes seen as the same thing, or perhaps lack of time or resources. We need to better understand what the barriers are, for who, and why so we can suggest improvements to services so they are appropriate and accessible to all. This will be a large research project over three stages.
Stage one we will do a review and find out what is already known, stage 2 we will collect information from patients, informal carers, supporters, health and social care practitioners, and representatives from different communities to better understand their needs and experiences. Finally, we will produce recommendations for service design and delivery and also some form of take away, a toolkit or video/animation.
The project team includes academics from Northumbria University and Newcastle University as well as several clinicians from Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, South Tees Trusts. Liver North, a charity for Liver patients has also recently come on board to represent patients. Involvement will be from early project design now through all the different research stages.
Once the project is funded PPI expenses will be included.
Contact for further details: Tegan.Davison@newcastle.ac.uk
The bereavement project:
We know that bereavement support can be patchy, with different offers in different areas to difference communities. Also that is can be difficult to access and may not always be appropriate, (un)intentionally including some groups while excluding others.
This project team including two hospice bereavement coordinators who deliver bereavement services to local communities, clinicians from Newcastle and South Tees, and academics from Northumbria University are seeking to better understand the bereavement needs of different communities and then to subsequently examine effectiveness of the support offered to different communities.
In addition to this research we hope to produce training/information materials from the bereavement services for different groups which can be used to improve access. We have one service user involved but it would be hugely valuable to have wider community representatives so we can understand where and what bereavement support needs are.
Involvement will be from early project design now through all the different research stages.
Once the project is funded PPI expenses will be included.
Contact for further details: Tegan.Davison@newcastle.ac.uk