Wednesday 30 August 2017

The Development and Initial Validation of the Perinatal Mental Health Awareness Scale in Student Midwives

Julie Jomeen has co-authored:

Martin CR, Jomeen J, Jarrett P (2017) The Development and Initial Validation of the Perinatal Mental Health Awareness Scale in Student Midwives Journal of Midwifery and Reproductive Health doi: 10.22308/JMRH.2017.9251

Professor Julie Jomeen in China

Our Dean Professor Julie Jomeen has been in China, in Suzhou, to address an international conference on humanistic nursing hosted by the University of Soochow.

Group photograph; Julie is 13th from the right!

Tuesday 29 August 2017

New external role for Professor Peter Draper

Peter has  been appointed as a ‘member’ of the Yorkshire and Humber Cooperative Learning Trust, which is a local multi-academy trust.  The schools in the Trust include Newland School for Girls, Kelvin Hall School, and four local primaries.  The role of the members is to set the strategic direction for the Trust, and offer the most senior level of oversight.  

Thursday 24 August 2017

Students train with Paralympian medallist Martin Mansell

As a follow up to attending the recent Special Olympics GB National Games in Sheffield - reported here - a group of students completed Sainsbury’s inclusive community training on Friday 18 August 2017 in the University Sports and fitness centreWe were incredibly fortunate that the facilitator assigned to us was Martin Mansell who won multiple medals swimming for Great Britain in the Paralympic Games, notably gold in Seoul 1988.  Having competed at elite level, his enthusiasm for developing inclusive sport at grass roots level was infectious with year three student Karen Normington commenting:

“… thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend the afternoon in training lead by Martin.  What an inspirational passionate guy he is, certainly left me with lots to think about and not just in a sport capacity.” 
The three-hour practical workshop was supported by an online Module, workbook and was provided by Sainsbury’s in conjunction with the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS).  It focused on using the Inclusion Spectrum (open, modified and parallel activities) and STEP, an acronym for Space, Task, Equipment, People.  We also experienced the rigour of sitting volleyball and - the more sedate but competitive - boccia.

For more information please see and/or contact Debbie Crickmore.


Thursday 17 August 2017

Syrup Trap City - a novel by Penny Grubb

Penny Grubb, our resident crime writer, has pubished her 7th crime novel Syrup Trap City – set in Hull in the city of culture year. 

Professor Roger Watson inducted to Sigma Theta Tau International Researcher Hall of Fame


SSTI Presents 2017 Nurse Researcher Hall of fame inductees

The Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) inducted 23 nurse researchers into the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame at STTI’s 28th International Nursing Research Congress in July

Professor Roger Watson inducted to the
 Sigma Theta Tau International  Researcher Hall of Fame


Created in 2010, the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame recognizes nurse researchers who have achieved significant and sustained national or international recognition and whose research has improved the profession and the people it serves. The honorees’ research projects will be shared through STTI’s Virginia Henderson Global Nursing e-Repository, enabling nurses everywhere to benefit from their discoveries and insights. The award presentation is sponsored by Wiley.




Congratulations Professor Roger Watson, Phi Mu Chapter #490 from all of your colleagues at The University of Hull.
Posted by Lizzie Ette



Wednesday 16 August 2017

Sport teaches us

If you blinked during coverage of the recent World Championships in London, you may well have missed any mention of the concurrent Special Olympics GB National Games in Sheffield.  This movement, founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968 enables athletes with learning (intellectual) disabilities to compete at national and international levels (there are limited events in the more well-known Paralympic Games).


A group from the pre-Registration Learning Disability Nursing Programme within the School of Health and Social Work attended the opening ceremony on Tuesday 8th August 2017 at Sheffield United’s football stadium Bramall Lane where 2,600 athletes from England, Scotland and Wales took part in the parade, witnessed the arrival of the Flame of hope which had passed through Hull a few days earlier and took their oath:

"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

Students Gemma Bellerby, Toni Boyne and Abby Downs write
“This was an incredible experience which allowed us to see the athletes being celebrated prior to attending their events.  Unfortunately due to the torrential rain it did put a slight dampener on the event but everyone made a fantastic contribution and kept up the team spirit.” 

Hayley Sharp and Ed Jones agreed:

"...it was such a shame about the weather but I believe we all still really enjoyed the evebing regardless!"

 “I really enjoyed it. It is great to celebrate the talents of people with learning disabilities.” 

The physical, psychological and social benefits of participation in sport are no secret.  We will complement and consolidate this experience with Sainsbury’s inclusive community training on Friday 18th August 2017, exploring creative ideas to support disable people to take part in physical activity and sport, learning about practical tools to support inclusive delivery. 

For more information please see this link or this one or contact Debbie Crickmore.

Fathers in the birth room: choice or coercion? Help or hindrance?

Dean Professor Julie Jomeen has published:

Jomeen J (2017) Fathers in the birth room: choice or coercion? Help or hindrance? Journal of Reproductive and Infant Health 35, 321-32

Friday 11 August 2017

Amanda Lee in Malaysia


Amanda Lee was in Malaysia last week to discuss opportunities for collaboration with Health Campus Universiti Sains Malaysia. Professor Lim Boon Huatt the deputy Dean, kindly arranged a full day of meetings to discuss potential research and studentships across the two universities.


Pictured aboveare:

Yvonne Tee ; Few Ling Ling, (Coordinator, MSc (Biomedicine) Mixed Mode Programme;
See Too Wei Cun, Shaharum Shamsuddin (Biomedicine Programme Chairman)
Wan Rosli Wan Ishak, (Deputy Dean of Academic, Student Affairs and Alumni)
Amanda Lee Associate Dean (International) University of Hull
Lim Boon Huat (Deputy Dean of Postgraduate Studies, Industry, Community and International Networking); Noor Izani Noor Jamil ; Wan Nor Amilah Wan Abdul Wahab;
Wan Amir Nizam Wan Ahmad; Khairul Ithma Mahdi (Senior Assistant Registrar)

The meetings were extremely productive. There are many opportunities for joint research collaborations and grant applications with the British Counsel who are actively encouraging joint Malay/UK projects. If you are interested, please contact Amanda Lee.

Amanda also visited the Ministry of Health in Kuala Lumpur to discuss medical and nursing program provision in Malaysia.

Thursday 10 August 2017

• Evidence-based combined health and psychosocial tailored programmes for carers supporting people with dementia and clinically significant distressed behaviours show promise, but services struggle to provide effective responses

·       Separate service pathways for families and care homes, with skilled workforces for each of these, may enhance the efficiency of delivery of interventions for carers facing clinically significant challenges in dementia.

The findings from a large-scale programme on the Management of Dementia with clinically significant challenging behaviour at home and in care homes led by the University of Hull and Humber NHS FT  is published today (August 11  2017). The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR).

Over 5300 home-dwelling people and their families referred for specialist help were screened across England, and 61% of those with dementia and clinically significant challenging behaviour had a mild dementia.  Practitioners did not always recognise what constituted clinically significant challenging behaviour in dementia; and over a six month period, they did not manage to reduce the challenges faced by these families. Families bore most of the care costs of dementia with challenging behaviour, and many were unaware of the evidence, guidelines and scope for trained therapists to support them with timely individually-tailored effective responses to their challenging circumstances.

Over 2300 residents living in 63 care homes which were rated as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ on the then CQC website across Hull, the East  Riding of Yorkshire and York were screened for clinically significant challenging behaviour.  A trial of e-learning and online therapist-assisted intervention involved 832 residents and 632 care staff. Despite offering high levels of IT support and resources from a trained dementia therapist, the care home industry in this part of North East England was on the whole not ready to embrace online training with individually tailored interventions.  However smaller homes with less hierarchical management were more ready to engage in innovation to improve the care of people with dementia and challenging behaviour, including uptake of e-learning opportunities. Using an in-depth qualitative process evaluation, a tool-kit has been developed for specialist care home liaison teams to assess the readiness of a care home to collaborate with health and psychosocial interventions for clinically significant challenging behaviour in dementia, and to assist care homes who have real practical difficulties in delivering collaborative specialist interventions.  This evidence based e-learning and individualised intervention is appropriate for the training and support of specialist care home liaison teams and hospital staff .

These in-depth studies of people with dementia and challenging behaviours living at home or in care homes, also noted that prescribing practices were sub-optimal.

Professor Esme Moniz-Cook  who led the research, with Professor (now Emeritus) Peter Campion and Drs Ivana Markova and Andrea Hilton at the University  Hull; and with  Cathryn Hart (now Assistant Director of R&D) and Angie Mason (Nurse Director - now retired) Humber NHS FT who sponsored this programme, said:

 ‘Older people with dementia in the early stages of the condition can have clinically significant distressed behaviours, and they and their families can remain undetected until it is too late to provide effective interventions for them at home.  Our programme of work has developed simple but valid screening tools to capture the currently undetected clinically significant challenges in both family care and care homes. These can be used by stakeholder providers across primary and secondary care, to detect clinically significant challenging behaviour and monitor the effect of support programmes over time.  We have also developed evidence-based e-learning and tool-kits to be translated for dissemination amongst stakeholder providers who are commissioned to provide services such as care homes dedicated to challenging behaviour in dementia care or care home liaison teams; and workforce training for staff in hospitals and teams dedicated to serve families who support home-dwelling people with dementia and distressed behaviour. 

The majority of older people with dementia live at home and those with distressed behaviours and their families are the most vulnerable of this group.  Our aspiration is to disseminate work from this programme and support commissioners and stakeholder providers across Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire and beyond.  The first step is to  facilitate the balance of primary, secondary and hospital practice from early diagnosis of dementia, to early recognition of challenging behaviour within two focussed pathways for post-diagnostic dementia care, and to train practitioners in timely evidence-based health and psychosocial tailored practices within each of these pathways.’

Key Collaborators included the universities of Bangor (Wales), Kings College London, East Anglia (UEA), Swansea (Wales), Nottingham and Bradford; and Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS FT and BUPA. This summary has been prepared by the Chief Investigator and does not necessarily reflect views or opinions of the NIHR, collaborating institutions, the NHS or the Department of Health


Contact: Professor Esme Moniz-Cook

Stressors in nursing students in Pakistan

Salma Rehman and Roger Watson have co-authored:

Ali R, Watson R Rehman S (2017) Stressors in nursing students in Pakistan International Nursing Review doi: 10.1111/inr.12392