Studies
CERA 5
CERA 5 is here!
Good evening everyone. The COVID-19 Emergency Responsiveness Assessment study is in its fifth phase. The first three phases looking at the acceleration, peak, and deceleration of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK in 2020. The fourth phase (for which we now have results!) looked at the impact of the third wave. A finding observed in the deceleration phase of the pandemic was a high degree of persisting distress & trauma. Given the impact of the third wave of the pandemic, we are looking to find out how people are feeling, three months after the first survey.
If you completed the first survey, you will have received an invite to this phase of the survey. This phase of the survey - CERA 5 - is open for two weeks. We will then collect the data and send it off to the R-factory. This will allow us to assess the impact of this third wave of the pandemic in the UK, the impact of which persists for many. Our heart goes out to all those affected by the scenes of devastation seen in India.
Hope you're staying safe.
Rob
CERA 4 Update - First Week
CERA 4 Update time!
Many thanks for all your amazing efforts with CERA.
We have had 1945 responses which is a tremendous amount. A quirk that had not been anticipated last March (amongst other things, such as us even having to do this iteration of the survey...) had been the transition to an entirely different email set-up in Scotland. I very smartly* changed all of the bounced Scottish emails to nhs.scot which, amazingly, didn't fix the problem for everyone.
So, I'd like to extend sincere, heartfelt, big big thanks to Leia Kane and Rachel McLatchie who have painstakingly gone through their contact lists to update basically all of the bounced Scottish emails. The next round of updates will be going out to everyone tomorrow, which will hopefully give everyone a bit of time to have their say. There's the TERN equivalent of a Blue Peter badge waiting for them both if they want to claim it.
So, the moment you've been waiting for - the league table.
(Link available at www.datawrapper.de)
CERA Is Online
CERA is online!
Good morning everyone, and many thanks for all your hard work with CERA - CERA is online. The study has gone live and the full preprint can be found here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3760472. As you may have seen, the press release has been picked up by a few places. I'm going to share with you where you can find our work.
Press
These articles are directly about the findings of the CERA Study:
and these articles reference the findings:
- Metro
- WalesOnline
- Belfast Telegraph (paywalled)
- Daily Mail (apologies. They don't even reference who did the study. Typical.)
Interview
Listen to Tom Roberts, former TERN Fellow, discussing the CERA study on LBC. It can be found on our new Soundcloud.
Infographic
You can find our infographic here. Let me know what you think!
Journal Club Facilitation
If you've got a Journal Club coming up or simply want a little more detail than the infographic but can't sit down to the paper, you can read the Journal Club facilitation document. If you want to run it as a journal club, instructions are found within the document. Big shout out to Laura Cottey & Leia Kane for their work on TIRED for 'inspiring' this format. The document is here.
Thank you again for all of your sterling efforts & enthusiasm. TERN is the result of all of your work & ardour.
Thank you.
Rob
A SHED Update
SHED Update here.
Good morning everyone,
Many thanks, again, for all of the time and effort you have put into the Subarachnoid Haemorrhage in the Emergency Department (SHED) study. We have been delighted to see so much enthusiasm and engagement for this study, especially after delays due to the first peak of the pandemic.
However, this new viral variant and resultant third wave of COVID-19 is a further challenge to observational research. A new national lockdown has been enacted. Patients from Kent are being transferred to intensive care units in Devon for capacity. The urgent public health research prioritisation template has been recirculated and it is clear that any level 3 studies will receive little or no R&D support regarding set up, governance, oversight and recruitment.
As a consequence, we have discussed again with the sponsor to review delivery of the SHED study. Unfortunately, we all feel it will be difficult to proceed; the majority of sponsor R&D staff are working from home and are being prioritised to support urgent public health COVID-19 research. Your local R&D departments are likely facing similar challenges. Redeployment of nursing & clinical staff is happening, which will affect both research nurse support and clinical delivery of the study. It appears untenable to proceed at present and we remain concerned about the validity of the research within the current NHS pandemic setting.
We are therefore proposing a further deferral for SHED. We plan to defer until September 2021 for the earlier sites and October 2021 for the majority of sites.
We share your disappointment and can only apologise if rotational placement means you will now struggle to participate. However, we now have a 6-month opportunity to develop research opportunities at further sites, make the necessary amendments and ensure the protocol is deliverable in the context of any recent local changes. We have over 110 sites signed up, so chances are the ED you move to will already be involved. If it isn’t, let us know, and we can work with you to get local approvals set-up so you can hit the ground running.
It is a very difficult decision to have to do this, especially a second time, but we are certain this is the right thing to do. In addition to the above, we will be using the next 6 months to work on our website and consolidate & publish the outputs from recent TERN projects. We will also press ahead with the recently commenced Delphi project, as discussed at the December EMTA conference. You'll receive a SHED update confirming details regarding SHED nearer the time, and we'll work with you throughout.
The infrastructure and funding behind TERN provided by RCEM means that background work can continue and our administrative team can take the hit on paperwork, rather than this falling on the shoulders of enthusiastic individual researchers. This remains a big step forward for EM network research and should help us to deliver on the ideas you put forward, even if there are future hurdles to navigate.
For now, good luck, stay safe and get in touch if you have any queries.
Robert Hirst & Dan Horner
Merry Christmas from TERN
Good afternoon everyone,
It's been a long, tough year, for everyone. The global pandemic has tested us all and changed the fabric of society. Our behaviours have changed, our departments have changed, and our lives have changed. Most people will know someone who has sadly lost their life to this virus, or will have not seen someone they hold dear for many months now. The effects of the virus has highlighted inequality in our society, and we've seen it impact disproportionately on some more than others. The world (for the most part) feels like everything has been put on hold. The distribution of the first few vaccines holds some hope, but it'll be some time until we see anything approaching normal. The effects of this virus will last much longer than the time we remain locked-down for.
But, at this time of year, we can't help but look to the year ahead. A lot of research efforts have been diverted to COVID-19, and it has been really interesting seeing the scientific process in action. We've learnt so much about this virus, and despite the alarming news of a new viral variant, we know much more about treating this virus now. This has led to delays to other areas of research. We've had to delayed SHED twice now, and for the time being we aim to continue with SHED in February / March (depending upon your site). However, if anything changes you will of course hear about it from us.
In the meanwhile, we've received a number of applications for our new committee roles, who will help to expand TERN and the role it has in networking and education. We'll be introducing them in February once we've sifted through them and interviewed them.
Our Delphi process to investigate trainee research priorities continues. We have our participants, and will be distributing the initial questionnaire in the new year. We'll be posting about this and updating you as the process develops.
More imminently, we are hosting a session for the Trainees Research Engagement Day on the 14th January 2021. Our session will feature updates from Etimbuk Umana from Irish TERN on their National Emergency Resuscitation Airway Audit project, from Harriet Tucker from NATRIC on the TETRIS Project, and from me providing an update on TERN. It will be an excellent day and the programme is stuffed full of fantastic talks - you can check the programme here. It's £25 and will be an excellent day. Sign up here!