Sarah Alderson

Fantastic opening address from Dr Judith Safford on day 2 of @impact-swiss.bsky.social conference on why we should all ‘go wild’ and listen to patients for meaningful & impactful implementation science. #IMPACT2026

Cogs labelled implementation, policy and research cycle

Dr Giulia Loffreda from @who.int calling for closer integration between policy, implementation and research in addressing non-communicative diseases (NCDs).

Recommends extending embedded implementation research (IR) in health systems. #IMPACT2026

#ImpSci

Very happy to be in Zurich discussing new developments in implementation science. I will be sharing our ongoing work on the Impact of an Intervention on Inequalities in Overprescribing - the 3i-o study tomorrow.
#IMPACT2026 #ImpSci
@au-primarycareuol.bsky.social @wy-icb-research.bsky.social

My longest, toughest run to date - the Craggrunner Moors the Merrier 2025
21 miles (35km - or 7 Parkruns), 1298m height gained (& lost), lots of mud & bogs, fabulous company, wonderful volunteers & organisers, Striders support and a thoroughly enjoyable day yomping across the moors in a Santa 🧑‍🎄 hat!

The primary care & research fields are always changing so learning how to best support practices evolves. What would you add? 🧐

YouTube video by WY R&D GP Practices Shaping the Future of Research

You can find out more about getting involved here 🤝:

youtu.be/Xz-JKWyYK3o?...

- Research timelines can be difficult to predict so flexibility is needed for busy practices who may receive multiple requests from different studies at the same time Patience & support is needed in communication where possible (excepting serious event reporting of course). 👍

- Clear information on accrual allocations and who is adding these to the system. 🧮

Finally, my own pleas to make involvement easier:

- Include a simple guide to what monies will be paid, by who (research costs vs support costs), & when - particularly if the practice needs to raise the invoice or will be prompted by the team - and please do prompt! 💸

8. Communications in easy to understand language- yes please! Contracts are complicated so summaries with key points are very helpful. Flow charts with involvement of practice & participants, highlighting any differences to the standard NIHR contracts to make reviewing efficient.

7. Funded research admin roles - so much of research is administrative. The NIHR Research Delivery Network provides cluster funding that can support this so reach out to your nearest team 👋

6. Ask about research in appraisals - there’s good evidence that research active practices are associated with higher quality care generally. *Encouraging* involvement can help raise awareness to new opportunities & increase job satisfaction 🙂

5. Please feed back findings of your research to the practices AND participants in an easy read format, and send links to main findings publications for further info. Practices like to know how they’ve shaped future care & it’s great to include in appraisals & CQC evidence. Negative findings too! 🙏

4. Reassurance regarding thorough ethical review & data protection - practices have lots of concerns but we have rigorous checks on conducting research. Make it clear who has oversight & where concerns can be raised if needed. 🥸

3. Communicate the patient benefit- preferably beyond the standard ‘helping others in the future’ which is noble but what potential direct benefit will my patients have? 🤔

2. Co-production with primary care colleagues - essential and recognise every practice set up is different so flexibility in processes is key to maximising involvement. 🙂‍↕️

1. Piloting timings - yes! In different types & sizes of practices & with those confident & less experienced in research- it take me much less time to complete research tasks than someone who has not done it before. 😥

Fantastic work by Zoe Edwards & colleagues on the barriers & facilitators to primary care involvement in research. My thoughts on their helpful recommendations as both a primary care academic & practice research lead👇:

Fantastic work by Dr Su Wood and Dr Owen Thomas , supported by Dr Liz Glidewell, Prof Theo Raynor & myself, undertaken at @au-primarycareuol.bsky.social @universityofleeds.bsky.social

Widespread inappropriate prescribing for older people with reduced kidney function: what are the harms and how do we tackle them? A scoping review for primary care Background Increasing age is associated with reductions in kidney function and increasing polypharmacy. Most medicines are eliminated through the kidney, meaning older patients are at risk of medicati...

New paper! 📣

Inappropriate prescribing is common in older adults which puts them at greater risk of adverse effects. However, strategies to address are limited, particularly the lack of agreement on how to measure kidney function in this group!

Read here 👇
qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/earl...

Our toolkit 🧰 contains resources for hospitals, healthcare professionals and patients to support implementation and is available to all - please share!

ycrbcip.leeds.ac.uk/ycrbcip-reso...

@hannahrossington.bsky.social @au-primarycareuol.bsky.social

New paper alert! 🚨

Yorkshire Cancer Research Bowel Cancer Improvement Programme (YCRBCIP) conducted a rigorous consensus process with clinicians and patients to develop quality indicators to support opioid stewardship for patients undergoing bowel cancer surgery 👇

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/9...

… [2/2]
🧑‍⚕️However, we found that primary care prescribers also need systematized creatinine clearance calculation in electronic health records for easy coding to further improve patient safety & reduce harms from medicines in older age 🩺

@au-primarycareuol.bsky.social @wy-icb-research.bsky.social

Creatinine clearance, reduced kidney function, and optimizing prescribing safety through practice feedback: a mixed methods study AbstractBackground. Kidney function declines with age, increasing risk of harm from raised blood levels of many medicines. Prescribing is often inappropria

📣 New paper published❗️

🫘We know kidney function declines with age, increasing risk of harm of many medicines 💊

📉 We showed that providing feedback to primary care on prescribing in reduced kidney function is both feasible and acceptable 😀… [1/2]

📖 Read more here 👇

doi.org/10.1093/famp...

Pleased with my time - managed to knock 30 minutes off my practice run 😀. Rather tired and sore now 😅 - might allow myself a rest tomorrow 🤣

Lovely weather and a great day at the @heights_ultra_trail festival with the @slaithwaitestriders gang! My longest run yet - the Heights 27km Wessenden trail (28.5km on Garmin) 💪

Chelmsford Central #ParkRun no. 16 🏃
I've wanted to do my childhood home town @parkrunuk.bsky.social for a while. Forgot how lovely Central Park is!
🤦 Missed the start by ~5 mins (thanks SatNav!)
Official time - 37m 24s

#loveparkrun #running #loverunning #runhappy #runnerslife #runningcommunity

🙋 New paper alert! 📣
🤔 How do you define a Learning Health System?
We argue that the definition should include integrated rigorous effectiveness evaluations as a criterion👇
@au-primarycareuol.bsky.social @wy-icb-research.bsky.social @bethancopsey.bsky.social @complexleedsctru.bsky.social

The @arc-yharc.bsky.social YouTube channel has lots of fantastic short videos to explore on a wide range of improvement science topics to explore 📺🩺📈

YouTube video by NIHR ARC Yorkshire and Humber Improvement Science Snapshot- Rapid Ethnography

A great research snapshot by Dr Qandeel Shah on how she obtained rich and informative data using rapid ethnography in her PhD within a limited timeframe 👇

#ImpSci #ResearchMethods

youtu.be/RczeobLmntE?...