We have worked with start-up businesses, multinational corporations, international universities, plus a wide range of NHS Trusts and various private and voluntary organisations.
Current and past partners include the Royal Marsden Hospital and the Care Quality Commission, with recent projects including designing a pioneering device to help stroke survivors walk again.
View our innovation highlights for the following years outlined below;
Collaborative Learning in Practice is a student practice experience model that supports a coaching approach in practice rather than one to one mentoring.
Learning in practice is a vital and substantial component of student nursing preparation, comprising some 50 per cent of dedicated learning time and is central to developing a competent and compassionate nursing workforce.
This project is gaining national recognition because not only does it help with placement capacity but early feedback demonstrates that it significantly enhances the quality of the learning environment.
In partnership with Health Education East of England and our practice partners including Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, James Paget University Hospital, East Coast Community Healthcare, Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust we have been piloting an exciting project to deliver a different way of practice learning called Collaborative Learning in Practice (CLiP)™.
For more information on this licensing opportunity, please visit the CLiP UEA webpage.
A UEA-led collaboration involving East Coast Community Healthcare (ECCH), London South Bank University and University of Hertfordshire has developed, and is piloting, a new specialist nursing role: the Carer Support Nurse.
The award-winning Carer Support Nurse role was developed to address the unmet healthcare needs of unpaid carers. Families and friends play a crucial role supporting people they care for as their unpaid carers but are not always well prepared for this – it can impact on their own health and wellbeing. Carers need support to (1) look after their own health and wellbeing and (2) boost their skills and confidence to care. Healthcare policy says this should happen, but healthcare professionals rarely achieve this alongside supporting the patient. To address this, we have worked with carers and professionals from health, social care and the voluntary sector to develop a novel Carer Support Nurse role. The role is designed to help carers with health/wellbeing needs that cannot be met by their usual healthcare team, and to raise awareness of carer needs and best practice in carer support among other healthcare providers.
The role, and its evaluation, have been endorsed by 70+ East of England stakeholders and groups consulted across health, social care and the voluntary sector, over 100 carers and patients (through Patient & Public Involvement work: PPI), and regional and national leaders in carer support. The level and universality of enthusiasm among these stakeholders has been remarkable, with lack of provision for carers’ health-related needs a repeated message.
We are now evaluating the role in a project funded by Health Education England (East of England) and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC EoE) and UEA Health and Social Care Partners. The role has also won the regional NHS 2023 Parliamentary Award in the Nursing & Midwifery Award category and has been shortlisted for the Royal College of Nursing RCNi award in the “Innovations” category as one of 75 finalists from 900+ applications, with final outcome at an award ceremony in Liverpool in November.
Links you can use:
UEA Health & Social Care Partners – invited blog
Katherine Letley represented HSC at the International Confederation of Midwives World Congress in Bali from 10-14 June. The aim of Katherine’s presentation was to showcase the role of Midwifery Clinical Educator in the implementation of Collaborative Learning in Practice (CLiP). CLiP is a student practice experience model that supports a coaching approach in practice rather than one to one mentoring, and has been an ongoing project for HSC.
The presentation was well received, with keen interest from midwifery educators in Australia, Ghana and the Channel Islands about how this model could be implemented in their settings. Katherine was also approached by the Royal College of Midwives lead for Education to discuss how CLiP could work at a national level in the UK. Katherine was invited to be part of a national steering group leading the implementation of CLiP at hospital sites across the UK.
A co-ordinated programme of activity to establish highly effective workforce intelligence networked across the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System, for sustainable workforce optimisation, supporting effective system level transformation.
NICHE is funded by Health Education (East of England) and its focus is to enhance healthy living for all, with the following aims:
1: Place UEA_NICHE, as an Anchor Institute within the Norfolk and Waveney ICS, to enhance and sustain opportunities for integrated collaboration, from which to sustain health and wellbeing for those who live and work in our region.
2: Co-create programme workstreams, to scale-up evidence and outcomes to a National, Regional, and international level, for sustainable improvements, across our workforce and systems level effectiveness.
The Schools of Medicine, Health Sciences and Pharmacy have shaped and contributed to the SE Asia Dialogue group strategy for internationalisation developing strong partnerships with universities, local NGO’s, social enterprises and international funders in this region. These partnerships are currently largely discipline-specific and, whilst these partnerships have been maintained throughout the pandemic using virtual tools, the current Internationalisation visit was designed to support the continued management, reinvigoration and broadening of these partnerships and the development of new ones.
The visit took place during October 2022 and covered four countries and six cities and involved 25 meetings across 16 institutions. In line with the aims of the visit, and in order to maximise the efficiency and impact, the UEA staff attended key meetings with international partners as a delegation and pursued individual discipline-specific meetings to explore new opportunities.
The countries and cities included in this international visit were Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) Thailand (Bangkok and Chiang Mai), Vietnam (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) and Singapore.
The visit consolidated and reinvigorated existing partnerships and developed collaborative relationships with new partners that will be important in supporting the Internationalisation agendas in FMH and the School of Pharmacy.
Tangible outputs include six MOU’s*, identification of multiple Turing mobility opportunities for UEA students for work and study across disciplines, with different organisations in all the countries visited. Additional results include grant applications, submitted (British Council) and in preparation (Academy of Medical Sciences), trans-national education collaborations and, upskilling health professionals in this region, via CPD opportunities.
*Renewals, extensions to existing arrangements and new partnerships developed.
To date highlights of the SE Asia Dialogue group’s work in Malaysia includes collaboration with WHO and Ministry of Health Malaysia, which was awarded the Group Achievement award at the UEA Engagement awards in 2020, staff and student exchanges, international placements for UEA students at award winning NGO’s (Sian Coker), the recently awarded Catalyst grant (Maria Garraffa) and new membership for UEA of the British Council first UK-Malaysia Consortium.
An important focus of the visit to Malaysia was re-establishing and renewing UEA partnerships and forming new strategic relationships with HEI’s, government ministries and organisations important to FMH and the School of Pharmacy’s internationalisation agenda.
UEA has a long-standing partnership with Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur across several Schools including Medicine, Psychology and Computing. One of the key activities of the current visit to Malaysia was the renewal of the MOU between the respective universities.
The meeting was attended by representatives of Sunway’s chancellery office. the Provost and Dean, School of Medical and Life Sciences, Associate Deans from this School and the Schools of Mathematical Sciences and members of the international office and the UEA delegation. The signed MOU has since been delivered to the UEA partnerships office.
UKM's accomplishments in research development have placed it among the top 1% of universities in the QS World University Rankings. UKM is now ranked #144 in recent QS World University Rankings 2022 and ranked #33 in the recent QS Asia University Rankings 2022. UKM national ranking in Malaysia is four.
Several weeks prior to the visit to SE Asia a meeting was held at UEA with Profs Coker and Crozier and Dr Chu (UKM) to discuss building upon the successful research collaboration between Dr Chu and Dr Garraffa. Several areas of mutual interest were identified, across allied health professions, and discussions entered on extending UEA’s collaboration with UKM, underpinned by a new MOU.
These fruitful discussions continued in Malaysia culminating in the signing of a letter of intent between the two universities.
The University of Malaya, a public research university in Kuala Lumpur, is Malaysia’s oldest university, founded in 1905. At 70th rank, UM is placed within the top 5% of the 1,422 institutions ranked by QS (2023 QS rankings) and is ranked first in Malaysia, and third in Southeast Asia.
UEA has had a MOU in place with University of Malaya for several years. This meeting was to explore new opportunities for partnerships within FMH and School of Pharmacy.
An informal dinner meeting with UM took place on 4 October.
Discussions centred around how the MOU could be operationalised with the Faculty of Medicine at UM and FMH, UEA to increase research and teaching as well as explore student exchange for PhD internships (UEA could use Turing to support ward mobility). Prof Crozier and Dr Matthews agreed to co-ordinate post-visit follow up meetings with their departments.
https://www.britishcouncil.my/uk-malaysia-university-consortium-launch
UEA is a founding member of the Board of the British Council UK/Malaysia Consortium (MUC). The new consortium, comprising of all 20 of Malaysia’s public universities and 16 of the UK’s higher education institutions, looks to expand the scale, scope and pace of long-term collaborations between the UK and Malaysia but also with partner countries in the ASEAN network and beyond.
This was the first face-to-face meeting of the Consortium, with UEA being the only UK partner present.
Together with the Malaysian Minister of Higher Education and the British Council UK/Malaysia Director, UEA delivered a workshop on the topic of Embedding Experiential Learning into the Curriculum (Dr Garraffa and Dr Aldrich, UEA) to representatives of Malaysia UK University Consortium (MUC) from 10 public Malaysian universities.
The workshop was well received and supported by all invited participants. UEA has confirmed its strong commitment to supporting the MUC initiative and Dr Wan, Malaysian Minister of Higher Education will visit UEA in 2023.
In March 2020 the School of Health Sciences was successful in the submission of a tender to evaluate and make recommendations to Health Education England that supports the future career and competency framework development relating to the ACP (Specialist Midwife and Consultant Midwife) role. The framework will provide guidance on the competencies, skills, knowledge and behaviours that midwifery ACPs will need to provide high quality care in line with the vision outlined within ‘Better Births’.
The project is being led by Professor Kenda Crozier with specialist input from Jayne Needham, Helen Meehan, Ruth Sanders and Dr Georgina Sosa. The award of £25,000 will fund the evaluation which is due to be completed by November 2020. During the project the team will collate evidence, review and evaluate current education and training programmes for advanced clinical practice, what competency frameworks are currently in use, examples of midwifery ACP job descriptions and examples of innovative practice relating to midwifery ACPs. The project also aims to collate evidence and evaluate examples of good practice across the NHS.
In January 2020 the Learning Disability Nursing team were awarded just over £46,000 by Health Education England to deliver Phase One of the comprehensive review of the national Learning Disabilities Workforce: Adult Enhanced Community Services, Children’s and Young People’s Enhanced Community Services and Autism Specific Service Provision & Evaluation of New and Emerging Roles.
The project will see the University working collaboratively with NHSE/I and HEE. Phase One of the project involves scoping out the workforce needs with key stakeholders to gain an understanding of current workforce needs, skills gaps and potential challenges in supply that may require the development of national solutions such as adoption of new roles and/or new ways of working that would address known areas of need such as Autism diagnosis and post diagnosis service gaps; Specialist medical input to physical healthcare in the community; Enablement/Re-enablement from hospital to community settings and Enhanced crisis response/support for children and young people in the community. The project also looks to identify opportunities for good practice.
Based on the delivery of Phase One by the team consisting of Shanice Thomas, Kirsty Henry, Sarah Richardson and Stuart Higgins, led by project lead Neil James, HEE have now awarded a further £55,000 to the School of Health Sciences to undertake Phase Two. Phase two involves the identification and evaluation of the most effective and scalable roles. The evaluation will take into consideration how these new and emerging roles will link and engage with other roles, the new ways of working and system challenges aligned to proposed solutions and provide a clearer understanding of required and suitable roles to be developed.
Our Innovation team, in collaboration with the UEA Apprenticeship Lead, has successfully gained School entry to the End Point Assessment (EPA) register with the Education Skills Agency. Since this achievement we have had successful submissions to the EPA Register for Nursing and Nursing Associates. We are currently taking bookings from across the Eastern of England, London and South East England to provide EPA services from January 2020 onwards. Health Education England (HEE) has invited us to be part of a national steering group to map capacity and capability for End Point Assessments for Nursing Associates across England, developing standardised assessment tools and training materials for assessors.
In November 2019, Professor Kenda Crozier, Professor Zoe Butterfint and Associate Professor Julia Hubbard attended an international conference hosted by the Praboromarajchanok Institute in Bangkok, where the UEA acted as a conference co-host. The institute is the umbrella organisation for 36 Ministry of Public Health nursing colleges across Thailand.
Professor Crozier presented a keynote on ‘creating education programmes to meet the demands of changing healthcare’ (link to photo of kenda) whilst Professor Butterfint and Associate Professor Hubbard chaired concurrent sessions and took part in judging competitions (for best themed lecture category) for presentations from internationally recognised speakers from Europe, Japan, China, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and USA on a range of ‘health reform and innovation’ lectures.
The HSC academics also visited Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Chiang Mai as visiting scholars to present lectures on innovation and health care partnerships. Professor Crozier led workshops on writing for publication and preparing applications. The event was exceptionally successful and attended by participants from across northern Thailand.
Due to the success of both of these events, HSC has been invited to Chiang Mai in August 2020, where Associate Professor Hubbard will accompany ten HSC undergraduate students for a two-week observational clinical/education/cultural placement, undertake workshops with Boromarajonani college academic staff and spend some time working clinically (as an expert practitioner) in the cardiac unit at Nakornping Hospital, Chiang Mai.
HSC/UEA (led by Professor Crozier) have been invited by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health to co-host the next international health conference in November 2020 in Pattaya, Chonburi, Thailand with the Dean of HSC, Professor Sally Hardy joining them as a key note speaker at the event.
A memoranda of understanding (MoU) sets out opportunities for collaboration and positive academic engagement between universities to their mutual benefit, without the need for a formal legal relationship.
A memoranda of understanding (MoU) sets out opportunities for collaboration and positive academic engagement between universities to their mutual benefit, without the need for a formal legal relationship.
A memoranda of understanding (MoU) sets out opportunities for collaboration and positive academic engagement between universities to their mutual benefit, without the need for a formal legal relationship.
Recognised ALS Instructors from several disciplines, including paramedics, anaesthetists, a GP trainee, an Operating Department Practitioner and HSC lecturers delivered the Resuscitation Council (RC) Advanced Life Support (ALS) certification programme according to Resuscitation Council guidelines.
Tony Jermy hosted eight nursing students and three academics, who took part in theoretical and practical teaching sessions, gained access to real healthcare users, toured the University Hospital and explored UEA’s innovative Norwich Electronic Assistive Technology (NEAT) Centre.
A memoranda of understanding (MoU) sets out opportunities for collaboration and positive academic engagement between universities to their mutual benefit, without the need for a formal legal relationship.
Held in the Norwich Electronic Assistive Technology Centre, carers, clinicians and academics discovered the latest augmented and alternative communication technologies.
A memoranda of understanding (MoU) sets out opportunities for collaboration and positive academic engagement between universities to their mutual benefit, without the need for a formal legal relationship.