Tweet of the month:

30/31 October, Data Science for Doctors Event, Run By: HDR UK Training Team

Location: London

In October, we ran the first training course as part of the collaboration between HDR UK, the NHS-R community and the Software Sustainability Institute.The “Data Science for Doctors” course, which took place on October 30-31, aims to teach health care professionals basic concepts, skills, and tools for working more effectively with data, using the R programming language.

This event is the first step towards building scalable training solutions for continuing professional development, in health data science. As part of this strategy, we aim to: (i) collaboratively develop a collection of openly available training materials to be delivered as face-to-face courses; (ii) train instructors from academia and NHS Trusts to deliver such courses; and (iii) deploy such training materials in an accessible learning environment for undertaking training on demand, via the web.

29 October, HDR UK Scotland Research Event

Location: Edinburgh

The HDR UK Scotland site held their annual research meeting on 29 October:  a sell-out event attracting over 120 delegates from around Scotland and rest of the UK.  We were particularly pleased to be joined by the HDR UK UKRI/Rutherford fellows, all of the new research associate staff working on HDR UK funded projects in Scotland, colleagues from the NHS in Scotland, as well as the new Head of the Scottish Chief Scientist Office, Mr Euan Dick.  The highlight of a packed programme was the afternoon plenary from Margaret Rogers from the HDR UK Public Advisory Board who encouraged us all to focus much more closely on not just involvement, but engagement of our patient and public stakeholders.  We had a series of presentations from existing science, capacity building and infrastructure work being carried out, but importantly the day was focussed on the future, in particular on ensuring that we are looking at how our strengths can play to the new HDR UK national themes so that we can work collaboratively with our colleagues across the UK.  With that in mind we are already planning for HDR UK Scotland research day 2020!  The event was filmed and we will make the finished product available to those who were unable to attend in due course.

29 October, HDR UK Midlands Research Event

Location: Birmingham

The HDR UK Midlands Team organised a regional workshop on Tuesday 29 October at The Cube in Birmingham City Centre.  Around 100 people attended from the Midlands regional health and data science communities to learn about the important work of HDR UK and how they can get involved in some of their projects and programmes of work.

Professor Simon Ball, HDR UK Research Director opened the meeting and introduced Melissa Lewis-Brown, Science Manager at HDR UK Central, who gave a very informative presentation on HDR UK from a national perspective.  The Midlands Associate Directors then briefed the audience on their collaborative scientific projects and this was followed by presentations which covered important topics such as Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) and Information Governance (IG).  Six workshops were held during the afternoon session of the event, which included the HDR UK Sprint Exemplars, the newly formed Health Data Research Hubs, PPIE and Public Health.

The feedback from the delegates was excellent and the Midlands Team have already started planning their next regional event, which will be held in Nottingham during the Spring of 2020.

23 October, Caroline Cake represents Pistoia Alliance in Boston

Location: Broad, Boston

In October Caroline visited the Broad in Cambridge MA to as a learning exchange on science, infrastructure, learning and development, IP, standards, among other areas. Insights from this visit will inform how we organise and build vibrant communities within the HDR UK national priorities.

She also ran a workshop with members of the pharmaceutical industry in Boston, with the Pistoia Alliance, ABPI and Medicines Discovery Catapult, engaging them in the design and development of the UK Health Data Research Alliance, HDR Hubs and the Innovation Gateway. This workshop provided valuable insights on where we should focus effort and general excitement around the potential of the opportunity, in particular the importance of data quality and compliance with data standards (e.g. FAIR, HL7, OHDSI, OMOP).

17 October, Amanda White takes part in panel session at UK Bioscience Forum

Location: London

On 17 October, Health Data Research UK was represented at the UK Bioscience Forum on a panel session that focused on capturing and using health data in a patient-centric way.  Amanda White, Director of Communications and Engagement, joined the panel with representatives from the DATA-CAN Health Data Research Hub, Medicines Discovery Catapult and uMofif – a company that enables patients to track their symptoms via an app.  The discussion highlighted the importance of involving patients throughout the innovation process to ensure outputs are truly centred on patient and public benefit.