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Food insecurity is acknowledged as a key social determinant of health among older adults. Despite recording significantly higher levels of poverty in comparison to white ethnic groups, older individuals from ethnic minorities are under‐represented as recipients of food aid. Thus, there are knowledge gaps in our understanding of older people and their experiences of food insecurity within ethnic minority communities. Through the theoretical lens of Individual and Community Resilience, we empirically advance our understanding of food security and resilience within South Asian communities via in‐depth interviews with community stakeholders and older individuals from Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities across the Greater Manchester region. Our findings reveal that the integration of temporal, environmental and social constructs within a resilience framework reveals significant potential for further negative social, cultural and economic impact on older ethnic minorities in the future, especially as current food support services do not appear to cater for ethnic dietary preferences, language accessibility and/or cultural norms regarding asking for help/charity outside the home. We predict therefore, in combination with the identified persistent stressors, that food insecurity issues within older ethnic minority communities are likely to get much worse, resulting in the need for extensive resilient capacities to cope with future cost‐of‐living challenges. In acknowledging previous limitations within previous resilience frameworks, we propose an incremental contribution to theory and conclude by identifying culturally and operationally appropriate food support system approaches, which can be used to address the increasing prevalence of “silent poverty” within ethnic minority communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Active learning is a useful tool to enhance student engagement and support learning in diverse educational situations. We aimed to assess the efficacy of an active learning approach within a large interprofessional first year Medical Cell Biology module taken by six healthcare programmes across the School of Biomedical Sciences at Ulster University, United Kingdom. Materials and methods: An active learning approach was developed for weekly formative assessment using Smartwork to design a weekly interactive multiple-choice quiz to reinforce key concepts specifically for each lecture. We tracked and assessed student performance in the module overall and in each element of course work and exam for 2 years prior to and following the introduction of an active learning strategy to engage and support learning for students from all academic backgrounds and abilities. Results: Full engagement with active learning was significantly associated with an increased overall module performance as well as a significantly increased performance in each element of class test (No engagement vs. Full engagement, p < 0.001), exam (No Engagement vs. Full engagement, p < 0.05) and coursework (No engagement vs. Full engagement, p < 0.001) within this overall total (No Engagement vs. Full engagement, p < 0.01). Partial engagement with active learning was associated significantly improved class test (No engagement vs. partially engaged, p < 0.001) and coursework (No engagement vs. partially engaged, p < 0.05) performance. While a trend toward increased performance in exam and overall module mark was observed, these were not significant. Discussion: Active learning is a useful tool to support student learning across a range of healthcare programmes taken by students with differing backgrounds and academic abilities in an interprofessional and widening participation setting. Student engagement in active learning was highlighted as a key contributory factor to enhanced student performance in all aspects of assessment., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Lees-Murdock, Khan, Irwin, Graham, Hinch, O’Hagan and McClean.)

Objectives: We sought to characterise the outcomes of patients with haematological malignancy and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in hospital in our regional network of 7 hospitals., Methods: Consecutive hospitalised patients with haematological malignancy and SARS-CoV-2 infection were identified from 01/03/2020 to 06/05/2020. Outcomes were categorised as death, resolved or ongoing. The primary outcome was preliminary case fatality rate (pCFR), defined as the number of cases resulting in death as a proportion of all diagnosed cases. Analysis was primarily descriptive., Results: 66 Patients were included, overall pCFR was 51.5%. Patients ≥ 70 years accounted for the majority of hospitalised cases (42, 63%) and fatalities (25, 74%). Mortality was similar between females (52%) and males (51%). Immunosuppressive or cytotoxic treatment within 3 months of the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a significantly higher pCFR of 70%, compared with 28% in those not on active treatment (P = .0013, 2 proportions z test)., Conclusions: Mortality rates in patients with haematological malignancy and SARS-CoV-2 infection in hospital are high supporting measures to minimise the risk of infection in this population., (© 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Haematology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Patient and public involvement (PPI) is important both in research and in quality improvement activities related to healthcare services . While PPI activities do not require formal ethical approval, they can raise a number of ethical concerns, through the introduction of complex technical medical concepts, challenging language or sensitive subject areas. There is very little published literature to guide ethical practice in this area. We have been conducting PPI with children and young people throughout a research study in paediatric palliative care. PPI started during the application process and continued to guide and shape the research as it progressed. Ethical issues can arise at any time in PPI work. Although many can be predicted and planned for, the nature of PPI means that researchers can be presented with ideas and concepts they had not previously considered, requiring reflexivity and a reactive approach. This paper describes how we considered and addressed the potential ethical issues of PPI within our research. The approach that emerged provides a framework that can be adapted to a range of contexts and will be of immediate relevance to researchers and clinicians who are conducting PPI to inform their work., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2019. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.)

C difficile is the most important cause of infectious healthcare acquired diarrhoea and risk of infection is a public concern. Many acute and primary care trusts are working to further reduce rates of C difficile and targets have been set. Global reduction strategies include prudent antibiotic prescribing and intensive cleaning programmes. While risk assessment tools for C difficile exist, they are not easy to use in hospital. This article introduces an inexpensive and easy to use assessment tool and outlines how nurses can apply a reduction strategy using it to identify patients who are at risk on admission and then target interventions to reduce this risk.