BUPA Foundation funds six groundbreaking projects

15 November 2002

Today the BUPA Foundation announces the winners of its prestigious annual awards which recognise excellence in six areas - health at work, epidemiology, research, communication, clinical excellence and care of the elderly. The BUPA Foundation has awarded grants of over £8 million for medical research and healthcare initiatives, which will bring long term benefits to patients.

BUPA's medical director Andrew Vallance-Owen said, "The judges of the BUPA Foundation Awards were impressed by all of the winning projects and believe they will not only benefit patients, but also healthy people who may be prevented from falling ill through this work."

The BUPA Foundation exists to provide finance towards the prevention, relief and cure of sickness and ill health. Through its grants programme the Foundation concentrates on supporting surgical projects; preventative epidemiological and health maintenance projects and health information and communication projects.

Professor Sir Michael Packham, chairman of the BUPA Foundation, said, "The BUPA Foundation Awards are one way in which the Foundation helps to prevent sickness and ill health. The BUPA Foundation has also extended its work by committing an additional £500,000 to fund research designed to improve clinical outcomes."

Care Award

A unit set up to ensure effective diagnosis, treatment and support for elderly, confused patients has been awarded the BUPA Foundation Care Award 2002 for excellence in the development of care for older people. The specialist unit, Elm-B Ward at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, is helping patients to return home earlier by providing the support they need both in hospital and the community and preventing patients from occupying acute hospital beds for longer than necessary. Guidelines developed by the unit on the management of confused patients are now also being widely used in the UK and abroad.

Since June 2000, confused elderly patients admitted to the Cumberland Infirmary have been assessed and treated on Elm-B ward by an integrated team of 20 specialists in acute care, mental health, occupational therapy and psychiatry. Once patients are well enough to leave hospital, the team co-ordinates their discharge with therapists and community teams to ensure they receive the support they need and do not have to return to hospital unnecessarily.

Clinical Excellence Award

A unique system to relieve pressure on hospital beds and avoid inappropriate discharge from hospital has won the BUPA Foundation Award for Clinical Excellence. The units developed in A&E departments at two Leeds hospitals were introduced in response to the steady increase in the number of emergency admissions to Leeds General Infirmary and St James' Hospital.

The Clinical Decision Units (CDUs) are the first of their kind in the UK and work in a very different way from standard A&E observation wards. Patients with a higher likelihood of early discharge from A&E are assessed by a dedicated team of doctors and nurses before being observed, rapidly investigated and treated on the units according to the urgency of their conditions. Before these units were set up these patients would have been admitted to hospital wards.

The teams working on the unit consist of nurses, doctors and managers from the two A&E departments and nurses take increased responsibility for the assessment, investigation and discharge of patients based on clear evidence protocols. During the past year, trials of the CDUs have shown that a large proportion (83 percent) of patients were discharged appropriately after a short stay in hospital of about 15 hours. Previously these patients may have been in hospital for much longer. Since the CDUs were established, patients with defined underlying medical problems have also been identified earlier than before, allowing appropriate admission to hospital wards. A patient survey has shown that 84 percent of patients rate the service as either excellent or very good.

Communication Award

Leeds University School of Medicine has won the BUPA Foundation Communication Award for its course to improve communication between doctors and patients and combat discrimination. The course encourages medical students to explore their own attitudes and gain a greater understanding of specific social issues and different cultures.

The course, which forms part of the Personal and Professional Development module of the curriculum and spans a number of years, includes seminars on gender identity, the social model of disability, mental health, deaf awareness, bereavement, ageing and child abuse. It was introduced in 2000 in response to calls from the General Medical Council to combat discrimination amongst healthcare professionals.

The course also explores the attitudes of patients. Because patients' use of health services and ideas about treatments are influenced by their own health beliefs and cultural influences, medical students need to have an understanding of different cultural practices to be able to work with the aspects of different cultures that promote good health.

Epidemiology Award

A research team in Edinburgh whose work has the potential to improve the lives of young stroke victims has won the BUPA Foundation Epidemiology Award for excellence in the long-term study of chronic disease.

Small tangles of blood vessels in the brain, (Intracranial Vascular Malformations - IVMs), are the most common cause of strokes in young adults aged 15 to 40 years old. Little is known about the frequency, risks and effective treatment of the condition, however, the study team researching the condition has found that the most common type of IVM affects at least 9,000 adults in the UK and 600 adults are newly diagnosed each year.

At present, some patients diagnosed with IVMs receive no treatment, while others are given drug treatment, radiotherapy, surgery or embolisation, which involves injecting liquid glue or coils into the malformation. Infrastructure is now in place to undertake additional research which may improve clinical practice and ultimately establish a better long term prognosis for young adults with IVMs.

Health at Work Award

The Workwell Project, which is improving occupational health in the working population of Sandwell, West Midlands, the UK's seventh most deprived area, has won the BUPA Foundation Award 2002 for Health at Work.

The project is tackling the local area's history of ill health associated with its industrial past and the recession of the 1980s. It is also helping to meet the Government's target to reduce the number of working days lost in business due to work related ill health by 30% by 2010.

The project set up by Sandwell Primary Care Trust and the Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust is specifically designed to help smaller companies improve the way they manage the health of their employees.

Research Award

A London research team searching for a cure for inherited cataracts which affect six out of every 10,000 children has won the prestigious BUPA Foundation Research Award.

The team, based at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London, has spent the past seven years researching the disease so that therapies to prevent and treat cataracts can be developed and introduced. Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness worldwide. Although much more prevalent in the elderly, inherited cataracts are also a major cause of blindness in children.

Since many members of a single family may be affected, it is possible to use modern genetic techniques to identify why the gene that causes cataracts is present in some families and not others. Affected families have provided blood samples for genetic analysis from which the team has been able to identify several new genes and mutations. Subsequent experiments have then examined how the mutations actually result in cataracts.