More than 100 trained through CLAHRC West training and capacity building

Over the last 12 months, over 100 people have attended our free CLAHRC West training courses. The courses have attracted applications from across health and social care. Applicants have included NHS healthcare professionals and managers, medical and nursing staff, allied health professionals, pharmacists, paramedics, psychologists, GPs as well as public health specialists, commissioners, university researchers and directors of third sector organisations and charities.

Applicants to attend our courses represent all the NHS trusts and local authorities in the CLAHRC West area, as well as local CCGs, Public Health England, Avon Primary Care Research Collaborative, West of England Academic Health Science Network, and the Universities of Bath, Bristol and the West of England (UWE).

The aim of the training and capacity building team at NIHR CLAHRC West is to promote the development of skills in understanding, using and producing evidence for the health, public health and commissioning workforce, and patients and members of the public. We do this through running courses, funding fellowships and collating other training opportunities in the region. One of the first things we did was to review training across the region to fill any gaps, developing our training offer as a result of this research.

The courses run in 2015 were:

• Writing a journal article and getting it published
• Service evaluation
• Public health economics and social return on investment
• Finding the evidence
• Critical appraisal for healthcare professionals
• NHS leadership academy: using evidence to lead masterclass for NHS managers
• Using and understanding research evidence (with the CLAHRC West PPI Team)

The majority of these will run again in 2016, along with new courses including:

• Realist evaluation
• Questionnaire design and testing
• Use of research evidence in third sector organisations

As well as organising training courses, the capacity development team has developed a searchable database of other training in health research and evidence that is available in the CLAHRC West area.

Feedback from the courses has been excellent, with quotes from some of our delegates below:

“Excellent all round, very enjoyable and useful.”

“Useful and practical tips that can be used to take action.”

“Thank you very much for all your advice and help – the course far exceeded my expectations and I have really enjoyed it. I will be recommending the course to others.”