VISION 2020 UK SOCIAL RESEARCH GROUP

MINUTES OF MEETING 04 OCTOBER 2010

Present:

Sarah Buchanan (SBu)Thomas Pocklington Trust (Chair)

Katrina Harrington (KH)Thomas Pocklington Trust

Keith McKee (KM)Wilberforce Trust

Michael Bowen (MPB)College of Optometrists

Martin CordinerCollege of Optometrists

Philippa Simkiss (PS)RNIB

Conference call:

Mike Brace (MB)VISION 2020 UK

Alison Hood (AH) Guide Dogs

Apologies:

Susannah Barnett (SBa)Sense

1.WELCOME AND APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from Susannah Barnett, Sense.

Martin Cordiner from College of Optometristswas welcomed to the meeting.

  1. MINUTES SRG 18 MAY 2010

The minutes were agreed as a true record of the meeting subject to two amendments to the second sentence at item 3.1:

-‘sub-sects’ should be amended to ‘sub-sets’

-‘e.g. employment prevention’ should be amended to ‘e.g. employment, prevention’.

Thus the amended sentence should read, ‘It would aim to establish a basic set of figures that the sector could agree on and could include various sub-sets, e.g. employment, prevention’.

  1. MATTERS ARISING

3.1Seminar on research priorities

Prior to the meeting, a summary report from the 2006 seminar on research priorities was circulated and members were asked to review this in the context of the proposed2011 follow-up seminar.

Members reflected that the 2006 SRG research priorities seminar had been useful in sharing information, exploring collaborative options and avoiding duplication of work, although it was recognised that the last was not always easy to achieve. Because organisations have their own priorities and principles the seminar had had minimal impact on research priorities, other than endorsing some of those in place.

Since the seminar, the UK Vision Strategy has been developed and SRG has looked at organisations’ research priorities links with this.

It was agreed that rather than hold a follow-up seminar on research priorities to be attended by external contacts, members should focus first on sharing future plans within the SRG and then communicate this to the ERG. Members agreed that the proposed joint teams meeting in December could be used for this purpose with each organisation giving a twenty minute presentation on current and future work.

ACTION: KH to amend room booking for 3rd February.

Eye Research Group (ERG) and SRG

There was considerable discussion about the extent to whichSRG priorities link with the ERG agenda, e.g. issues of ‘impact’, psycho-social aspects and engagement of users are important considerations and these may be more closely related to social research.

Previous discussions had concluded that the social research and eye research agenda should be handled separately because they involve very different funding streams. However, it was important to maintain links between the two groups through Angela McCullagh and other representatives and it was suggested that the ERG and SRG could be better timetabled to feed into one another.

It was noted that whilst research priorities may change, the process of establishing an eye research agenda has been useful as it has engaged different organisations within the sector. In order for it to have maximum impact, however, the sector needs to take forward the ideas/priorities identified.

MB noted that whilst Department of Health spends 12-15% of funds on eye health and eye services, only 1% has been spent on research and this fact was a significant driver behind setting up the ERG agenda.

ACTION: MB to track the source of these statistics and circulate to SRG.

3.2Mapping work document

This is a useful record of past work but does not indicate future project plans. It was suggested that the document could be referred to at the December meeting.

Guide Dogs is planning to update its sections of the document after its October Committee meeting. This may also be an appropriate time for Pocklington to update its sections.

The Chair commented that the bulk of the mapping document relates to Vision Strategy outcome 3.

3.3Potential SRG teams meeting

Members confirmed that they were able to attend the date suggested for this meeting – 9th December 2010, at St Dunstans. Timing was proposed as 11- 4pm.

In light of the discussions above, it was agreed that the meeting could include:

  • an update on recent research by member organisations (with reference to mapping document)
  • sharing of general information, future ideas, projects planned and those research topics which organisations would like to pursue but cannot
  • a 20 minute presentation from each organisation with time for discussion
  • links with ERG agenda to be explored

Chatham House rules would be followed

The total number of attendees was estimated at 20. Members agreed that inviting someone to act as facilitator would be useful and Nick Astbury was proposed. In principle, members agreed to contribute towards the costof a facilitator which last time came to around £200-250 plus travel.

ACTIONS:

  • ALL members to confirm that they could contribute towards funding a facilitator
  • MB to confirm date and times with St Dunstan’s and contact Nick Astbury re facilitator role
  • Pocklington to confirm meeting details in due course and draft an agenda.
  1. STATISTICS

Prior to the meeting an RNIB document on statistics was circulated to members. PS explained that internally, RNIB have not been consistent in their use of statistics and John Slade has worked with the marketing and publicity team to produce a document which lists ‘safe stats’ and their key messages. Further work is being done to produce ‘safe stats’ for different aspects of the Vision Strategy.

Guide Dogs are carrying out a similar exercise and it was agreed that it would be useful to bring this together with the RNIB work. Input from other organisations such as College of Optometrists and the Macular Disease VISION2020 UK subgroup would be useful too.

ACTIONS:

  • AH and PS to compare and contrast respective stats over the phone and develop a joint paper
  • MPB to share RNIB document with colleagues for input/comment and feedback to PS.

After the above, the next step may be to involve others such as the College of Ophthalmologists and once the paper is finalised this could be viewed by the VISION 2020UK Comms group. Further on still, holding a roundtable discussion may be useful. An update on progress with statistics could form part of the December meeting.ACTION: KH to add to December meeting agenda.

  1. REPORTS FROM SECTOR WIDE GROUPS

5.1UK Vision Strategy update

MB reported the following:

  • There are now 60 areas with a local strategy
  • The EPIC project is in its second phase. Seven new areas have been added from lessons learnt from phase one.
  • All 4 countries have now launched their strategies, the final one being Wales in June
  • The next Vision 2020Uk conference will be 16 June 2011. A number of strands are being developed, e.g. around GPs including eyes as routine part of general health check
  • Philip Ambar has joined the Vision Strategy team
  • There is an outcomes seminar (around outcome 3) on 19 January 2011 which Guide Dogs are supporting. It may be possible for the SRG to feed into this. ACTION: AH to inform members about seminar.

5.2VINCE subgroup

  • AH reported that the May meeting focused on the conference planned for 24 March 2011. Both RNIB and Guide Dogs are contributing 5k towards the conference.
  • SB noted that Pocklington has requested that at the November meeting of the research sub group consideration be given could to work on definitions of emotional support, counselling etc.
  • MB noted that part of the development of VINCE was to have a research subgroup looking at these issues.

5.3ERG (see earlier under matters arising)

  1. NETWORK 1000

KH noted that Graeme has just prepared a proposal for phase 3. ACTION: KH to circulate paper to group.

Neither RNIB nor Pocklington can fund phase 3. Guide Dogs is yet to confirm.

  1. VISION RESEARCH NEWS

MB reminded members that this is a popular newsletter, 450 people sign up to it across health and social care and positive feedback is received. There is a template for structure of content for articles. There are three sections to the newsletter; completed research, research updates and other research news.Articles on completed researchshould cover work published in the last 6 months.

However, there have been difficulties in receiving regular information from organisations which has resulted in issues being delayed. Members discussed ways of making the process for this quicker and easier.

It was agreed that a better structure and systems including a small editorial group could help: it should be issued regularly twice a year and be handled by a member of each organisation who together would acts as associate editors and would meet or speak over the phone to plan forthcoming issues in advance, and each bulletin would order research according to themes, rather than by organisation, e.g. by using Vision Strategy headings.‘Other research news’ could include ‘news from the ERG’ as a standing item.

ACTION: All to nominate someone to act as associate editor and inform MB.Martin Cordiner agreed to take the lead from College of Optometrists and Katrina Harrington from Pocklington.

Regarding the current outstanding issue, MB reminded Guide Dogs to submit their articles– ACTION: AH. This and any other items should be sent to MB within the next two weeks, so that an issue can be circulated by end of October – ACTION: All

  1. VISION 2020UK MICROSITE

The microsite is used to issue news items, has links to research, and VRN is circulated from it. KH and Laura Beaumont have discussed ways to use the microsite and the recent meeting minutes will be added shortly. It may also be useful for other documents to be added, e.g. papers for discussion, either within the SRG or for input from a broader audience. It was agreed that members would indicate if a document should not be stored in this way.

  1. RNIB: EVALUATION OF EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND COUNSELLING PROJECT

PS outlined this work to assessthe outcomes of the evaluation of the emotional support project run at Gateshead and at Judd Street, London,in which a counsellor was based in low vision services. The evaluation was carried out by CityUniversity and details are available on the website. The key outcome identified was that the service was found to have had a positive impact on mental wellbeing.

ACTION: PS to send the project research brief to KH to circulate.

  1. REHAB EALAUTION AND OUTCOME MEASURES

The Chair reported that issues around evaluation of vision rehab and outcome measures are consistently being raised in different contexts. This was endorsed by members and it was agreedthat it would be valuable for the sector to use consistent and comparable outcome measures. Pocklington is taking a small proposal to its R&D Committee for initial work on this topic.

Members identified the following ongoing work on these topics:

  • UK VisionStrategy– some work has been done, i.e. a charter but this stops at outcome 3
  • RNIB – work is being developed around several strands e.g. “What constitutes rehab today” is looking at outcomes. Links are being made with work by Action to define ‘universal standards’for services that people in UK can expect to receive after diagnosis of sight loss (e.g. low vision, rehab, help with daily living, orientation etc). The aim is to look at the outcomes desired rather than lookcritically at service provision itself.ACTION: PS to circulate TOR for this work.
  • College – the College are working on a project on eyecare and mapping pathways which involves a review of literature from 1997 onwards. Initial findings indicate that there are many different activities taking place but these are not evaluated. It may be possible to share full results but the end of the calendar year and the position will be clearer by the end of October.
  • MB noted that details on core standards of knowledge levels for professional should be contained within the“National Occupation Standards on Sight loss” and it would be worth consulting this information.
  • Accreditation process for rehab workers in Wales.
  • Simon Labbett (SCA) is engaged in work around low vision, rehab and eye clinicsACTION: MB to find out further information.

It was agreed that the next business meeting would include further discussion through agenda items on rehab evaluation and outcome measures.

  1. FUTURE MEETING DATES

9th December -11 -4pm, St Dunstan’s – joint teams meeting.

3rd February – 11-1pm, RNIB, Judd Street - next business meeting.[Post meeting note: this will be held in Meeting Room 4]

Dates for the rest of the year are to be agreed at the February meeting.

  1. AOB

AH reported that the Guide Dogs ‘Eye to Eye’ conference scheduled for end of October will not be going ahead as there has not been sufficient uptake.

SUMMARY OF ACTIONS

All members - the following actions apply to all:

  • ALL members to confirm that they could contribute towards funding a facilitator for the December SRG teams meeting
  • ALL members to nominate someone within their organisation to act as associate editor for Vision Research News and inform MB.
  • ALL members to send any additional information for VRN to MB by mid October.

The following actions apply to particular individuals/organisations:

College of Optometrists

  • MPB to share RNIB stats document with colleagues for input/comment and feedback to PS.

Guide Dogs

  • AH and PS to compare and contrast respective stats over the phone and develop a joint paper
  • AH to inform members about outcomes seminar on 19 January 2011
  • AH to submit articles to MB for VRN by mid October.

RNIB

  • AH and PS to compare and contrast respective stats over the phone and develop a joint paper
  • PS to send the project research brief on evaluation of emotional support and counselling project to KH to circulate.
  • PS to circulate TOR for rehab work.

Pocklington

  • KH to amend room booking for 3rd February
  • KH/SB to confirm details for December teams meeting in due course and draft an agenda.
  • KH to add ‘progress update on statistics’ to December teams meeting agenda.
  • KH to circulate Network 1000 phase 3 proposal to SRG

Vision 2020UK

  • MB to track the source of DH statistics on eye research and circulate to SRG
  • MB to confirm date and times with St Dunstan’s and contact Nick Astbury re facilitator role re December teams meeting
  • MB to find out further information about the work Simon Labbett is engaged in around low vision, rehab and eye clinics.

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