TOP NATIONAL AWARD FOR KEELE ACADEMIC

Professor Ilana Crome, Professor of Addiction Psychiatry and Academic Director of Psychiatry, was part of the team from South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (SSSFT) that received the Psychiatric Provider of the Year award at the prestigious Royal College of Psychiatrists annual awards ceremony.
 
The award recognises excellence in service delivery through innovation and creative solutions, a range of services, service improvements, and evidence of user/carer satisfaction.   Professor Crome was also one of five finalists short-listed for the Academic Psychiatrist of the Year award.

Professor Crome is pictured above with Chief Executive of SSSFT, Neil Carr (far left) and President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Professor Dinesh Bhugra (far right).

KEELE ASTROPHYSICS IN QATAR COLLABORATION

Keele Astrophysics group were involved in the discovery of the planet Qatar-1b, announced this week.

Keele contributed its planet-finding expertise, and group members Professor Coel Hellier, pictured, and David Anderson, recorded the first observed transit of Qatar-1b using the 24" telescope on Keele campus, taking advantage of the recent cold but clear weather.  The planet is far north in the sky at +65 degrees, so the relatively northerly location of telescopes at Keele and St. Andrews allowed these campus telescopes to observe Qatar-1b when larger astronomical observatories could not. 

The discovery of a planet by a team led by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development will be important in the development of astrophysics and science in that nation.

GOVERNING EMERGENCIES

Dr Peter Adey, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, last week gave three papers and co-organised a workshop, with colleague Ben Anderson, at Durham University.

Dr Adey first gave an invited presentation, 'Anticipation and Event', to the Humanities and Arts Research Centre at Royal Holloway in their seminar program on the Apocalyptic, then, the following day, gave an invited keynote presentation, 'Aerial Life', to a British Academy-funded workshop on Vertical Spatialities in London.

He then travelled to Durham to co-organise the international workshop, Governing Emergencies, which included papers from academics such as Mick Dillon, Stephen Graham, Mark Duffield, Louise Amoore and Marieke de Goede. The landmark event was funded by Dr Adey's ESRC project Staging and Performing Emergencies, and sought to explore the character of contemporary emergencies in relation to governmental power. Despite the heavy snow, the workshop was attended by a range of academics and local policy makers.

DEVELOPING SOCIAL CARE INFORMATICS

A scientific report on an invitational Exploratory Workshop at Keele on The Challenges of Developing Social Care Informatics as an Essential Part of Holistic Health Care, funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF), has been accepted by the ESF and posted on their web site. 

Professor Michael Rigby, Emeritus Professor of Health Information Strategy, School of Public Policy and Professional Practice and RI Social Sciences, was funded by the ESF to run the workshop and 23 participants from 15 European countries attended, representing many disciplines, including social work, nursing, medicine, law, ethics, informatics, health policy and patient representation. This has already attracted strong interest, not least from the OECD, and Professor Rigby has been invited to contribute this work to an OECD and US National Science Foundation joint workshop next spring in Washington DC on Building a Smarter Health and Wellness Future.

INVITED LECTURE AT PRINCETON

Dr Matthew Brannan, Keele Management School, gave an invited lecture on 'Ethnography at Work' to undergraduate sociology students at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. The lecture focused on the use of ethnographic research techniques in understanding the contemporary experience of work, in particular the growth of service work, and its role and importance in sociological theory. Dr Brannan was invited by Professor Paul Willis (formerly of Keele) and Professor Mitch Duneier (Departmental Representative) to talk to undergraduate students attending the Sociological Themes and Evidence Course. Whilst at Princeton, Dr Brannon met with students preparing their Junior Papers, members of the faculty and attended a study trip to Atlantic City. Princeton is global leader in teaching and research and the trip helps to build and establish an on-going link between the two institutions.

WORLD FIRST FOR SCIENCE PARK COMPANY

Anaxsys Ltd, a medical device company based in IC4 on Keele Science and Business Park, has launched its "respiR8" product - the world's first continuous electrochemical respiratory rate counter. 

"respiR8" is an accurate, simple to use and cost effective means for enabling early detection of patient deterioration and providing improved patient outcomes. It consists of a consumable oxygen mask, fitted with Anaxsys' patented sensor, which measures each breath, and a small electronic monitor that captures, displays and records the patients' continuous respiratory rate. "respiR8" also allows healthcare professionals to safely monitor  multiple patients, thereby improving hospital productivity while ensuring quality patient care.

CONSENT AND ORGAN DONATION

More than 30 speakers and participants came together at Keele to discuss legal and ethical issues relating to 'Consent and Organ Donation', at a workshop organised by Dr Sheelagh McGuinness, Dr Tom Walker and Professor Stephen Wilkinson, PEAK, School of Law/ RI Social Sciences.

The event, funded by the Wellcome Trust, saw experts in law, ethics and policy from across the UK and Europe speak on a range of topics.

Speakers included academics and former members of the Department of Health's Organ Donation Taskforce. Selected papers arising from the event will be published in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.

IMPLICATIONS OF WIKILEAKS

Dr Luis Lobo-Guerrero, School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, was interviewed on BBC Radio Stoke's Stuart George Show this week on the implications of the recent Wikileaks' 'Cablegate'.

He said the problem revealed two clear aspects with a common ground. One was the issue of democratic political control where a global borderless civil society claims a right to hold government diplomatic practices accountable. Hacktivism is presented as a crusade for the freedom of information and its tactics are justified as a means to resist diplomatic secrecy and punish Wikileaks detractors.

On the other hand, was the media spectacle where classified information becomes an object of desire by virtue of its secret nature and is disseminated and consumed through the Internet.

The common ground is a borderless and virtual environment where the security dimension of the leaked information is reduced to evidence of how governments censor information in the promotion of their national interests.

ADVISORY GROUP APPOINTMENT

Dr Katherine Birch, Associate to Keele's Clinical Leadership Academy and Director of the PG Certificate in Clinical Audit, has been appointed to serve on the National Clinical Audit Advisory Group from 2011.

NCAAG is a non-statutory expert committee of the Department of Health and was established in 2008 to advise the department on key issues relating to clinical audit and to drive the further development of clinical audit across the health sector.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Fifteen years ago -

A Keele team (Dermot Carleton, Nigel Abramov, Nick Cooper and Adam Ion) beat Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, in the fifth round of the BBC's University Challenge after a nail-biting finish.

The programme was aired on 20 December 1995.