Having only been involved in EnRiCH since April this year, we are making some excellent progress in Nottinghamshire. The Nottinghamshire Local EnRiCH Advisory Group have had their first meeting and yesterday (Thursday 11^th September).

Dr Adam Gordon, Consultant and Honorary Professor at Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, facilitated the group’s first event where care home managers, GPs, researchers and others got together to hear more about care home research happening in Nottingham and the benefits of becoming involved.

The event was well attended and speakers included Dr Gordon, who set the scene, introducing the concept of EnRiCH, providing an overview of the development of care home research in Nottinghamshire and describing a new study entitled IMPROVISE, that the study lead Professor Opinder Sahota hopes will be funded. This is a programme looking at improving muscle performance with Vitamin D in residents living in care homes. The aim is to find out the best way to correct vitamin D levels and whether it consistently impacts on muscle function and prevents falls and fractures.

Katie Robinson (Research Physiotherapist) talked about research being developed by Professor Tash Masud, to investigate the benefits of chair-based exercise. There is currently little evidence about the benefits but before they can run a successful trial that will compare chair-based exercise with reminiscence therapy, they first need to conduct a feasibility study to help them work out what needs to be in place for it to run successfully.

Gemma Walker (Research Assistant) gave feedback on a feasibility study entitled FICH: Falls in Care Homes (Chief investigator Professor Pip Logan), that hopefully will lead to a trial being funded to determine whether use of the  ‘Guide to Action for fall prevention in Care Homes’ is effective at preventing falls. The team hope this study will begin recruiting care homes in February 2015.

Dr Maria Zubair (Research Fellow) outlined the importance of working in partnership and establishing good working relationships when delivering research in care homes, relating it to the OPTIMAL study (Better Health for Care Homes) led by Professor Claire Goodman and her earlier work in establishing the EnRiCH network (for more information on Professor Goodman’s findings, see the EnRiCH website: http://enrich.dendron.nihr.ac.uk )

The final speaker was Clare Litherland (Research Nurse) who brought the event to a close, reminding everyone that EnRiCH exists to support care homes and researchers, so that we could all work together in our common aim to improve the quality of life for residents.

11.9.14. Dr Kaela Stevenson: Dementia Challenge Operations Manager CRN: EM