Discussions with Imperial College’s Patient Experience Research Centre are still ongoing around collaborating on a number of Hub projects, including evaluation of the ‘What Matters to Me’ tool used by Children’s Services (where children on the ward are asked to draw or write the things that are most important to them on a poster which is hung by their bed, visible to all doctors and nurses who see them).

Publicity and Communications

· Work on the Hub website is well underway. The site will be aimed at a non-specialist audience ie patients and public. It will contain information on Hub projects along with an overview of simulation and how we are using it in the context of the Hub. The website will serve as an entry point for people to learn more about the Hub and somewhere we can signpost to in future communications activities. We have also set up a twitter account for the Hub which we’ll start to use when the website is live.

· We‘re planning a launch event for the Hub in June 2018 to which we’ll invite key stakeholders from the Trust, Charity, College, patients & families and the press. We’ll provide further details in our next progress report.

Funding Application Update

We have submitted a funding application to the US-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of their Pioneering Ideas programme. We were made aware of this opportunity by colleagues in the College’s Development Office who worked with us on the application.

The funding bid is for $275,000 over two years to employ another researcher to support additional Hub activity. The main output would be a report that outlines how our model of ‘engagement

through simulation’ and Patient Experience Hub outcomes could potentially be applied to the US healthcare system.

We’re awaiting an outcome from Cancer Research UK on our funding bid to support the development of a prototype simulator aimed at improving the efficiency of detection and diagnosis of early stage colorectal cancers. This builds on our work developing the prototype DiRECT (direct rectal examination) simulator that the Charity’s funding has supported.

We will explore further funding opportunities in the coming months and will provide further details in future progress reports.

For further information on any of the above, please contact ICCESS Centre Manager Duncan Boak D.Boak@imperial.ac.uk