Staff within NMPCE have set up an assembly line to make face shields, a part of the enhanced personal protective equipment (PPE) needed by NHS front-line staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of colleagues from other Directorates in Newcastle Hospitals, Newcastle University, Northumbria University and industry, more than 8000 face shields have been delivered to clinical staff to date.
We both began our nuclear medicine careers as trainee clinical technologists in medical physics at University Hospital of Hartlepool in 2017. Having previously graduated with science degrees; Cherelle in Sport… Read more »
Scientists from NMPCE have led a national project to study the safety and efficacy of using endoscopic balloon dilatation to treat narrowing of airways in children. The study is reported in a recent paper, written in collaboration with clinical colleagues from Newcastle, Alder Hey, Guy’s & St Thomas’, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. It found that procedural success was achieved in 88% of patients and 6% of procedures were associated with in-hospital complications, with no long-term adverse safety concerns. The study provides important evidence that will support updates to national guidance.
A team from the Northern Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering Directorate has won an award at the Bright Ideas in Health Awards, sponsored by the Academic Health Science Network in the North East and North Cumbria. The NMPCE team of Alison Bray, Helen Elliott and Tim Powell are working in partnership with colleagues from the Kromek Group, the NIHR Newcastle MedTech and In-Vitro Diagnostics Cooperative and the Radiology Directorate of Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to develop a novel imaging device for detecting breast cancer.
In January 2019, Scientist Training Programme (STP) trainees Harry Slinger and Tom Curtis took the opportunity to travel to Tanzania to work at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) for their elective period. During their stay, they gave a series of lectures on imaging physics and radiation safety; performed quality assurance tests on KCMC X-ray equipment and completed a small patient radiation dose audit. Electives are an essential component of the STP as they provide trainees with the opportunity to expand their personal and professional horizons by working in a different healthcare setting from the one experienced day to day.
The Royal Society has today published a report, iHuman – Blurring lines between mind and machine, which sets out life changing opportunities and risks of brain-computer interfaces.
A website developed by an NMPCE research team has been commended at the 2019 Patient Information Awards 2019, sponsored by the British Medical Association.
A study, led by investigators from NMPCE, has reported evidence for the efficacy of bronchial thermoplasty (BT), a novel non-pharmacological therapy intended for people with severe asthma, in routine UK clinical practice. It is the largest real-world study of BT to date, and followed 133 patients who were treated at one of the 11 UK centres which offered the procedure.
An article written by an NMPCE scientist has set a new record for the journal Physiological Measurement by gaining more than 1000 citations. The paper by John Allen, Photoplethysmography and… Read more »
A research study of complications associated with mesh implants, led by authors from NMPCE, has become one of the top 100 most highly accessed articles of 2017 in Scientific Reports, an open-access Nature journal which published more than 24,000 papers during the year.