Imperial College London Primary Care

A paper published by Dr Liz Koshy and colleagues - 'Significantly increasing hospital admissions for acute throat infections among children in England: is this related to tonsillectomy rates?' - has won the Medicines for Children category for the 2012 RCGP Research Paper of the Year Award . Study lead for this research, Dr Koshy, from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London reported that " Tonsillectomy is a major and costly operation with potentially serious complications. So, it seems sensible for clinicians to maintain a high threshold for referring children with recurrent throat infections for tonsillectomy and restrict it to those children who are most severely affected by these infections ."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training was formally designated, with British Government approval, in June 2007 and joined Imperial College and the Department of Primary Care Public Health in 2008. The work of the centre falls into four main categories: innovative training, academic exchange, capacity building and research. Over the past five years their work in these fields has supported WHO Geneva and Regional Offices in promoting health, enhancing primary health care, strengthening human resource capacity, addressing the escalating worldwide problem of non-communicable disease, and helping countries strengthen and manage their national health systems. Working with governments from around the world, the centre’s focus is to develop and strengthen primary care and public health capacity through training opportunities. Under the leadership of Professor Salman Rawaf, he and team members deliver courses and training aimed at...

A recent publication by WHO Geneva provides guidance on managing tobacco dependence in primary care . The first draft of the training package (4 parts) was produced by Lisa McNally, Elizabeth Dubois and Salman Rawaf from Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London with further inputs to the final draft following piloting in 12 countries of the 6 regions of the WHO. 

The School of Public Health and the Department of Primary Care and Public Health are making good progress on its application to renew its Silver Athena SWAN Award, given in recognition of commitment to excellent working practices and advancing science careers in women. The Opportunities Committee thanks all those who took part in the School wide Staff and Student Consultation workshops aimed at creating a positive working environment within the School of Public Health. The results are available in a report which is available on the School website and contains the views and suggestions for improvements from 75 people across all units in the School.

You don’t have to look far these days to find some discussion of obesity and its causes. This week it was put to the British Medical Association conference that we should ban junk food from hospitals . Two days before this J T Winkler argued in the BMJ that we need a new “brutal pragmatism on food” and that the traditional instruments of public health were all ineffectual or unacceptable in the case of food . The traditional instruments Winkler laments are education, taxation and regulation.   He does though, comment positively on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) efforts to reduce salt consumption through reformulating food and public awareness campaigns. He is right to laud these efforts, which showed a decrease in average salt intake from 9.5 grams a day in 2000/01 to 8g/d in 2011 as well as adults becoming less likely to add salt at the table over the same period. Despite concerns over the extent to which board members at the FSA may have had conflicting interes...

The Department of Primary Care and Public Health hosted a visit from Professor Yao and colleagues from the First Teaching Hospital, Xinjiang Medical University. Xinjiang is located in far west region of China, adjacent to several middle Asian countries. It faces a number of health challenges, including a rising prevalence of risk factors from diseases such as diabetes and coronary heart disease, Professor Yao led a group of 12 senior staff who visited the department of 24 June 2013. The aims of the visit were to discuss collaboration in a range of areas, including: healthcare management, workforce training and development, diabetes prevention and management, medical imaging, translational medicine, and a PhD exchange programme. During their visit, they met a number of senior staff from the department, including Professor Azeem Majeed and Professor Salman Rawaf.

Congratulations to the winners of our 2013 Annual GP Teacher Awards: Dr Christine Scott, Dr Chris Smith, Dr Nishali Patel, Dr Arun Notaney, Dr Michael Davey, Dr Ravinder Kooner, Dr Peter Ryan, Dr Rosalyn Lucy, Dr Jane Williams, and Dr Frances Carter. More details about the award winners will follow later in the year.