Spring 2025 newsletter

‘The great gift of Easter is hope’ by Basil Hume

Dear Patients and Carers,

Welcome to the Spring Newsletter.

As we take time to enjoy the wonderful weather and see all our green spaces and gardens flourish again, we are mindful of facing difficult financial times.

While you are seeing your bills going up the University is struggling to keep going. The entire sector is struggling. At the moment we have not lost any courses but changes are afoot and our healthcare schools are facing a freeze on staff recruitment.

On a positive note, the work of this group continues to influence our students. We are in a position to be able to write together for other universities to learn from us and many thanks to many of you who have written with either myself or Amber recently; we hope to share positive news of our papers with you all soon.

A warm welcome to any new members and we insert our summer gathering date and time for older and existing members to bring along friend’s neighbors to swell our numbers.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter
Liz Anderson
(Chair Patient and Carer Group) 
Rachelle Maxwell
(Vice Chair)

The Spring Edition

Introduces our colleagues: 

• Lucy Bradley, Midwifery Programme Lead
• Julian Harrison and Naz Mistry, Patient and Carer Group members

We report on Patient and Carer activity in the areas of teaching and research.

We thank those stepping down from the Core Group, David Roberts, Nadine Beasley and Diana Milner They will join the Associates Group. We welcome Annie Bannister, Jacky Wood and Ranjana Kotecha. Thank you too all.

Many of our colleagues are facing life changing challenges, our group members would like to send a message of companionship, support and hope for a peaceful future.

Best Wishes
Rachelle Maxwell Vice Chair

An interview with Lucy Bradley, Midwifery Programme Lead

‘I love working with students.’
I have been lecturing at university since 2020. The first year I worked in a seconded role, with my time split 50-50 clinical and academia, which convinced me I LOVE working with students and providing innovative learning opportunities. Prior to this role, I worked clinically as a member of the UHL dedicated home birth team, which matched my passion for the promotion of physiological birth and practicing in a continuity of care model. Not only did the team care for women who chose conventional birth plans, but also those who lived aboard house boats, farms in the middle of nowhere or those who wanted to birth with a whole audience watching and recording the moment! It was always a pleasure and a privilege to be part of such a monumental occasion in a woman and her family’s lives.

This experience transitioned nicely into a master’s degree in advanced midwifery, where my dissertation examined the dynamics of support for home birth midwives and their provision of care to those with additional clinical needs who choose to birth outside of guidelines. I am also fascinated with language surrounding birth, and how it impacts a woman’s self-belief to birth, all of which I hope I convey a deeper knowledge to students, giving them the skills to effectively communicate, listen to and care for women and their families - displaying kindness and compassion and choice.

I currently lead the 4th year cohort of student midwives and teach on the practice module, leadership, elective/ internship as well as the systematic physical examination of the newborn module and deputise for admissions. With this increasing depth of experience, I recently was accepted as programme lead and hope to continue to give students a voice and enhance their learning experience alongside building strong relationships with our many stakeholders.

Outside of work I love a house project; putting on new door handles and painting doorframes then we’re almost ready to sell and move on to the next! I am married, with three children, 2 dogs and my happy place is the seaside.

Congratulations to Julian P&CG Representative on the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare National Patient Advisory Board

Julian Harrison (he/him/his)

BA (Durham), MA (Leicester), PGCE (Leeds)
Website: https://julianharrison.wordpress.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-harrison-29947718
Holocaust website: https://www.shoah.info

Winner of the British Psychoanalytic Council's Bernard Ratigan Award for Pyschoanalysis and Diversity 2022.
Co-Winner of the University of Nottingham Community Volunteer Award 2023

Julian Harrison has been chosen to represent the Patient and Carer Group to serve on the Stoneygate Centre Empathic Healthcare's  National Patient Advisory Board. Julian will provide a patient perspective to guide the center’s strategy, including current research, medical education, and external training activities. Our board members – now including Julian – are invited to engage in a number of different roles, including:

• Contributing to our strategy for involving patients, carers, and people with lived experience in all aspects of the education of medical students.

• Contributing to the broad strategy of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare (including research, teaching, and external training).

• Helping to co-produce an empathic medical curriculum.

• Reviewing and/or co-authoring research papers.

• Supporting grant/funding applications as reviewers or co-applicants.

• Helping recruitment of new board members.

We wish Julian well in this new role.

Patient and Carer Group Research Activity

Advisory Paper: Removing Barriers to volunteering

Naz Mistry continues to make an important contribution to the core group. During the last core group meeting, Naz agreed to examine “Barriers to volunteering”.

All members are patients and carers who have unique lived experiences which enrich the learning of healthcare students.” So far “127 participants responded to an Equality Diversity and Inclusion questionnaire which showed that there are 52 males and 75 females in our group. In addition, 93 volunteers classified themselves as white British, 14 as Asian, 3 as European and 2 as Black British Caribbean. It remains important that the group remove access barriers and has members how represent the population of Leicester.

The University continues to recruit volunteers in order to support curriculum delivery seeking and welcoming more from our Asian and Black and communities and those living in areas of disadvantage. We will be hearing more about Naz’s findings over the weeks and he works with the Patient Associates to try and overcome these barriers.

Recruitment Update

We welcome 3 new members to the core group, including Annie Bannister, Jackie Wood and Ranjana Kotecha. David Roberts has supplied 6 additional contacts. All have been communicated with and we await a response.

Associates Update

David Roberts and Nadine Beasley, will be joining Rachelle, Tracey, Emma and Karen as associate group members.

Draft Induction Training Manual

Tracy Coleman, in collaboration with Prof Liz Anderson and the Associates, has helped to develop a new ‘Induction Training Manual’. The manual will be delivered with a workshop to help all members know and understand more about the university and the work of teaching for learning. The workshop will particularly be helpful for new members while offering new insights and ‘updates’ for existing members. The document is currently being adapted to represent the further suggestions of core group members before the workshop will be piloted this summer.

Clinical Teacher Submission

Prof Liz Anderson and Dr Amber Bennet Weston have worked with members to prepare a vision paper in response to a call about patient involvement by the ‘Clinical Teacher’ journal. The title of the article is ‘where is the patient and carer voice in inter professional education’. We await results.

Nursing and Midwifery Activity

Dragons Den
Several members took part in the Dragons Den presentations where midwifery students pitch ideas to a panel including patients. Existing and new members have been updated and trained to participate. During this round of presentations, the process of interviewing was observed by Katherine Taylor, University of Leicester Educational Development Department.

All of our work in the School of Education is underpinned by three core values: We are committed to enriching lives in the diverse national and international communities that we serve through collaborative, transformative approaches to educational research and research-led teaching. We believe that a high-quality student experience is paramount: it has been and always will be at the heart of what we do. We provide excellent, supportive teacher education which, in the spirit of social justice, empowers educators and researchers to voice key questions about the contexts in which they teach and learn.

Katherine is working across the University designing curricula mapped against the university's strategy. Katherine and Prof Jayne Marshall are developing a university best practice web site. The interviewers (which included P&Cs) have contributed comments to the case studies. The aim is to represent ‘authentic ‘assessments.

Patient Knows Best Alumni Celebration

Members of the P&CG enjoyed a celebratory Indian meal hosted by Dr Ron Hsu and Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli in appreciation of the contributions members had made to the education of a group of medical students, participating in Patients Know Best Programme. Ron was presented with a unique art work created by Anthony Lock. Thank you, Ron and Mohammad!

University of Leicester Medical School and School of Healthcare News

Lord Sugar hails Leicester medic’s campaign to rename condition to avoid fatal mix- ups.

A Leicester medic, Professor Miles Levy, has successfully campaigned to change the name of a rare but potentially fatal condition, with the backing of businessman and TV personality Lord Sugar.

It follows the case of Kane Gorny, a 22-year-old from London, who went into hospital for a routine hip operation in 2009 but died because staff failed to give him medication and fluids for an existing condition he suffered known as Diabetes Insipidus – a treatable condition where the body produces too much urine and isn't able to properly retain water. More information at: https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/april/diabetes-insipidus-avp-d-sugar

Leicester’s Dr Hannah Young is the 2025 Donna Lamping Award Recipient

Dr Hannah Young, Specialist Research Physiotherapist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust is the recipient of the UK Kidney Association's 2025 Donna Lamping MDT Researcher Award.

This prestigious award recognises Dr Young’s pioneering research on physical activity interventions for elderly patients with kidney disease and multiple long-term conditions, which has reshaped rehabilitation strategies in nephrology. More Information at: https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/april/kidney-association-award-leicester

Medical group celebrates five-year milestone

A group set up to prevent and address racial harassment in medicine is celebrating its five-year anniversary. 

‘MEDRACE (Raising Awareness Celebrating Excellence) is a student/staff group at the University of Leicester’s Medical School championing diversity, equity and inclusion in the profession and working to progress the British Medical Association (BMA) Charter for medical schools set up to address and prevent racial harassment. More information at:
https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/february/student-medical-group-medrace-fifth-anniversary

Trading places: University of Leicester scientist swaps roles with parliamentarian for Royal Society Pairing Scheme 2025

An expert in environmental health at the University of Leicester will gain a unique insight into the workings of government thanks to a unique pairing scheme.

Next week (24 – 27 March), Dr Samuel Cai will be one of 30 UK scientists swapping places with politicians and civil servants for four days, exploring the world of politics as part of the annual Royal Society Pairing Scheme.

The scheme, which has been running since 2001 in partnership with the Government Office for Science's GSE Profession Team. It aims to help to build relationships between scientists and politicians, ensuring that policymakers can make decisions based on the best scientific evidence. More information at: https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/march/scientist-parliamentarian-royal-society-pairing-scheme

Masterclass to highlight transformative impact of empathy on vulnerable patients

Professionals will learn how to break down barriers which prevent vulnerable patients from accessing healthcare at a masterclass delivered by a leading empathic healthcare expert.

Dr Andy Ward is an Associate Professor of Medical Education and Honorary Senior Academic GP at the University of Leicester. He is also Director of Education and Training at the pioneering Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare who has spent decades helping medical students and healthcare professionals develop strong empathy skills.

At this year’s Global Empathy in Healthcare Network Symposium: ‘Rehumanising Healthcare in a Divided World’ he will deliver a masterclass on ‘Empathy on the Margins: Breaking down barriers in inclusion healthcare. More Information at: https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/march/empathy-healthcare-masterclass-stoneygate

Long Covid researchers reflect on the PHOSP-COVID study 5 years on, ahead of Long Covid Awareness Day

A study team from the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) has been reflecting on its world leading research into Long Covid ahead of International Long Covid Awareness Day tomorrow (Saturday, 15 March).

The PHOSP-COVID study was set up at pace and scale in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded this long-term research study which is led by Professor Chris Brightling from the University of Leicester.

Professor Brightling said: “It was vitally important that we rapidly gathered evidence on the longer-term consequences of contracting severe COVID-19 so that we could develop and test new treatment strategies for them and other people affected by future waves of the disease."

PHOSP-COVID is a UK consortium of multidisciplinary researchers and clinicians working together to understand and improve long-term health outcomes for adults who were hospitalised with COVID-19’. More at:
https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/march/long-covid-awareness-day-phosp

Events Calendar

Seed Library

The University of Leicester David Wilson Library has partnered with Leicester City Council and is giving away free packets of seeds to library users. Choose up to three packets of seeds and get gardening! More information at:
https://le.ac.uk/library/get- involved/seed-library

Crip Arte Spazio:The Disability Arts Movement in Venice

Presented by Shape, Curated & Creatively Directed by David Hevey, Designed by Nina Shen and Produced by Shape Arts. Shape Arts brings its landmark Crip Arte Spazio: The Disability Arts Movement in Venice exhibition to Leicester, fresh from its presentation at the world-renowned Venice Biennale 2024. More information at:
https://attenborougharts.com/whats-on/crip-arte-spazio-the-disability-arts-movement-in-venice/

The Empire's Old Clothes by whatsthebigmistry

The Empire’s Old Clothes is a short non-linear film which challenges the insidious myths and propaganda around the ‘British Empire’ and draws on influences, aesthetics and politics from Indian and Afro-Futurism, queer culture and experiences of ableism and racism in post-Empire Brexit-Britain. This short non-linear film borrows from the symbolic style of ‘tableaux vivant’, science education films and Empire propaganda. This piece is inspired by the folktale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, which tells a story that speaks about the ways in which the perpetuation of deceitful narratives supports outdated and malevolent power structures continue to work even once ‘outed’. It utilises and subverts the language/s of Empire and embedded belief systems that live within it. More Information at: https://attenborougharts.com/whats-on/the-empires-old-clothes-by-whatsthebigmistry/