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Explore our impact

We’re dedicated to bringing transformational improvements in global health and care.

By working across the entire research and development pathway, from discovery to dissemination, we can ensure that our work brings benefits to patients, professionals and policy quicker. Explore some of the ways that we’re driving positive change through our impact-led activities.

An app to make hospitals safer

We helped develop Streams, a mobile app for medical information and alerting. Streams stores patient records, like blood test results, in one easy-to-access place so that healthcare professionals have the information they need to act quickly should problems arise. Early studies showed how Streams leads to more efficient responses than traditional pager systems.

We’re now rolling out the app across hospitals to evaluate whether it can reduce the length of time it takes for patients to receive treatment, compared with standard care. With more rapid responses, Streams could lead to better outcomes for patients and improve care.

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A doctor taking looking in a child's ear

Improving treatment for children in Africa

Clinical trials led by one of our researchers could change the way children with severe anaemia are treated in Africa. Called TRACT, the research looked at different blood transfusion strategies for the condition, which is common and life-threatening for children in sub-Saharan Africa.

The trials showed that giving more blood to some children could halve the number of deaths from the condition. The results also showed that “watch and wait” was a safe strategy for some children with severe anaemia. These findings could help save lives and crucial resources.

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Personalising emergency care

We collaborated with the Resuscitation Council among over 30 other national organisations to redesign the way that difficult conversations about life-sustaining treatments are carried out and documented.

This resulted in a new form and process, ReSPECT (Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment), which brings the patient to the centre of emergency care decisions. ReSPECT creates personalised recommendations for a person's care in a future emergency situation should they be unable to make or express choices themselves. Since launching in February 2017 ReSPECT has been implemented in over 200 UK Trusts.

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Shaping the response to COVID-19

Our research is helping to ensure that COVID-19 public health policies in England are based on robust, current evidence. The REACT programme, one of the largest coronavirus surveillance studies, is using home testing to monitor the progress of the epidemic in England.

REACT generates crucial insights into how and where the virus is spreading, the effectiveness of vaccination, and is identifying groups who are most at risk. Over three million volunteers across the country have taken part to date, offering decision-makers timely and granular data on infection trends, which have continued to inform and shape policy.

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