Grading Gowns: Redesigning One-size PPE to Fit and Protect Female Health Workers More Effectively

About the project This research analysed the design and procurement of PPE (personal protective equipment) for the comfort and safety of healthcare workers. It identified a number of key issues relating to gown fabrication, length, fastenings, and intended wear that impeded safe use by healthcare workers, particularly women and women from ethnic minorities. It investigated […]

Healthcare

Arts and Humanities researchers have highlighted the complex and difficult situations in which health and care staff have found themselves during the pandemic. Studies have developed tools to guide ethical and transparent decision-making and identify and assess risk in healthcare environments. Research and design skills have been applied to PPE, immunity passports and public-facing rapid […]

Arts & Health and Wellbeing

Arts and humanities research during the COVID-19 pandemic has addressed issues of direct relevance for the support of individual, social and community health, mental health and wellbeing.  Findings show that during the pandemic, the social care sector and the NHS have been able to access, benefit and learn from community assets and resources, including those […]

Ethics, Law, and Governance

An Urgent Review of Single Source Procurement During the Pandemic Recommendations for Best Practice and Reform Dr Luke Butler(University of Nottingham) Children, acceptable health risks and COVID-19 Ethical guidance for a fair policy response Dr Sapfo Lignou(University of Oxford) Combatting Gendered, Sexual and Online Harms and Risks During the COVID-19 Pandemic Developing Resources for Young […]

When Pandemic and Everyday Ethics Collide: Supporting Ethical Decision Making in Maternity Care and Paediatrics During the COVID-19 Pandemic

About the project This project focused on how the pandemic response created significant ethical issues for providers of non-COVID-19 services when deciding how to prioritise and reconfigure services in maternity care and paediatrics. It conducted a rapid review of policy making processes with decision makers, testing their ethics approaches, and examined their application in clinical […]

Quality Improvement Tool for Re-designing Healthcare Service-User Journeys with COVID-19 Risk Assessment & Mitigation

About the project This project is addressing some of the specific and complex decision-making challenges healthcare teams have faced during COVID. A quality improvement tool has been developed to help healthcare teams to map out their healthcare system in real-time in a holistic way and understand these drivers of change and the opportunities for improvement. […]

Nature’s Way: Co-Creating Methods for Innovating Nature-based Solutions for Public Health and Green Recovery in a Post-COVID World

About the project COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of nature and natural environments, and these are also an emerging priority in post-COVID ‘building back greener’ urban agendas. Nature’s Way was an 18-month design research project on Nature based Solutions (NbS). It has explored how to empower communities to set up projects that can help connect […]

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Masking emotions & sterilising care: ‘reset’ ethics and the unintended consequences of COVID-19

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused far-reaching consequences for health systems worldwide. In responding to the pandemic, decision-makers have to balance competing interests and difficult trade-offs have to be made. We are told that Government guidance continues to ‘follow the science’, but such guidance must also be values-based. Transparency in the values that underpin those […]

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The Arts and Humanities Contribution to Covid-19 Research and Recovery: a snapshot

by Pascale Aebischer, Des Fitzgerald, Sarah Hartley, Rachael Nicholas and Victoria Tischler In this blog post, we present a snapshot of what we have learned about the distinctive Arts and Humanities contribution to Covid-19 research and recovery and the positive impacts this research has had on society, culture, health and decision-making. The Pandemic and Beyond team has reached the end of the phase of work dedicated to bringing the researchers […]

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Masking uncertainty on the bus: risk and responsibility after ‘freedom day’

By Emma Roe*, Paul Hurley*, Charlotte Veal** and Sandra Wilks***. Project: ‘Routes of infection, routes to safety: Creative mapping of human-viral behaviours on the bus to understand infection prevention practices’ On a day heralded by some, including members of the UK government before it took a more cautious tone[1], as ‘freedom day’, the Prime Minister, […]