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ESPAG Public minutes - December 2020

Contents

Published: 24 February 2021

Version: 1.0 December 2020

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Evidence Synthesis Programme Advisory Group Meeting

Friday 4 December 2020

Attendees:    

Dr Phil Alderson, NICE representative
Professor Andrew Booth, Academic Advisor
Professor Martin Burton, Cochrane UK
Professor Jo Lord, Academic Advisor
Dr Jo Morrison, CRG Representative
Professor John Powell, Deputy Programme Director
Dr Matt Ridd, NHS Representative
Dr Karla Soares-Weiser, Cochrane Editor in Chief
Professor Ken Stein Programme Director (Chair)
Mr Malcolm Turner, Public Representative
Dr Vivian Welch, Campbell Collaboration
Professor Olivia Wu, Complex Reviews Support Unit

Observers: 

Mr Michael Bowdery, Health and Care Research Wales
Ms Christine Holmes, Department of Health and Social Care
Ms Candace Imison, NIHR Centre for Engagement and Dissemination
Dr Gail Johnston, Health & Social Care R&D Division Northern Ireland
Mr Jeremy Taylor, Centre for Engagement and Dissemination

Secretariat:  

Ms Sally Bailey, NETSCC & TARs representative
Mr Rob Squire, NETSCC
Mrs Sarah Harwin, NETSCC
Dr Sofia Araujo-Betancor, NETSCC

Apologies:   

Dr Neil Hawkins, Complex Reviews Support Unit
Dr Kay Pattison, Department of Health and Social Care
Dr Julie Simpson, Scottish Government Health Directorates

1a) Welcome and introductions    

KS welcomed everyone to the meeting and the Group introduced themselves.

Apologies were noted as detailed above.    

1b) Membership update    

KS welcomed JM to ESPAG, whose tenure began in December 2020.

JL has agreed to extend her tenure for a further three years until December 2023.

The Group was also advised that Jonathan Kilworth and Rachel Churchill’s tenures have now come to an end. KS formally thanked both members on behalf of ESPAG for their valuable contribution to the work of the ESP.     

1c) Minutes of 2 June 2020 meeting (paper 10-20)   

The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed and accepted as an accurate record of the discussion. The following updates on action points were given:

  • SB and JP agreed to send a letter to the Chair of the REF panel highlighting the importance of evidence synthesis. JP confirmed that he hadn’t received a response from REF.
  • KSW was asked for an update on how Cochrane considers which reviews to update, given that not all updated reviews result in a change to the conclusion. KSW advised that this is currently under review and there will be more to update the Group on in the next ESPAG meeting.   

2a) ESPAG Terms of Reference (paper 11-20)

RS introduced the updated ToR as a standing item on the December ESPAG agenda. The ToR cover the purpose, scope and membership of the group. The following comments were given:

  • Although reference to the NIHR Dissemination Centre has been removed, some wording around the new NIHR Centre for Engagement and Dissemination may need to be added back in once an agreement on future collaboration has been discussed.
  • The current ToR focus on the NHS and don’t make reference to social care. The Group agreed that wording around social care should be added in.

Providing the above points are considered/added, ESPAG members confirmed that they are happy to sign-off the ToR document.

3a) Evidence Synthesis Programme Grants 2020 call update (paper 12-20)  

SH provided the Group with an update on the ESP’s plans for the 2021 Evidence Synthesis Programme Grants (ESPG) call. ESPAG members were asked to confirm that they are happy with the proposed call papers, and to comment on the following:

The ESP is proposing that future calls go straight to full and the EOI stage is removed. In addition, it was proposed that the call is moved so that the funding committee meeting is held in October/November to meet a 1 April start date.

ESPAG members confirmed that they were happy for future calls to be straight to full. Moving the call to October/November was also approved with a note for the ESP to consider exact timelines carefully to try and avoid summer holiday deadlines.  

4a) NIHR Incentive Awards 2020 call paper (verbal)  

SAB introduced this item. In the 2020 Incentive Awards call, a total of 39 applications were received from 23 different Groups. This is a reduction of 12 applications when compared to the 2019 call. Four of the applications received were from two CCGs.

The funding committee met on 10 October 2020 and recommended funding for the top 14 highest-ranked applications at a total value of £115,000. Outcomes have been issued to applicants following approval from DHSC.     

5a) Network Support Fellowship - Update on scheme (paper 13-20)   

KSW introduced this item and began by thanking the NIHR for its support to the NSF scheme.

NSFs have been very helpful in priority setting activities. They have also worked on high-profile reviews for the groups in their networks and have been involved in monitoring/evaluation work.

KS summarised by acknowledging the variety of work completed and praised the work that was highlighted in the update paper. ESPAG hopes that there is support for networks to continue within Cochrane.  

6a) CRG Annual Reports – Template update (Paper 14-20)  

SAB introduced this item.

KS summarised the conversation and agreed to reduced reports in the years suggested and for the shorter summaries to have a focus on a key area.  

7a) Cochrane UK update (paper 15-20)  

MBu provided an update on the activity of Cochrane UK for the last six months. The following activities were highlighted to the group:

  •  The review author training has now moved to a virtual environment.
  •  A Cochrane UK & Cochrane Ireland online event has been planned for April 2021 and will be called ‘Virtually Cochrane - navigating evidence and uncertainty’.
  •  Cochrane UK is involved in a project to identify ways to improve Cochrane abstracts and help authors to write them.
  •  As part of Cochrane UK’s COVID-19 response work, 12 blogs looking at some of the COVID-19 evidence have been published.
  •  Relaunch of the Evidence for Everyday Healthcare series, and it is now called ‘Evidence for Maternity Care, Nursing and Allied Health’. There have been two special series’ so far, one on cancer and the   other on key concepts.

KS invited comments from ESPAG members. The images checklist guidance was highlighted as being excellent and members will share with colleagues. KS also agreed to share this with the other Programme Directors.

ESPAG congratulated Sarah Chapman and her team on the cancer blogs and communications. They were interesting and well publicised on social media.    

8a) NIHR Complex Reviews Support Unit update (paper 16-20)  

OW gave an update on the CRSU. The Unit has continued to support CRGs and the nine Programme Grants. In the past six-months, there have been very few requests to support reviews, mainly because most reviews that are currently underway are related to COVID-19 and these need to be more rapid and are less likely to be complex.

The CRSU has therefore focused on developing and delivering online training for the Cochrane community, including the following workshops:

  •  July 2020 – Identifying publication bias in meta-analysis and continuous outcomes (attended by 104 people).
  •  September 2020 – Living systematic reviews, opportunities and challenges (attended by 58 people).

Regarding development work, the CRSU has focused on creating additional features for its two apps, following feedback from users. Between July-September the meta-insight app has registered just under 1,500 hours of use and the diagnostic app has registered over 800 hours.

Looking to the end of the contract in November 2021, the CRSU wants to ensure that there is a smooth transition and will continue to work with Cochrane and the ESP to ensure this will happen. 

9a) Wider Cochrane updates, news and initiatives (verbal)   

KSW introduced this item and provided ESPAG members with recent updates from Cochrane. Over the past six-months, much of Cochrane central’s focus has been on the COVID-19 response, however, this hasn’t really impacted on the number of published reviews and until September, there was an increase.
 
As part of the COVID-19 response, Cochrane has published five reviews and an editorial piece to support WHO guidelines in this area. Cochrane has also worked closely with WHO throughout the pandemic to publish several reviews to support other guidelines.

KS advised that it is good to receive regular updates on how Cochrane has developed over time. It was noted that ESPAG is less informed on Campbell and it would be useful to receive an update from VW at future meetings. VW confirmed that she would be happy to do this and the ESP will add this as an agenda point for the June 2021 meeting. 

10a) Improving the quality of Cochrane reviews (paper 17-20)  

MBu presented a paper that discussed the role for Cochrane UK (and other geographical centres) in working with funders to support CRGs in improving the quality and production of Cochrane reviews.

KS noted that this has been a very useful conversation and that ESPAG is encouraged by the proposal. Regarding next steps, MBu agreed to take this offline and he and KSW will think about how to refine the project and move forward.  

11a) NIHR Centre for Engagement and Dissemination – Presentation by Jeremy Taylor  

JT and CI were invited to attend this meeting to present an update on the work of the CED so far and to establish links on how future engagement with ESPAG may look. After the presentation, discussion was opened to members and the following feedback was given:

  • One challenge for the CED will be identifying to what extent they are able to engage with key stakeholders like CCGs and NHSE. Royal Colleges and Societies/Faculties are often very interested in helping to disseminate relevant information; however, the challenge is finding the right people.
  • Campbell asks their author teams to specify which policy or policies they want to inform at the title stage and that it would be good to spread those good practices in engagement to wider research community.
  • KSW advised that Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation team would be very happy to discuss how the CED can align with the work Cochrane is doing in dissemination. KSW will arrange a meeting.

JT thanked members for their comments and agreed that some points resonated strongly with how the CED feels it can add value into the system.
 
In closing the conversation, KS invited the CED to consider having a member of the Centre attend future ESPAG meetings. ESP will liaise with JT & CI to finalise this arrangement. 

12a) Evidence Synthesis across the NIHR  

KS introduced this item and provided a presentation on a project he has been leading to consider evidence synthesis across the NIHR.

The following members volunteered to be involved in this project: AB, MBu, OW, JM and VW. KS thanked ESPAG for such a positive response to the project and confirmed that he will get in touch with the volunteers to discuss the next steps.   

13a) Supporting Cochrane and TAR teams in applying for HTA funding (verbal)  

OW introduced this item. The HTA Programme commissions calls for evidence synthesis and more recently, there has been a pattern of commissioning calls that ask for evidence synthesis on specific topics to help the NIHR identify gaps in the evidence. OW wondered whether ESPAG should be encouraging CRGs and TAR teams to collaborate more often.

ESPAG members were very supportive of encouraging CRGs and TAR teams to partner up more often and highlighted that this is also the case in other NIHR programmes e.g. the HS&DR Programme.

In addition to the point OW raised, JL noted the issues with primary research including poor quality pre-trial reviews, and not always re-doing the review with the new trial results at the end of the project. The ‘Evidence Synthesis across the NIHR’ project will consider this issue.

KS closed this item by agreeing to continue the conversation about evidence synthesis and how the NIHR is going to work with this in the future.   

14a) Any other business, meeting sum up and close  

KS invited members to present any other business. The following items were raised:

Health and Care Research Wales is creating a COVID-19 Evidence Centre to undertake evidence synthesis work and rapid primary research. It is currently advertising for a Director and asked ESPAG members to share this information within their networks and colleagues. The application process is simple and requires a letter of application. The deadline is the 21 December 2020.

There has been a lot of discussion within Cochrane about the integrity of primary research used in systematic reviews. To address this a research integrity team has been created and it is being led by Lisa Bero. Cochrane has updated its conflicts of interest policy and is about to launch an update to its misconduct policy. KS is keen to keep in touch with KSW on this issue and will help however possible.

KS brought the meeting to a close and confirmed that the next meeting is Tuesday 13 July 2020 between 10:00 – 15:00 at Minerva House, London.