Working with service users and our local community to co-design an inclusive and person-centred hospice day service

BackgroundWith an ageing population the need for palliative care services is set to rise.1Whilst there is no clear definition of palliative care day services, traditionally they offer a range of physical, psychosocial and spiritual services to enhance quality of life.2 However the Covid19 pandemic has presented challenges whilst also highlighting opportunities for innovation in many areas of palliative care, including day services.3 There is currently limited evidence to suggest what service users want from a palliative care day service, and as we emerge from the pandemic there is a unique opportunity to develop a new place-based service in our locality.Aim(s)To identify areas for improvement in our hospice day services and to understand how the service can become more inclusive and person centred.MethodsAs part of the re-development of our hospice day service we have created an electronic questionnaire. This was developed by day service staff with the input of therapy, senior management and research teams. The questionnaire is designed for hospice service users (patients and carers) and non-service users (people from our local community), and looks to identify what our day services should offer in terms of activities and accessibility.ResultsWe received thirty-two responses, the majority (n=17) from people living with a terminal illness. Participants highlighted a number of areas for improvement. Using the survey results we are working to adapt our services to provide a more inclusive and accessible hospice day service.ConclusionsWhen considering the re-development of a service it is important to consider the needs of the current service user and the local community. The results of this questionnaire have helped us to begin co-designing a more inclusive and person-centred approach to day services, which we hope will suit the needs of those using the service both now and in the future.ReferencesWorld Health Organization, 2018. Palliative care fact sheet. Geneva: WHO.Hasson F, Jordan J, McKibben L. et al. Challenges for palliative care day services: a focus group study. BMC Palliat Care 2021;20:11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-020-00699-7Dunleavy L, Preston N, Bajwah S, Bradshaw A, Cripps R, Fraser LK, Maddocks M, Hocaoglu M, Murtagh FE, Oluyase AO, Sleeman KE, Higginson IJ, Walshe C. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention': Specialist palliative care service innovation and practice change in response to COVID-19. Results from a multinational survey (CovPall). Palliat Med. 2021 May;35(5):814–829. doi: 10.1177/02692163211000660. Epub 2021 Mar 23. PMID: 33754892;PMCID: PMC8114457.

Computational strategies to combat COVID-19: useful tools to accelerate SARS-CoV-2 and coronavirus research.

SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is a novel virus of the family Coronaviridae. The virus causes the infectious disease COVID-19. The biology of coronaviruses has been studied for many years. However, bioinformatics tools designed explicitly for SARS-CoV-2 have only recently been developed as a rapid reaction to the need for fast detection, understanding and treatment of COVID-19. To control the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is of utmost importance to get insight into the evolution and pathogenesis of the virus. In this review, we cover bioinformatics workflows and tools for the routine detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the reliable analysis of sequencing data, the tracking of the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluation of containment measures, the study of coronavirus evolution, the discovery of potential drug targets and development of therapeutic strategies. For each tool, we briefly describe its use case and how it advances research specifically for SARS-CoV-2. All tools are free to use and available online, either through web applications or public code repositories. Contact:evbc@unj-jena.de.

The impact of COVID-19 on service charges in commercial properties

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting legislative measures and government guidance, have significantly affected all of our lives. This paper considers the implications of the financial difficulties faced by commercial tenants on the landlord/tenant relationship. The paper highlights issues in the practice of landlords, and surveyors advising them, in relation to works and services that come within the service charge provisions of a commercial lease, as well as examining how recent legislative interventions have limited recovery options for landlords faced with service charge arrears. The paper investigates the need for communication between parties to try to resolve difficulties the tenant may have meeting its financial obligations under the lease, as well as the need for any agreements reached to be properly documented in order to provide clarity and certainty for both landlords and tenants going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation is the property of Henry Stewart Publications LLP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The InterPro protein families and domains database: 20 years on.

The InterPro database (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/interpro/) provides an integrative classification of protein sequences into families, and identifies functionally important domains and conserved sites. InterProScan is the underlying software that allows protein and nucleic acid sequences to be searched against InterPro's signatures. Signatures are predictive models which describe protein families, domains or sites, and are provided by multiple databases. InterPro combines signatures representing equivalent families, domains or sites, and provides additional information such as descriptions, literature references and Gene Ontology (GO) terms, to produce a comprehensive resource for protein classification. Founded in 1999, InterPro has become one of the most widely used resources for protein family annotation. Here, we report the status of InterPro (version 81.0) in its 20th year of operation, and its associated software, including updates to database content, the release of a new website and REST API, and performance improvements in InterProScan.

Pfam: The protein families database in 2021.

The Pfam database is a widely used resource for classifying protein sequences into families and domains. Since Pfam was last described in this journal, over 350 new families have been added in Pfam 33.1 and numerous improvements have been made to existing entries. To facilitate research on COVID-19, we have revised the Pfam entries that cover the SARS-CoV-2 proteome, and built new entries for regions that were not covered by Pfam. We have reintroduced Pfam-B which provides an automatically generated supplement to Pfam and contains 136 730 novel clusters of sequences that are not yet matched by a Pfam family. The new Pfam-B is based on a clustering by the MMseqs2 software. We have compared all of the regions in the RepeatsDB to those in Pfam and have started to use the results to build and refine Pfam repeat families. Pfam is freely available for browsing and download at http://pfam.xfam.org/.