News
21 and 22 March 2023
Essential Global Health Fellowship Pre-Deployment Training
The Essential Global Health Fellowship Pre-Deployment Training was organised by ourselves and Health Education England’s Global Health Fellowship Volunteer Programme.
The course combined sessions at Hughes Hall and at the Simulation Centre at Cambridge University Hospitals (Addenbrooke’s Hospital).
It was designed for junior doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals planning to work or volunteer in low-resource settings outside of the UK.
18 speakers from different faculties and 27 global health fellows who will be deployed in rural hospitals in low-resource settings joined the training. We were also joined by some global health fellowship alumni who shared their experiences.
20th March 2023
Together for Northwest Syria Medical Aid
Cambridge Global Health Partnerships (CGHP) and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) are working with Dr Tirej Brimo, an Emergency Medicine doctor at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, to help hospitals in northwest Syria struggling in the ongoing crisis through a fundraising campaign.
Please donate here: ‘Together for Northwest Syria Medical Aid’and read the press release here: UK charities launch campaign for Syrian earthquake victims.
February 2023
Myanmar Clinical Skills Videos
Members of the Burmese diaspora came together at CUH to film more clinical skills videos for junior doctors, medical students and healthcare volunteers in Myanmar. The video tutorial team completed 14 skills videos. These will be made available on the Myanmar Clinical Guidance website soon. So far, we have filmed 80 videos which have been viewed more than 32,000 times.
These short and low bandwidth video clips are specifically designed for all healthcare workers in Myanmar to support them to manage trauma and emergency patients in low resource settings.
18th February 2023
Paediatric Cancer Partnership Visit
A team from Cambridge visited partners at the Uganda Cancer Institute. Over the last two years the team have worked to implement emergency chemotherapy protocols, so the visit was an opportunity to understand the implementation of the protocols , and to agree plans for training and collaboration going forward.
Patient and family education leaflets
Whilst the team were in Kampala, the first of a series of booklets developed by the partnership teams and Cambridge University students were published. Max Tagg and Jess Knight undertook their medical elective in the partnership last summer and have worked to develop information leaflets for children with cancer and their families at UCI. In the picture , patient Susan and her mum Gertrude receive a leaflet. Until now, no patient and family education resources existed with explanation and guidance on childhood cancer diagnosis and treatment. Lack of understanding by patients and their families was identified as a reason for high rates of treatment abandonment.
You can hear more reflections from the visit on our social media.
18th February 2023
Obstetrics & Gynaecology Partnership Visit
Members of the Kampala Cambridge Maternal and Neonatal Health partnership from the East of England, visited partners at Makerere University to continue providing support with the writing of a textbook ‘Principles of Obstetrics in Africa’. The aim of this project is to publish a textbook that provides information that is appropriate for the context in which it is being used (Africa) and written by authors who work in Africa; a first of its known kind. The textbook will be published online open access by Cambridge University Press.
You can hear more from this partnership on our social media or webpage.
11th February 2023
Critical Care Team visit
A team of three nurses from CUH Critical Care Unit visited Kampala within the SCALE Critical Care partnership. The team delivered a two-day course in the basics of critical care to two cohorts of nurses, training 72 nurses in total over the week. Nurses from the main three critical care units in Kampala, attended. The training was designed with the nursing team on both sides of the partnership and comprised bed-side teaching on the wards and interactive teaching sessions.
Head over to our social media to hear reflections from the visit.
February 2023
FCDO visit to Cambridge Global Health Partnerships
We were delighted to host a meeting in Cambridge in February with the FCDO-Burma team led by the Senior Health Advisor We presented and discussed our work to support healthcare workers in Myanmar . A CGHP committee member and member of the diaspora and Royal College of GPs also joined the meeting to exchange information. It was a fruitful meeting, and a great opportunity to understand the future direction and plans for FCDO’s health programme in Myanmar.
23rd January 2023
Team visit Malawi
Global Health Fellow, Catherine de Cates, Isobel Fitzgerald O’Connor and Tamsin Holland Brown, recently visited Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and the deaf school in Blantyre, Malawi in the first stage of a project supporting children with glue ear & serous otitis media. Of all deaf children across the world fewer than 10% wear a hearing aid of any kind. Research in Cambridge has searched for an affordable solution for the most common type of hearing loss in childhood affecting the middle ear: glue ear. The project will trial the use of affordable bone conduction headsets in a low-income setting.
This visit was supported by our grant scheme open to NHS staff Our Process – Cambridge Global Health Partnerships (cambridgeghp.org) and the East of England Global Health Fellowship Scheme.
08 January 2023
Nursing Partnership Visit to Sierra Leone
In January a nursing team from the Bo Stroke Partnership had their first visit to Sierra Leone. Diana Day and Magda Cerei, both nurses from Cambridge travelled to meet the wider partnership team and with Patrick, former Cambridge University Hospital (CUH) Stroke Nurse, who set up the partnership. Amongst other meetings the team met with the Nursing Now Challenge Fellows at Bo Hospital; Kings Sierra Leone Partnerships ; and Esther Jabbie, matron of Bo Government District Hospital (pictured).
Head over to our social media to hear reflections from the visit. If you’d like to support this partnership you can find out more and donate here.
20th December 2022
Season’s Greetings from CGHP!
As we complete another busy and successful year at CGHP, we are very grateful to our members, partners and donors who make our work possible.
Thank you for partnering with us on our mission to inspire people to improve healthcare globally.
Please click the button below to read our retrospective for 2022.
23rd November 2022
East of England Global Health Conference
On 23rd November we held the third East of England Global Health Conference, delivered in partnership with an organising committee comprising individuals from Cambridge Africa, Health Education England – East of England, Hughes Hall Global Health Bridge and NHS England, and with primary sponsorship from Costello Medical.
It was wonderful to come together in person in Cambridge with people from across the East of England and via a hybrid format with delegates and partners from across the world. We were delighted to welcome some twenty presenters and over 100 delegates to discuss the theme of Global Health – Rising to the Challenges. Lucy Chappell and Mike Batley from NIHR and Sridhar Venkatapuram from Kings Global Health Institute gave keynote addresses, and our conversations covered a huge breadth of challenges from antimicrobial resistance to hybrid health partnerships to decolonising global health.
The conference also gave us the chance to present a Social Return on Investment Analysis, focusing on our maternal and neonatal heath partnership in Uganda, which we have completed with pro-bono support from Costello Medical – an organisation which provides expertise in the analysis, interpretation and communication of health-related data. We look forward to sharing the full results and report early next year.
After nearly three years of online events, we relished the networking opportunities that in person events bring and enjoyed meeting old and new colleagues. You can see a recording of the event here. The conference report which summarises the day is available here.
27th July 2022
Team Away Day
In July we had a Team Away day. We explored our different ways of working, and how we contribute to the team before discussing our fundraising strategy. This was a particularly enjoyable day, and we all felt refreshed and motivated back in the office following this.
2nd July 2022
CGHP Team Visit to Kampala
In July, clinicians from Cambridge were able to visit partners in Uganda for the first time since the pandemic! Fiona accompanied two partnership teams visiting Uganda – the Kampala Cambridge Antimicrobial Stewardship team and the SCALE (Strengthening Health Workforce Capacity through Global Learning) Critical Care team. Four East of England Global Health Fellows joined the visits alongside other staff, from CUH. Follow us on Instagram to read more about these visits.
July 2022
New Staff Members
We’ve recently welcomed Hannah Wilson as our new Fundraising and Communications Lead! Hannah joins us from our linked charity Addenbrookes Charitable trust. Hannah looks forward to learning more about our health partnerships, meeting the wonderful people that generously support our work, and providing more opportunities for people to get involved.
We’re delighted to have also recently welcomed Laura Callard as our new Intern to the CGHP team! Laura joins the team to organise the East of England Global Health Conference and conduct our yearly monitoring and evaluation report. Laura is excited to learn about and discover the impact of health partnerships and further her knowledge on global health.
May 2022
Kakamega Visiting CUH
Kakamega visiting CUH
At the beginning of May, we welcomed partners from Kakamega, in Western Kenya, to Cambridge. The visit was within the Commonwealth Partnership for Antimicrobial Stewardship. Catherine Simiyu, Hospital Matron, and Dr Nyumbile, Hospital Superintendent at Kakamega County Teaching and Referral Hospital, spent the week observing in Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
28th April 2022
High-Level Ugandan Delegation Visit CUH
On 28th April, we were delighted to host Ugandan Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health, Dr Diana Atwine, and members of the Uganda UK Health Alliance at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We had great discussions on #healthpartnerships, a tour of CUH and virtually joined the SCALE Critical Care grand round! You can read more about the day here: https://lnkd.in/e6e7T2bb
14th March 2022
Partnership visit to Kakamega, Kenya!
Our first in-person partnership visit of the year (and first since early 2020) has been a great success! Last week, Cristiano Serra, a Pharmacist at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and CGHP Director, Evelyn Brealey, visited our partners in Kakamega, western Kenya within the Kakamega Cambridge Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) partnership.
The partnership is working to develop AMS in the surgical and maternity wards at Kakamega County Teaching and Referral Hospital (KCTRH). The team also visited Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) who are partnering with us and leading research activity. The team had an extremely productive week discussing and carrying out partnership activities including attending Medicines & Therapeutics Committee meeting on AMS and co-presenting at an AMS workshop.
24th February 2022
Designing Trauma Systems in a Global Context: How do we deliver care to those who need it most?
On 23rd February we held an online event ‘Designing Trauma Systems in a Global Context: How do we deliver care to those who need it most?’. We had fantastic presentations from Professor Peter Hutchinson, Arthur Kwizera and Dr Rick Brennan who spoke to how the World Health Organisation Trauma Operational and Advisory team is working to measurably improve health outcomes due to trauma.
15th December 2021
Season’s Greetings & End of Year Retrospective
We shared our 2021 Retrospective, offering an overview of our achievements from the past year. Click here to read!
1th November 2021
Phenomenal Fundraising
Fundraiser, Jim Johnson, has raised an amazing £1272 for CGHP. He set himself the challenge of beating his PB in three running events, including a 10km, a half marathon and full marathon. Thank you Jim!
14th October 2021
Autumn Newsletter
We shared our CGHP Autumn newsletter this week. The newsletter includes updates from some of our partnerships, recommended reads and upcoming events.
16th September 2021
“My experience to date has taught me that partnership is at the heart of global health”
Earlier this week, CGHP committee member and partner in the Cambridge Yangon Trauma Intervention Partnership, Dr Tom Bashford, published a short article for the Coalition for Global Prosperity. The piece titled, The Future of Aid: Development in the 2020s, offers an insightful and thought provoking read for those looking to engage in global health opportunities. Grab a coffee and have a read!
16th & 17th August 2021
Creating videos for emergency care in Myanmar
Last week doctors and nurses from the East of England region, Wales and the Lake District came together to create video tutorials using the simulation facilities at Cambridge University Hospitals. Many were members of the Burmese diaspora, who are healthcare workers in the NHS. The video tutorials have been designed to support Myanmar health care professionals in managing common emergency medical situations with minimal resources. The videos cover nearly 24 topics including paediatrics, neonates, trauma, emergency medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology. They are low bandwidth short video clips that will be uploaded on the Myanmar Clinical Guidance website. Preparing scripts, rehearsals, repeating voiceovers and doing role plays was both fun and exciting. The next video tutorial sessions will be held in October.
21st June 2021
Collaboration to offer students global health opportunities
CGHP is working with the Cambridge University Clinical School to offer an International Healthcare Supplementary Unit July 12 – 19.
A series of short optional activities will be offered for 5th year medical students in recognition that overseas travel has not been possible this year during the medical elective.
The unit will be a mix of pre-recordings, live online discussions and other learning opportunities. We are very grateful to our many international partners who have agreed to present sessions via Zoom for the Cambridge medical students giving them an insight into different healthcare systems and disease burdens.
As well as gaining some understanding of non-UK health systems we hope the series will build students’ knowledge and interest of global health.
15th April 2021
We welcome new Chair of Committee, Catherine Arnold OBE
After 6 successful years as Chair of Committee, David Wherrett, Director of Workforce at Cambridge University Hospitals, has stepped down. We thank David for his wonderful chairmanship and we now welcome new CGHP Chair, Catherine Arnold OBE.
Catherine is Master of St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Prior to taking up the role in October 2019, she had a distinguished diplomatic career in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. As the UK’s Ambassador to Mongolia until February 2018, Catherine championed stronger economic, political, development and educational links with the UK including work on a range of public health issues. Catherine was awarded an OBE for services to British foreign policy in the 2019 New Year Honours.
Catherine’s FCO career also saw her serve in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Oman. She has led on a range of foreign policy issues including human rights, the environment and public affairs, most recently leading the successful UK campaign to secure the 2019 nomination to host the COP26 climate conference. Prior to joining the FCO, Catherine was a journalist and travel writer in the Middle East. Her career started with leading global management consulting firm, Oliver Wyman.
On being appointed as Chair of the Cambridge Global Health Partnerships Catherine said:
“I am honoured to be appointed to this role. Global health is more than a strap line; health affects every part of life. Raising levels of public and individual health and wellness around the world can transform lives, and make us all more secure.
I believe deeply in partnership models, the dialogue, understanding and humility required to make them work. That can be challenging, it requires commitment from all sides, but when everyone owns the change they seek to make it can be transformative.
Cambridge has an extraordinary role to play in shaping the future health of humanity, in partnership with people across globe. With my fellow committee members and charity trustees, the Director and our many partners, members (volunteers) and supporters, I am excited to help shape this vision – and thank David Wherrett for giving me such a hard act to follow.”
1st April 2021
CGHP says farewell to Intern, Fiona
We said goodbye to our wonderful 2019-2020 Intern, Fiona Elliott. Fiona has supported the team in delivering the East of England Conference, numerous online events and the annual monitoring and evaluation report. The report explores the impact of global health engagement on NHS volunteers.
24th January 2021
Celebrating International Day of Education
Today we are celebrating International Day of Education. Education is at the heart of global health partnership activity, rooted in sustainable development. Through training and bi-directional learning, we can improve healthcare for all.
‘[The partnership] has opened up my thoughts to alternatives to what I actually practice every day, which is something I find beneficial and it has a trickledown effect because what I learn I will also teach my students who are under my care so it will have a ripple down effect and to eventually improve the outcomes of the patients.’ – Uganda Partnership Lead, Kampala-Cambridge Partnership
‘Getting involved in a health partnership has opened my eyes to new approaches and ways of tackling problems here at CUH. Being on the obstetrics wards in Kampala, and watching partners manage a high volume of patients with resource constraints is inspirational. I will bring these skills and novel approaches back to the UK, improving my practice and patient care.’ – UK Volunteer, Kampala-Cambridge Partnership
21st January 2021
Uganda Cambridge Cancer Initiative Newsletter
Read the latest Uganda Cambridge Cancer Initiative Newsletter, complete with staff profile on Dr Nixon Niyonzima, Head of Research at Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) and Dr Marta Ferraresso’s blog: Work in Progress: A year spent at the Uganda Cancer Institute.
31st December 2020
Reflecting on 2020
Read our end of year retrospective, as we reflect on our activities and global health engagement throughout 2020.
9th December 2020
Global Health Café – Zimbabwe and Cambridge
On Wednesday 9th December, we co-hosted a fantastic global health café with Zimbabwe Health Training Support and Global Health Dorcas.
The café discussed the many challenges we have faced with COVID-19, both in Zimbabwe and in the UK, touching on mental health, the hospital setting and community services. We learnt that now more than ever before, we are a global village and that partnerships are essential for progress. Partnerships give us the tools to collaborate and share ideas and insights into our respective health systems, including their strengths and flaws. Through this, we can begin to improve all the crucial aspects of our healthcare services, and create a generation with the adaptability, resilience and leadership skills necessary for tackling future health challenges.
23rd November 2020
CGHP welcomes new team member, Thet
Thet joins the team as Programme Support for Myanmar.
Thet started as an in-office volunteer with CGHP in 2019. Between 2006-2019, he worked for local and international non-governmental organisations and development agencies focussing on health and local governance sector, in Myanmar. He graduated from the Institute of Medicine (1) Myanmar and holds a masters degree in Public Policy from Murdoch University.
19th November 2020
Second Day of the East of England Global Health Conference – Research, Education & Practice
Watch here
The second half of our East of England Global Health Conference took place on the afternoon of the 19th November. Attendees were offered the choice of three panel sessions focussing on Research, Education and Practice. We heard from experts and engaged in stimulating discussion with attendees.
Dr Clare Leong & Dr Nikki Biggs won the poster prize for their work on a health improvement project in Zanzibar.
The keynote was delivered by Professor Dame Sally Davies, who explored the importance of collaboration in global health, describing it as ‘a necessity not a luxury’.
We look forward to welcoming back attendees to our Global Health Café next March, where we will continue collaborating for impact.
9th November 2020
Opening day of the East of England Global Health Conference – Research, Education & Practice
Watch here
The first of two half day sessions focussed on primary care and public health. Chaired by Dr Tony Jewel, we heard from an interdisciplinary panel of experts discussing a range of topics including impact of diet, access to antiretroviral therapy, drug resistance, the role of Cambridge in global health and planetary health. The keynote was delivered by Professor Amanda Howe who reminded us that primary care is the cornerstone of equitable global health, and the considerable need for multi-sectoral collaboration.
We will be back on 19th November 2020 for the second session, which will focus on research, education and practice.
1st October 2020
Cancer Initiative shares first newsletter
Read the first Cambridge Cancer Initiative newsletter here. The initiative is a collaboration with the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala, and brings together experts from across Cambridge and Uganda to collaborate across research, practice and education.
To find out more, visit the Cambridge Africa website.
29th June 2020
Myanmar partnership hosts first virtual training session
A group of critical care and microbiology consultants from Cambridge University Hospitals hosted a virtual training session for partners in Myanmar. The session, which was led by UK partnership lead, Dr Rowan Burnstein, was titled COVID-19 – Sharing and Learning with a Focus on Critical Care.
The session provided an opportunity for exploring best practices and management of COVID-19 whilst reflecting on front line experiences.
We look forward to facilitating further sessions, to include physiotherapy and critical care nursing.
8th June 2020
The CGHP Challenge reaches Kampala
The team are delighted to announce that we have reached our goal, and have arrived (virtually) in Kampala! Thanks to the 95 individuals who have been walking, running and cycling. We have covered an impressive 58000 miles, traversing the Pyrenees, crossing the Sahara, skirting the national parks of the DRC, to finally meet our partners in the city of 7 hills.
For more information, visit our webpage.
1st June 2020
Funding to support health partnership COVID-19 response and recovery
CGHP is delighted to have received funding from the THET Health Worker Action Fund, following a successful grant application. The funding has allowed partners in Kampala, Uganda, to procure vital PPE and infection prevention control supplies.
Included is the procurement of locally manufactured scrubs for frontline staff, and components required for the on-site production of alcohol gel. The partnership will also encourage bi-directional exchange of knowledge and experiences between UK and overseas partners.
In Kampala, Pharmacist Ronald Onegwa, produces alcohol gel and re-fills dispensers around the hospital for staff and patient use.
To learn more about Kampala during COVID-19, please follow the link.
