Northumbria Research Drives Change Through Collaborative Working With Businesses and Other Institutions

University enhances the health of communication in hospitals

Northumbria University is delivering master classes to equip health care professionals with the skills and confidence needed when dealing with difficult clinical conversations.

North East hospital trusts and hospices approached Northumbria University for a solution that would build on the communication skills of their clinicians and nurses who need to hold difficult conversations with patients, carers and staff. The delivery of life-changing news is a situation which requires the utmost sensitivity throughout the health care profession.

Gillian Walton, Director of Programmes in Northumbria’s Department of Public Health and Wellbeing, developed a communications master class for clinicians from different disciplines including nurses, radiographers, and physiotherapists in response to the hospitals’ requests. Using actors to play the role of patients, health care professionals are able to develop and test the best ways to prepare for, and respond to, situations they may face when dealing with patients.  More than 200 health care professionals have now benefitted from the course.

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Breakthrough in energy harvesting could power ‘life on Mars’

Martian colonists could use an innovative new technique to harvest energy from carbon dioxide thanks to research pioneered at Northumbria and Edinburgh Universities. The technique, which has been proven for the first time by researchers at the two Universities, has been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

The research proposes a new kind of engine for producing energy based on the Leidenfrost effect – a phenomenon which happens when a liquid comes into near contact with a surface much hotter than its boiling point. This effect is commonly seen in the way water appears to skitter across the surface of a hot pan, but it also applies to solid carbon dioxide, commonly known as dry ice. Blocks of dry ice are able to levitate above hot surfaces protected by a barrier of evaporated gas vapour. Northumbria’s research proposes using the vapour created by this effect to power an engine. This is the first time the Leidenfrost effect has been adapted as a way of harvesting energy. 

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