Prison choir project scoops UK healthcare award for "choral cure"

There was dancing to the Jailhouse Rock when a community choir formed in a prison in Northern Ireland was named overall winner of annual awards for therapists and health scientists.

Organisers, supporters and past members of the Voice of Release choir burst into an impromptu chorus of Elvis Presley’s hit in celebration of their success at the 2017 Advancing Healthcare Awards, held at Chelsea Harbour in London.

The awards, for which the Guardian was media partner, aim to highlight the achievements around the UK of allied health professionals and others who work with them outside the medical and nursing professions.

The Voice of Release was founded in 2014 by occupational therapists at Hydebank Wood women’s prison in south Belfast as a way of trying to engage prisoners who were vulnerable or at risk of suicide or self-harm.

Women who stepped forward to take part led development of the venture, winning a Dragons’ Den-style pitch for initial funding. The choir has since gone on to make a CD, put on paid performances – with some members being allowed out of prison to do so – and involve prisoners from a men’s jail without incident. A follow-on project has been set up for choir members to continue singing after release.

Regular monitoring of those taking part has shown a decrease in stress levels, improvement of mood and a greater sense of hope thanks to the “choral cure”.

The scheme, run jointly with The Right Key, a Lisburn-based community interest company, won the mental health category of the awards before scooping the overall prize. This new category, sponsored by the Guardian, attracted a record number of entries for the awards, which were in their 11^th year.

The NetPark Wellbeing Project, an arts therapy scheme developed by the Metal Arts Organisation and Southend council, using digital technology in the setting of a public park, was highly commended in the same category.

Full list of winners

Overall winner and Guardian award for innovation in mental health services – Lynsey Grierson and Sheila Smyth, South Eastern health and social care trust and The Right Key; highly commended Emma Mills, Metal Arts Organisation

Faculty of Public Health and Public Health England award for contribution to public health – Gillian Rawlinson and Helen Slee, Salford Royal hospitals NHS foundation trust; highly commended Ruth Crabtree and Tom Heywood, Yorkshire ambulance service NHS trust

Health Education England and National Institute for Health Research award research champions – Lisa Roberts, University of Southampton and Southampton hospitals NHS foundation trust

Chamberlain Dunn award for entrepreneurship – Jo Godsall and Daniel Thomas, Chroma Arts Therapies

Macmillan award for leadership and innovation in cancer rehabilitation – Laura Caley and Jervoise Andreyev, Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust

Scottish government award for improving quality: measuring and demonstrating impact – Fraser Ferguson, NHS 24

Academy for Healthcare Science award for innovation – Mark Bowtell and Lorna Tasker, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg university (ABMU) health board

Welsh government award for prudently advancing practice – Anita Smith, East Sussex healthcare NHS trust

NHS Employers award for outstanding achievement by an apprentice, support worker or technician working alongside an AHP or healthcare scientist – Jennifer Hopton, Newcastle upon Tyne hospitals NHS foundation trust

Northern Ireland award for maximising resources for success – Fiona Talbot and Janey Milligan, South Eastern health and social care trust

Scottish government award for driving improvement, delivering results – Fiona McMillan and Catrina MacGregor, NHS Ayrshire and Arran

Health Service Laboratories’ award for rising stars – Dimitra Verra, Central London community healthcare NHS trust; Rachel Ball, University hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire; Mark Edwards, ABMU health board; Fiona Brannan, Warwickshire Music; Erin Wilson, Warrington and Halton hospitals NHS trust; Ruth Louise Poole, Cedar, Cardiff and Vale university health board

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Prison choir project scoops UK healthcare award for "choral cure"

Einstein-inspired Isobar vaccine cooling system wins UK James Dyson award

A portable cooling system for temperature-sensitive vaccines which could save millions of lives in third world countries has won its 22-year old designer a prestigious James Dyson award.

Will Broadway, an industrial design and technology graduate from Loughborough University, developed the Isobar system for his final degree project after seeing the huge waste of valuable vaccines, which lost their potency as a result of inadequate storage and transportation conditions in remote regions.

Before starting his university course, Broadway spent seven weeks travelling through Cambodia, China, Hong Kong and Vietnam, where he saw the challenges faced by medical staff in getting life-saving vaccines to the people who need them.

Current vaccine programmes in developing countries do not meet rigorous international standards for temperature-safe vaccine distribution. Ice or cold packs are generally used, which can freeze the vaccine to a temperature lower than considered thermally stable, and leads to vaccines losing potency.

In 2015, an estimated 19.4 million children worldwide failed to receive routine immunisation services, with more than 60% of these living in developing countries. Figures suggest that an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided if global vaccination systems improve.

Broadway’s hi-tech, rechargeable cooling system was inspired by an invention patented by Einstein in 1906, known at the time as the Icyball. The device was originally used to provide rural farmers with electricity-free refrigeration, and required only a heat source to drive a chemical process.

The Isobar is specifically designed to maintain stable temperature control between 2C (35F) and 8C (46.4F) during the “final mile” distribution of vaccine in remote regions without power. The cooling effect lasts for up to six days inside an insulated backpack, and can be recharged in just over an hour using either electricity or propane.

Broadway said he was thrilled to receive the UK James Dyson award, which includes a £2000 cash prize. Broadway plans to use the money to develop further prototypes and apply for patents.

“I am so pleased that this technology can get a bit of the limelight”, he added. “ It was such an innovative technology in 1929 that was forgotten and taken over by electric refrigeration. It gives me the confidence to pursue it with my whole heart in the knowledge that I can actually make this device and that it could have a great impact for the benefit of thousands of people”. He paid tribute to the help of his tutor at Loughborough, Dr John McCardle, and for his “constant scrutiny” over hundreds of hours of development.

It will now be entered into the international running for the final leg of the James Dyson Award – announced in October – which will award the winning entry £30,000 to fund further development.

Jack Lang, fellow at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, co-founder and chair of Raspberry Pi and UK James Dyson Award judge 2016 said: “Isobar is a brilliant invention. It solves a real problem and is a complete, well thought-through system.”

Einstein-inspired Isobar vaccine cooling system wins UK James Dyson award

Costa guide award won by Nathan Filer for debut novel, The Shock of the Fall

Nathan Filer with his Costa award-winning guide. Photograph: Tal Cohen/EPA

Judges for 1 of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes on Tuesday heralded a major new talent when they named psychological health nurse Nathan Filer winner of the 2013 Costa guide award for a moving account of schizophrenia and grief.

Filer won towards far more fancied contenders, not least Kate Atkinson, for his debut novel The Shock of the Fall.

The novelist Rose Tremain, who chaired the judges, stated: “For a 1st novel it is astonishingly positive-footed … I believe there is real pleasure about this winner.”

The book is narrated by Bristol boy Matthew from the age of five to his early 20s and is a gripping account of his descent into schizophrenic sickness following the death of his younger brother. It is informed when he is at school, when he is smoking also much marijuana in a grotty flat and from the psychiatric wards he ends up in.

Tremain stated, however, it was not just about schizophrenia: “It is about grief and this is a topic we all have expertise of. It is grief analysed but handled completely with no sentimentality. It gets near that and there had been moments when I received concerned, but it always avoids them.”

The Costa prize is unusual in that it pits five category winners – novel, first novel, biography, children’s and poetry – against each and every other for the best £30,000 prize like evaluating chicken curry with custard, as one former judge mentioned.

Atkinson had been powerful favourite to win for her eighth novel Lifestyle Following Lifestyle, which would have been her 2nd Costa win. It was not to be. “There’s often going to be a bookies’ favourite,” stated Tremain. “By bookies who haven’t go through the books.”

Filer, aged 33, has worked in psychiatric wards for far more than a decade. When last asked about it he said he meant to carry on with the odd shift and to hold his nursing registration up.

Tremain said: “To take this kind of a marvellously articulated factor from his professional lifestyle and bring it to lifestyle in the way he has is such an extraordinary achievement.”

The guide is the merchandise of Filer’s MA in innovative creating at Bath Spa University, in which he now lectures.

Last year it was the topic of a fierce 11-way bidding war by publishers – constantly hunting for the following possible Mark Haddon and his The Curious Incident of the Puppy in the Night-Time. It was at some point secured by HarperCollins, who presented a six-figure deal.

Filer was plainly not expecting to win, nor was his new wife Emily who he married on Saturday. “I was 100% certain he was not going to win,” she mentioned.

He was thrilled even though. “I wrote this guide simply because I want to share it, I was not creating it for myself… I often desired men and women to read through it and winning this means far more and much more folks will read through it so I am absolutely delighted by that.”

Filer mentioned he had felt a accountability not to propagate myths close to psychological well being and would carry on nursing shifts, like one coming up on Sunday.

There is now an expectation, he is the new creating talent on the block. “Of course a pressure comes with something like this as effectively as the reward but I am not going to sit here and bemoan a pretty issue that has just happened.”

Tremain said the five contenders made up a quite excellent checklist and all the books were talked about in the two-hour meeting. “In the end it was not quite tough for us to agree.” Though “not fairly unanimous” there was no blood, Tremain mentioned. “It was a extremely excellent natured and articulate jury. It was a very entertaining afternoon.”

Filer’s Costa win will be daily life-altering, Tremain acknowledged. “There’s usually a risk with a first-time winner – is this a one particular guide wonder? You will not know. But this extraordinary fashion and self-assurance is not an simple thing to do. If I had to bet on it I would say there are far more books in this writer.”

He is the fifth first novelist to win, with prior winners like Atkinson who won in 1995 for Behind The Scenes at the Museum. The final 1 was Stef Penney in 2006 with The Tenderness of Wolves.

The other books missing out on Tuesday were Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s biography of Gabriele D’Annunzio, The Pike Michael Symmons Roberts’ poetry assortment Drysalter, and Chris Riddell’s children’s book Goth Lady and the Ghost of a Mouse.

The prize, now in its 42nd year, unashamedly rewards enjoyability. It was recognized as the Whitbread prize from 1971 to 2005.

This year’s nine-robust judging panel incorporated actor Natascha McElhone, Pointless expert Richard Osman, singer Sharleen Spiteri, and authors and writers Gerard Woodward, Emma Kennedy, Anne de Courcy, Matthew Cain and John Burnside.

Costa guide award won by Nathan Filer for debut novel, The Shock of the Fall