Fortunately NHS England isn't wasting that much money on homeopathy prescriptions now - though still not zero (it's over £20k)

tl;dr - in the last financial year NHS England spent £21,170.37 on 866 homeopathic items. In the last calendar year (2020) it was £28,597.58 on 1,004 items.

For the latest figures there are two files as NHS BSA has made a change to their system - there's now a calendar year version and a financial year version. 

NHS Homeopathy Spend - England 2020-2021 - document 1 of 2 (summary Doc)
NHS Homeopathy Spend - England 2020-2021 - document 2 of 2 (summary Sheet)

Open air cinema screenings in London 2021

https://www.flickr.com/photos/krancien/3044291838/ "Cinema Paradiso" by La Tête Krançien
 

I'm a bit late with this post (usually publish these annually in April) but I have been diligently and enthusiastically collecting film listings of open air screenings taking place in London and adding them to this Google Sheet: http://bit.ly/OpenAirCinemaLondon2021

If you know of one I've missed please let me know.

As of 20 June 2021 there are over 400 films still to come, several free screenings and 220 already done. There are over 200 unique films being screened and some sing-alongs of Grease, Bohemian Rhapsody and The Greatest Showman. There are a few drive-in screenings too (these increased in 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic).

1. Advice for film-goers
   
2. List of film screenings
3. Organisations screening films in London 

1. Advice for film-goers / things to bring

• Before setting off check that the screening is going ahead (weather / pandemic advice)
• Tickets! Make sure you print in advance, or have the e-ticket visible on your device (download / open PDF while you have signal)
• Venue - make sure you know where it actually is (!) and note that the exit may be different from the entrance (particularly in parks). If it's a large park and you're trying to meet people, What3Words may be useful to pinpoint you.
  
• Something warm to wear (even if it's boiling hot in the day it can be surprisingly cool when sitting outside at 10pm)
• Mask - and spare (plus any hand sanitiser and things to keep used / spare masks in)
  
• Something to sit on (plastic bag as a minimum, blanket or cushion better) as you could be sitting on damp grass or hard stone / concrete or pavement. Some organisations let you bring camping chairs, most don't - check (many venues have their own seating anyway, some are just sit where you find a patch of grass / ground - some places hire picnic blankets)
  
• Something to avoid rain (umbrellas are generally a bit of a no-no, I'd recommend a rain hat or those 'pac a mac' rain poncho things - sometimes these are available to hire / buy)
  
• Something to eat and drink (if you're allowed - check) and something to eat it off or out of. Don't forget a bottle opener if you need one. You may be able to buy food onsite (in which case you may not be allowed to bring your own picnic)
• A plastic bag to take away rubbish / and for sitting on grass
  
• A torch - some places are not that well lit, phone's torch is better than nothing 
• Loo roll (public toilets being as they are...)
  
  

2. List of film screenings

This list is as accurate as I can make it but there will always be smaller events that are advertised locally that I may not hear about. Grateful for any tip-offs :)

1. Version for mobile phones (scroll up/down or left/right)

 

2. Wider version for desktop / web (scroll up/down or left/right)

The original embedded sheet was a bit cramped. The embed code didn't include anything for height and width that would let me improve this but I found out where to add it from this post.

3. Organisations screening films in London in 2021
(some may be screening in other cities too)

• Adventure Cinema
• Everyman Summer Love
• Film & Food Fest North London 
• Floating Film Festival
• Hideaway Cinema
• London Bridge City
• Luna Cinema
• Openaire Float-In Cinema
• Pop Up Screens
• Rooftop Cinema at Bar Elba
• Rooftop Film Club
• Silent Summer Screens
• St Dunstan's Festival
• St George's Garrison Church
• Summer Family Festival
• Sundown Cinema
• Sunset Screening Sessions
• The Alfresco Theatre
• The Drive In
• The Islander Festival
• We Do Good Disco

Note that Somerset House is not hosting an open air film festival in 2021.

8 June 2021, 2pm, FREE - Open seminar on a QMUL / EPSRC project (Pambayesian) that blends computer science, Bayesian networks and medicine - with a bit of #scicomm

TL;DR: FREE seminar tomorrow from 14:00 BST on "intelligent medical decision support systems and the underlying technology" with a bit of chat at 4.30pm about outreach which may be of interest for science communicators / public engagement with science folk.

--------------------------

Tomorrow there's an afternoon seminar to talk about, and to close, the EPSRC-funded Pambayesian project which has recently ended. The project looked at ways of helping doctors and patients make treatment decisions about particular health conditions (the examples under investigation included diabetes in pregnancy (aka gestational diabetes) and rhematoid arthritis) using computer science (specifically Bayesian Networks) to 'weigh' different pieces of ('risk') information. As you can see from the agenda below Bayesian Networks can be used in all sorts of health-decision-making scenarios.

I was involved in helping to produce an issue of our computing magazine for schools (CS4FN, Computer Science For Fun) which talked about Smart Health and included several articles on the Pambayesian project. I wrote a couple of articles myself. It was rather nice to be able to write about diabetes again, as in a previous life I was one of the Science Information Officers at Diabetes UK and wrote nothing but stuff about diabetes back then :-)

My boss Prof Paul Curzon will be speaking about outreach at 4.30pm and you can read the Pambayesian issue of CS4FN as a PDF here (free print copies are already on their way to subscribing UK schools, if you're a teacher please use the purple form here to sign up or invite your child's teacher to sign up). You can also explore the magazine's articles individually on the CS4FN blog.

 

PAMBAYESIAN Project final open seminar: 8 June 2021

When: Tuesday, June 8, 2021, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Where: Zoom

The PAMBAYESIAN (PAtient Managed decision-support using Bayesian networks) is an EPSRC funded project to develop a new generation of intelligent medical decision support systems to help both patients suffering chronic conditions and clinicians treating them.

  Join on 8 June

The project ends on 30 June 2021 and there will be a final project open Seminar that will take place on Zoom on 8th of June 2021 from 14:00 to 17:00. 

You can join the seminar using the following link: https://qmul-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/85147764196

The event will include presentations on the development of intelligent medical decision support systems and the underlying technology. There will be time for discussion of both the technical issues and future exploitation.

Agenda

2.00-2.10: Prof Norman Fenton: Introduction and overview of the PAMBAYESIAN project

2.10-2.20 Dr William Marsh: Overview of the Bayesian Network (BN) clinical models

2.20 – 3.10 PAMBAYESIAN rheumatoid arthritis application

2.20-2.30 Dr Amy MacBrayne: The clinical perspective

2.30-2.40 Dr Hamit Soyel: User interaction

2.40 –2.50 Ali Fahmi: The BN model

2.50- 3.00 Chris Robson (Living With): Integrating the model into a commercial platform

3.00-3.10 Discussion

3.20- 3.50 PAMBAYESIAN diabetes in pregnancy application

3.20-3.30 Prof Graham Hitman: The clinical perspective

3.30-3.40 Mariana Raniere Neves: The BN model

3.40-3.50 Discussion

3.50 – 4.10 Extensions of PAMBAYESIAN

3.50-4.00 Dr Scott McLachlan: The caremap approach

4.00-4.10 Morghan Hartmann: PAMBAYESIAN additional cases studies - Multiple Sclerosis and Pelvic Floor Syndrome

4.10-4.30 PAMBAYESIAN BN technology

4.10-4.20 Dr Maggie Wang: The dynamic BN modelling challenge

4.20-4.30 Dr Eugene Dementiev: The BN deployment challenge

4.30-4.40 Prof Paul Curzon: PAMBAYESIAN impact and outreach

4.40-5.00 Discussion

More details on PAMBAYESIAN: https://pambayesian.org/