Andre Tomlin

Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
André Tomlin is an Information Scientist with 20 years experience working in evidence-based healthcare. He's worked in the NHS, for Oxford University and since 2002 as Managing Director of Minervation Ltd, a consultancy company who do clever digital stuff for charities, universities and the public sector. Most recently André has been the driving force behind the Mental Elf and the National Elf Service; an innovative digital platform that helps professionals keep up to date with simple, clear and engaging summaries of evidence-based research. André is a Trustee at the Centre for Mental Health and an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London Division of Psychiatry. He lives in Bristol, surrounded by dogs, elflings and lots of woodland!

Website

Follow me here –

  • Badge_support
  • Badge_stat
  • Badge_creative

Insomnia can help predict depression

6 Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_83562310

People with depression frequently have trouble sleeping and this restlessness often first appears at the onset of the depressive disorder and continues until well after the depression has been successfully treated. This new meta-analysis conducted by a research team from the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, investigates if insomnia can be viewed as [read the full story…]

Might as well face it you’re addicted to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, eating, gambling, Internet, love, sex, exercise, work and shopping

2 Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_46191832

Browsing PubMed for systematic reviews on love addiction this morning (as you do) I came across this study by researchers in California. It suggests that half of the US population suffer from some kind of addiction during any given 12 month period and that addictions are often due to lifestyle factors. Readers concerned about the [read the full story…]

Tagged with:

Different types of psychotherapy for different types of depression: a summary of best current knowledge

5 Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_93335548

Mental Elf readers have been voting for their favourite topics and top of the list at present are psychological therapies and depression. Us elves like to give people what they want, so here’s a review conducted by researchers in the Netherlands that summarises what we know about the effectiveness of different types of psychotherapy in [read the full story…]

Cannabis consumption doubles the risk of serious motor vehicle accidents

No Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_35039020

Cannabis (marijuana) is the most widely used illicit drug in the world and reports of driving under the influence of cannabis have risen in recent years. A research team from Dalhousie University in Canada conducted a systematic search and identified observational epidemiology studies of motor vehicle collisions with an appropriate control group. They included studies [read the full story…]

Limited evidence for the use of electronic health records to improve smoking cessation rates

No Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_50013226

This Cochrane systematic review examined the effectiveness of electronic health record-facilitated interventions on smoking cessation activity by clinicians and on patient smoking cessation outcomes. The review shows these interventions improve the documentation of tobacco use and referral to cessation counselling, but does not demonstrate an improvement in patients actually giving up smoking. While smoking rates [read the full story…]

An integrated approach to mental and physical health could save the NHS billions, says new report from the King’s Fund

2 Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_65464255

People with long-term conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, are two to three times more likely to experience mental health problems than the general population. However, a systemic failure to identify these problems and provide effective support is resulting in poorer outcomes for patients and could be costing the NHS billions, says a report [read the full story…]

First-generation versus second-generation antipsychotics for preventing relapse in schizophrenia

No Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_26137777

This new systematic review compares how effective first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) and second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are at preventing relapse in patients with schizophrenia. The authors carried out a meta-analysis of 23 randomised controlled trials that lasted for ≥6 months and compared FGAs with SGAs in schizophrenia. The outcomes they studied were: Study defined relapse Relapse at 3, [read the full story…]

New guides to help GPs commission mental health services

No Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
Screen Shot 2012-02-08 at 8 Feb 08.42.43

The Joint Commissioning Panel for Mental Health (JCP-MH) have published the first of their guides aimed at GPs who will soon be commissioning mental health services. Each of the guides provide a description of what a ‘good’ service configuration should look like, and brings together scientific evidence, service user and carer experience, and case studies [read the full story…]

How to diagnose and treat medically unexplained physical symptoms and somatoform disorders

No Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
shutterstock_90087049

A multidisciplinary group of Dutch scientists have produced a guideline to help diagnose and treat medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS) and somatoform disorders (SD) in primary care, hospitals and occupational health settings. The guideline summarises the best available evidence and attempts to answer 4 key questions, for which the following findings are presented: 1. Preventive [read the full story…]

NHS publishes new resources for emerging clinical commissioning groups

No Responses »
Profile photo of Andre Tomlin
Posted by
Screen Shot 2012-02-07 at 7 Feb 06.48.37

The NHS Commissioning Board has published a series of resources which may be useful for emerging clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). They include guidance and process documents, toolkits and other information around authorisation, governance, establishment and commissioning support. Developing Clinical Commissioning Groups: Towards authorisation (PDF) was published back in September 2011. It is now accompanied by Towards establishment: [read the full story…]

Tagged with: