UK - Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)

The objectives of our four work packages are: Work Package 1: • To identify existing policies and programmes at local, provincial and national levels of government in Nepal that can be linked to evidence-based recommendations for safer road systems • To understand the current reach and implementation of these policies and programmes • To identify the barriers and enablers to further implementation of these policies and programmes • To develop a toolkit for those working at local and provincial government level to help them improve road safety Work Package 2: • To identify the factors that influence how bus transport is currently provided in Nepal, and how those factors affect bus safety • To establish how these factors affect the current provision of bus transport and which factors can best be used as levers towards safer buses and bus services • To identify which established, cost-effective, interventions are needed to shift current practice and policy • To generate agreement across sectors on recommendations to make bus travel safer Work Package 3: • To determine the health, social and economic impacts of being injured in a road traffic crash in Nepal. • To understand the facilitators and barriers to optimal handover of road traffic injured patients from prehospital carers to hospital emergency department staff • To establish stakeholder agreement on a best practice care pathway for road traffic injured patients to be used in hospital emergency departments Work Package 4: • To deliver five, seven-week online good data governance courses between 2023 and 2026 • To develop and make available training materials that enable the safe collection, use and storage of research data • To strengthen the capacity for peer-to-peer learning on good data governance within and between low and middle-income countries.

1) Engaging with stakeholders to understand their perspectives, awareness of the problem and priorities for change, and enable effective uptake of research. 2) Evidence through data will develop and pilot a hospital based injury surveillance system and explore the feasibility of collecting information on injuries from rural health posts. The Group will understand how injuries happened through interview, focus group, survey and verbal autopsy methods. 3) Effective and cost effective interventions will be developed and tested, adapting proven interventions from other LMICs where possible, and creating new interventions where necessary. Existing knowledge suggests that priority areas are likely to be road injuries, home injuries and the first response to trauma. 4) Enhancing capacity and enabling sustainability. Nepal has a limited and fragmented injury research capacity. The Group will establish partnerships to reduce isolation of researchers, and identify and meet their training needs to enable them to generate internationally excellent research. The Group will work with the Government of Nepal, academic institutions, NGOs and the WHO to plan the sustainability of the research centre in the long term.