Health & Social Care Research Across North East & North Cumbria.
Health Services Research
Meet the Team
Health services research oversees the research into the development of new services in healthcare settings, with a focus on testing new ways of delivering care to patients and assessing better ways to collect the data from patients who have been kind enough to complete the patient experience surveys.
Other areas of focus include the exploration of new ways to organise the NHS and social care services to improve patient outcomes and subsequently trying new methods of sharing knowledge and evidence through health services.
While health services research is a clinical discipline in its own right, it provides support to all other specialties where there is an element of ‘service’ to the research being delivered.
Justine Smith
Senior strategic manager
CRN North East and North Cumbria
Professor Yitka Graham
Health services research specialty group lead
South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust
Justine Smith's research experience
I’m a senior strategic manager in the Clinical Research Network North East and North Cumbria. I lead communications, patient and public involvement and engagement for the Network, and am the management lead for health services research. I also support creating a culture of continuous/quality improvement in the network.
I have worked in research since I graduated in biomedical science in 1993! I worked in a hospital research lab to start with, then became a research assistant (similar role to a research nurse), then trial coordinator and eventually ran an academic trials unit. I have been with the NIHR since 2008, helping set up research governance systems, improvement processes and now leading on engagement.
I am interested in service co-design, organisational development, and inclusion of under-served communities in research including care home residents, people with learning disabilities and those living in disadvantaged areas.
Professor Yitka Graham's research experience
I am the head of the Helen McArdle Nursing and Care Research Institute and professor of health services research at the University of Sunderland. I have been involved in research for 12 years. My research interests are bariatric surgical care, the stigma of obesity, diabetes and other health conditions, social prescribing and health and care workforce issues.
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