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.