I am a Research Fellow affiliated to NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Centre and work with the Medication Safety Theme. My specific area of interest is in supporting people with hidden impairments around medication safety.

Together with people with sith and/or hearing impairments and community pharmacists we have co-designed FLAG-Me Vision & FLAG-Me Sound, software that alerts pharmacists to the pressence of a hidden impairment which might increase a persons risk of medicaiton errors.

The work has been funded by a number of both internal UoM and external UKRI/ESRC/MRC IAA awards

1/18 - 6/22: Research Fellow NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre

Working with Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Collaborative to develop Patient Safety Toolkit. Creating co-designed solutions to medication safety errors for community pharmacy to support people with sight impairments. Testing P-MEDs as a way to engage patients in patient medicaiton safety. Looking at the effects of medication errors on pharmacy staff and how they affect staff health and wellbeing.

02/15 - 12/17: Research Fellow CLASSIC (NIHR HS&DR), Centre for Primary Care, University of Manchester

Qualitative investigation of Salfords Integrated Care Programme Implementation for Older People

09/14 - 02/15: Research Fellow (MMHSCT Short-term Fellowship) University of Manchester, School of Psychological Sciences

Prepared & submitted NIHR RfPB grant application for  ‘SUFFICE’ Study to reduce distress in carers of patients with CFS/ME

03/11 - 09/13: Principal Investigator / Research Manager METRIC (NIHR04/09- 03/15 RfPB), University of Manchester, School of Community Based Medicine

Developed self-help resources for patients with CFS/ME and GP e-learning package now hosted by RCGP, tested feasibility in general practice

04/09-03/15: Programme Manager PARADES (NIHR PGfAR),  School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester & Manchester Mental Health Social Care NHS Trust

Managed 5 linked workstreams around reducing relapse and suicidality in people with bipolar disorder through to NIHR Final Report submission.  Over 1000 service users involved in group RCT, two development studies, database analysis, qualitative interviews and survey.

04/09- 11/09: Research Fellow (NHS Manchester)School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester

Wrote RfPB grant application for METRIC Study – ‘ME: Education, Training and Resources in Primary Care’ in response to patient feedback from MRC FINE Trial. This was successfully funded.

04/04- 04/09: Trial Manager - FINE Trial (MRC) School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester

296 patients with CFS/ME recruited from Primary Care into an RCT of nurse led Pragmatic Rehabilitation / Peer Support /Treatment As Usual with % follow-up at 2 years. Successful application for Short-term Research Fellowship to NHS Manchester

11/97-3/04: Research Associate, Unit of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, University of Manchester

Worked across studies as required including trial set-up of Hyperglycaemia and Pregnancy Outcomes (HAPO) study, recruitment facilitator for Anglo-Scandinavian Outcomes Trial  (ASCOT), ONS tracing and flagging cohort patients to assess relationship of aortic compliance on cardiovascular mortality in different ethnic groups

06/92-11/97: Project Manager ICSHIB (European Commission), Unit of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, University of Manchester

Trained in Chicago to manage Manchester site, for multi-centre study for International Collaborative Study on Hypertension in Blacks (ICSHIB). Assisted with site set up in Yaounde, Cameroon. Visited Prepared local site data and submitted PhD thesis

12/89-06/92: Research Assistant (Arthritis & Rheumatism Council), Arthritis & Rheumatism Council, University of Manchester

Developed 2 stage screening process questionnaire to identify prevalence rates of Rheumatoid Arthritis in different ethnic groups in Manchester and submitted MSc thesis

09/88-09/89: Project Technician, Cancer Research Campaign, Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, Manchester

Provided lab based support to investigate the role of the cell death cycle in murine crypt cells using gamma radiation

Health service research

Implementation of integrated care

Older peoples health & social care

Mental health

CFS/ME

Public and patient involvement and co-production

GP training and e-learning

Undergraduate medical student education

Ethnicity

Social inequalities and its impact on health

2024-25 - I am co-supervising four MPharm students looking at how AIS is taught across UK Undergratuate MPharm courses, and how student enrichment activities affect knowledge, task perception of patient work and empathy.

2023-24 I co-supervised an MPharm project looking at medicaiton safety in community phamracy 

I co-supervised an MRes Psychology student in her secondary analysis of qualitative data collected as part of the PARADES Bipolar Disorder NIHR Programme. This work is currently being written up for submission.

I supervised a Masters in Public Health (MPH) distance learning student.

Academic Member of Society for Academic Primary Care

Member of British Association for CFS/ME

Member of UK CFS/ME Research Collaborative

Member of UK Data and Health Care 

Co-production

Mixed methods research

Epidemiology

PhD (1997) Public Health & Epidemiology ‘Risk factors associated with glucose intolerance and high blood pressure in African-Caribbeans and Whites: Opportunities for prevention’.

MSc (1992) Public Health & Epidemiology ‘A comparison of the prevalence of Rheumatoid Arthritis in Caribbeans and Caucasians living in inner city Manchester’.

BA (Hons) Biological Science & Environmental Studies

I am passionate about embedding the findings of our research into undergraduate and postgraduate curricula to enable future pharmacists to identify and provide more patient centred services to those with sight and/or hearing impairments

I regularly fundraise for The Guide Dogs Assocation,  have taken part in Cancer Research UKs Relay for Life 24 hour event.