Ruth is an Honorary Professor  at Alliance Manchester Business School.  She has extensive experience in healthcare management, evaluation, improvement, the implementation of research into practice and a focus on ensuring impact from research.

Ruth is the Director of Ruth Boaden Ltd, and has provided consultancy services to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) supporting the development of the Greater Manchester Strategy (GMS) , including synthesis of a range of plans and strategies (Mar-Jul 2025)

Ruth was the Strategy Development Lead at NHS Greater Manchester (GM) (2022-2025) and a member of the team leading the development of the NHS GM Integrated Care Partnership strategy, as NHS GM was established from 1 July 2022. This drew on evaluation experience and findings to inform the new strategy, and the subsequent plans and performance framework, including the 3-year Sustainability Plan. 

Ruth was the Independent Advisor on Evaluation to the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP) where she drew on her extensive academic experience and networks to support GMHSCP in appropriate and pragmatic evaluation of their activity. This included evaluation of work within GM localities, as well as GM-wide programmes including those focused on population health.

Ruth was Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) Greater Manchester, from its establishment in January 2014 to completion in September 2019.  This followed 5 years of funding (2008-2013) for an previous CLAHRC where she was the Deputy Director and led implementation activity and research. CLAHRC carried out and implemented applied health research, both on specific healthcare conditions, and on the way in which services are designed and provided and improved, in order to improve health and the way in which resources are used in healthcare.  It was a collaboration of NHS providers, commissioners, industry and third sector partners in Greater Manchester with the University of Manchester with £20m of funding from these partners and the NIHR

Ruth’s research interests cover a wide range of areas within health services management and focus now on the implementation of new approaches, including the reorganisation of service provision, as well as quality and improvement. Ruth has always had a focus on knowledge transfer arising from high quality research, to ensure that the findings are accessible, applicable to practice and implemented to make an impact. 

Ruth chaired the Care, Implementation and Public Health Grants Board for the Alzheimer’s Society, and was also a member of their Research Strategy Council.

Ruth was a member of the NICE Implementation Strategy Group.

Ruth was a member of the NIHR Academy Advanced Fellowships panel, which made awards for NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Fellowships (KMF). She was a member of the selection panel for the NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellowships since their inception in 2011, and appointed as chair of this panel in April 2016.

Ruth was previously been a member of the Advisory Group for the NIHR Dissemination Centre and the NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research (HS&DR) Board. She also chaired the project advisory group for one NIHR HS&DR study (09/1002/02) and was a member of another (12/5002/18)

Much of the multi-disciplinary research Ruth has been involved in has focused on evaluation of policy and change programmes  within the NHS, in order to inform decisions about service provision for patients.

She led a highly-rated impact case study for the Research Excellence Framework in 2014, titled “Improving health through an evidence-based implementation programme” which drew on the work of the CLAHRC and demonstrated the impact of an assessment tool developed using knowledge from applied research into knowledge translation and service improvement, for reviews six months after people have had a stroke. The flexible assessment tool (GM-SAT) that can be used by a range of practitioners is now in use across England in a range of providers, enabling the fulfilment of national strategy and improved care for these patients.

She also led an impact case in REF2021 and contributed to three others across UoM.  The impact of multi-disciplinary work through "Evaluating and improving extended access to primary care" led to investment in extended access across GM (for 2.8m people), influencing the design and implementation of the scheme. Subsequently, the innovative evaluation methodology developed by the Manchester team was adopted at the national level and informed Department of Health strategies, service provision and resource allocation for primary care across England.

As a co-investigator on a high-profile HS&DR funded evaluation of the reconfiguration of acute stroke services in London and Manchester (10/1009/09), where Ruth led the Manchester qualitative analysis, Ruth worked with the clinical lead to explain the results of this work to decision makers in Manchester, leading to a further reconfiguration of services which is now providing further benefit for patients in receiving timely and appropriate care after stroke.

Ruth also have a track record of research into quality and safety improvement  within the NHS, which has direct relevance to patients, and is the area in which she first developed research within a healthcare context during the early 2000s.