Meet the Team
| Research team | Postgraduate students |
Theme Lead
Prof Jon Glasby, Professor of Health and Social Care and Head of School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
Jon Glasby is a qualified social worker by background and Director of the University of Birmingham’s Health Services Management Centre (HSMC). Specialising in joint work between health and social care, he is involved in regular policy analysis and advice to a range of government and other national bodies, including the Department of Health, the Cabinet Office and the Downing Street policy unit. He is currently a Non-Executive Director at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrated Care. From 2003 to 2009, he was the Secretary of State’s representative on the board of the UK Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
He has previously been involved with policy advice to the NHS Future Forum, the Ministerial Working Group on Health and Social Care Integration, the development of personal health budgets and the policy teams responsible for the 2007 framework for commissioning for health and well-being, the 2006 NHS White Paper and the 2005 social care Green Paper. His recent work with Downing Street on the future reform and costs of adult social care was launched by the former Prime Minister and appeared in outlets such as the BBC News/News 24, the New York Times and The Financial Times.
Professor Jon Glasby has also been a regular contributor to practice-based publications such as Community Care and the Health Service Journal, and is the author of numerous articles and 20 books on health and social care. He has previously been identified as one of The Times Higher Education Supplement ‘five ones to watch’ for the future of the social sciences and is a previous winner of the Social Policy Association’s ‘best newcomer’ award.
Meet the Team
Dr Gill Combes, Deputy Theme Lead, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
Gill Combes is Deputy theme lead for Theme 4, Chronic diseases. Following an early career in academia and R&D in the voluntary sector, Gill moved to the NHS where she worked for 20 years in service development roles involving partnerships with social care and the voluntary sector. She held a number of senior management positions including PCT Chief Executive. She recently returned to academic research, undertaking research projects on long-term conditions. She is also a Senior Associate at the Health Services Management Centre where she works on leadership programmes and provides coaching and mentoring to NHS managers.
Email: G dot Combes at bham dot ac dot uk
Tel: +44 (0)121 4148666
Prof Christian Mallen, NIHR Professor of General Practice Research, University of Keele
Following clinical training at Nottingham University, Christian moved to North Staffordshire in 1999 to complete his general practice vocational training. In 2004, Christian was awarded an Arthritis Research UK Fellowship to investigate the prognosis of older people with joint pain in primary care and in 2011 he was awarded an Arthritis Research UK Clinical Scientist Fellowship to research missed opportunities to improve the management of inflammatory arthropathy in general practice. Christian is currently Professor and Director of Academic General Practice and Director of Academic Clinical Training for the Faculty of Health.
Dr Sarah Damery
Dr Sarah Damery is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, and works on CLAHRC WM Theme 4, Chronic Diseases (Integrated and Holistic Care). Sarah began her career in Geography after qualifying with a BA from the University of Cambridge in 1999, and subsequently gained her PhD in 2006. In September 2008, she joined the Department of Primary Care Clinical Sciences at the University of Birmingham, initially working on a NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) project, examining healthcare workers’ attitudes to working during pandemic influenza. She went on to work on a diverse range of projects centred around cancer and chronic diseases, focusing particularly on the early diagnosis of cancer; facilitating uptake of screening for colorectal cancer and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination; the use of herbal medicines by cancer survivors; evaluating the optimum post-treatment follow-up regime for patients with soft tissue sarcoma; and assessing repeated patient presentation to primary care as a means of identifying general practice patients at high risk of being HIV positive. She was also a senior advisor for the Birmingham Hub of the West Midlands Research Design service.
She has extensive experience of working in multidisciplinary contexts and with mixed methods, including a range of quantitative, qualitative and participatory research methodologies, all of which stand her in good stead for her present role within CLAHRC WM Theme 4, where she is involved with several ongoing studies in collaboration with NHS and academic colleagues. These include a systematic ‘review of reviews’ focusing on the effectiveness of interventions to facilitate co-ordinated multidisciplinary care and reduce hospital use for people with chronic diseases; and a collaboration with Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust to assess whether electronic case finding tools can accurately ‘predict’ whether or not a patient is likely to be readmitted to hospital within 30 days of a previous inpatient stay. She is also working to develop a further series of projects currently at a more embryonic stage, focusing on integrated pathways for falls, electronic patient-consultant interactions and the evaluation of multidisciplinary, integrated care teams operating across healthcare settings to manage patients with multimorbidity and complex health needs.
Prof Krysia Dziedzic
Krysia Dziedzic has led innovations to engage clinical physiotherapists to define questions and develop study proposals in musculoskeletal pain. She has also led initiatives to facilitate therapists and other disciplines to engage with research. She led a group of occupational therapists to develop and design a proposal for a community trial of treatment of hand problems, awarded a grant by the Arthritis Research UK.
Krysia initiated one of the largest longitudinal clinical hand studies in Europe and established the hand group in the Centre’s epidemiology section. She is a Co-applicant on the Centre’s National Institute of Health Research osteoarthritis programme.
Her current research aims are to lead dissemination of results from my current programme under the general theme of “improving the management of osteoarthritis in primary care”; to extend her research into innovative areas, including the extended role of health care professionals, such as practice nurses, in primary care management of joint pain; to continue to increase research capacity and training in the Centre, regionally and nationally for non-medical health professionals.
Dr Sarah Flanagan
Sarah Flanagan is an Honorary Research Fellow working on CLAHRC WM Theme 4, Chronic Diseases at the University of Birmingham. Sarah obtained her BA in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Warwick in 1994, and spent ten years working in the voluntary and statutory sector (BSMHFT) in the field of addictions. In 2004 she gained a MA in Philosophy and the Ethics of Mental Health, and in 2006 joined the University of Birmingham to pursue a Research Support Facility fellowship. She spent two years as a Research Associate working on various projects, including a study examining the barriers and facilitators for ‘hard to reach’ groups accessing health and social care services. In 2012 Sarah completed a Cancer Research UK funded PhD looking at the adverse outcomes of undergoing a colposcopy. Following this, she spent a year as a Research Fellow on a project exploring data methods collection utilised with teenagers and young adults with cancer.
She is currently involved in four projects based at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust. One project is an evaluation of enhanced care pathways for older patients admitted with major trauma, and three projects are related to patients undergoing lung surgery.
Dr Emma Healey
Emma Healey is based at the Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre within the Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences. She has over six years’ experience of co-ordinating large randomised controlled trials and is currently working as Principal Investigator for a nurse-led study intervention for the management of Osteoarthritis within Primary Care. Emma’s research interests include osteoarthritis, exercise/physical activity interventions, patient-reported outcomes, and low back pain.
Dr Clare Jinks
Dr Clare Jinks is a Health Services Researcher at Keele University, with a background in Social Science. Following an undergraduate degree in Social Policy and Administration at the University of Brighton, Clare joined Keele as a Research Assistant in 1991. After working on a Regional Health Authority project investigating Resource Management in Mental Health Services, she completed an M.Phil (Health Policy) in 1995 using qualitative methods to understand the Internal Market in Mental Health Services. Clare started working in the field of musculoskeletal health in 1997, and for her PhD she developed, tested and applied a population screening instrument for identifying knee pain and disability in older adults. Clare has an interest in Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health research, and leads the PPI programme for the Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre and for the West Midlands regional Research Design Service. Her main research interests are in the field of osteoarthritis (OA) and joint pain in older adults. She is particularly interested in public health research and has undertaken both quantitative and qualitative studies to investigate the burden and impact of OA in the community. Recent studies have investigated experiences of knee pain and health care use, perceptions of prevention of joint pain, understanding self-management for knee pain in older adults, and developing and implementing a model OA consultation in primary care. Studies of PPI in primary care research include an exploration of Public Priorities for Joint Pain research, and an evaluation of PPI at the AR UK Primary Care Centre. In addition, Clare is an Associate Editor for BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders and a member of the Society for Social Medicine and European Public Health Association, the Scientific Panel for the Chartered Society for Physiotherapy’s Research Foundation, the scientific panel of the EUPHA, and a national Involvement Forum for RDS PPI leads, facilitated by INVOLVE.
Dr Janet Jones
Dr Janet Jones is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests include: safety in care homes, health and social care service delivery for the elderly and those with long-term conditions, The use of virtual software for routine hospital outpatient appointments, evaluating the implementation of complex change programmes in health and social care services, qualitative research, core outcome set development and patient reported outcomes. Janet started her working life in the telecoms industry before moving to the NHS. During her time at the NHS Janet studied part-time at the Open University for an undergraduate degree in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology. This ultimately led to a job working at the University of Birmingham as a Trial coordinator where Janet worked on several research studies. In 2014 Janet commenced studying for a PhD.
Dr Adriano Maluf
Adriano Maluf joined the University of Birmingham as a Research Fellow in September 2018. He has an LLB in Law from his native Brazil. In 2013 he complete an MSc in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Southampton gaining a merit. In 2018 he concluded his PhD in Health Sciences at the University of East Anglia which explored the social context of men and gender differences in care homes for older people.
His research interests are focused on the health needs of older people and those at the end of life. He has experience in the design and implementation of ethnographic research in care settings, involving people with different stages of dementia.
Mr Kim Sein
Mr Kim Sein is a Health Psychologist (stage one) with a special interest in research that explores people’s experience of illness, and a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham.
Kim’s research interests focus on understanding people’s experience of illness, the impact of people’s health-related behaviours on both individuals and the system around them, and how academic and clinical knowledge shapes understanding of the experience of health and illness. Using experiential data to shape healthcare systems is of particular interest.
Kim previously worked at the University of Birmingham with the Health Innovation and Education Cluster looking at people’s experience of the RRT pathway. He has also worked at Coventry University exploring the concept of compassion in nursing practice and training, and at the University of Wolverhampton conducting a randomised controlled trial into the effectiveness of a medical device.
Kim is currently writing up his PhD for submission to the Hull York Medical School exploring the definition and measurement of apathy in Huntington’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. His PhD includes a narrative systematic review of the literature’s conceptualisation of apathy, and an interpretative phenomenological analysis of people’s experience of living with apathy and Huntington’s disease. He has a BSc in psychology (2008) and MSc in health psychology (2010), both from Aston University, UK.
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Theme 4 Links
Theme Lead
Professor Jon Glasby, University of Birmingham
Partners
- Birmingham City Council
- University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
- Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust
- Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
- South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS Trust
- Stoke on Trent Clinical Commissioning Group
- North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group
- Keele University
- University of Birmingham