WSPCR Strengths & Functions

The Wales School for Primary Care Research has an all-Wales, capacity and excellence developing remit. It will build on existing areas of strengths across the major primary health care disciplines that include:

• Methodological expertise, with depth and breadth in research methods expertise including complex trials, cohort studies, qualitative research, health economics, pharmacoeconomics, practitioner and patient behaviour change and secondary analyses of routine data.
• Research foci that are recognised internationally for excellence and are world leading.
• A wide range of committed primary health care research active professionals, including general practice, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and optometry.
• Close links with experienced practitioners from all disciplines who contribute to primary care teams and who translate and utilise evidence in practice.
• Close links with government and policy makers in a context of well-defined geographic and administrative boundaries and a relative stable population base that while broadly representative of the UK as a whole, has wide variation within it.

Building on this platform, the Wales School will aim to ‘develop and share excellence’ in primary care research. To achieve this, the School will have five main functions:

1. To maintain, coordinate and develop strong academic leadership from within the primary care research community.
2. To build research capacity and capability across Wales and across all primary care disciplines.
3. To increase the research evidence-base for primary care practice in order to facilitate the implementation of the vision outlined in Designed for Life and to inform multi-disciplinary clinical practice and health care policy.
4. To contribute to CRC Cymru aims and objectives and support the needs of collaborators.
5. To promote the interests of primary care research in Wales among professional bodies and at a UK CRC level.