Speakers

Nicky Britten

Talk title: Patient and public involvement in drug utilisation research

Nicky Britten is Professor of Applied Health Care Research at the University of Exeter Medical School. She is a sociologist with a long standing interest in medicines use, lay perspectives of medicines, and public involvement in research. She is the author of ‘Medicines and Society: patients, professionals and the dominance of pharmaceuticals’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) as well as numerous peer reviewed articles on this and related topics. She is the Executive Lead for Patient and Public Involvement at the NIHR ARC South West Peninsula (PenARC, formerly PenCLAHRC).

Talk title: Evidence for All: designing research to reduce health inequalities

Kerry Hood is Professor of Trials and the Director of the UKCRC Registered Centre for Trials Research at Cardiff University. She is a Senior Research Leader and mentor for Health and Care Research Wales.

Kerry has a degree and PhD in Statistics and has worked in medical statistics since 1996. She spent the first part of her career focused on research in primary care and then in 2006 established the South East Wales Trials Unit and started to develop a broader research portfolio. Her specific methodological research interests are in trial design, outcome measurement and research inclusion with a particular focus on complex trials, whilst the topic areas she mainly focuses on are primary care, infections and learning disabilities.

She collaborates widely across the UK and Europe on research studies from a broad range of funders including NIHR, HCRW, EU and industry. Kerry has over 270 peer reviewed research publications and currently holds £34M of research grants as a co-applicant. She is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Higher Education Academy and a member of the Society for Academic Primary Care and the Society for Clinical Trials.

She is a strong believer in doing the right research, rather than the easy research, but this might just be because she likes a challenge!

Talk title: Patient experience as evidence: the dawning of a new age?

Professor Sophie Staniszewska leads the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) and Experiences of Care Programme at Warwick Research in Nursing, Warwick Medical School. Sophie is Co-editor in Chief of a Springer Nature Journal, Research Involvement and Engagement.

Sophie has carried out a wide range of studies in patient and public involvement and patient experiences, including publishing the first international guidance to enhance the quality of PPI reporting, GRIPP2. She developed the Warwick patient Experiences Framework which underpins the NICE Guidance on Patient Experience, now embedded within 75 other NICE guidelines. Sophie was co-chair of the Health Technology International Patient and Citizen Group where she led work on the development of the concept of patient-based evidence.

Sophie was Vice-Chair of the National Institute for Health Research Breaking Boundaries Review which developed the future vision of patient and public involvement in health research in the UK. Sophie is one of the founders of the Global PPI Network, alongside NIHR, Cochrane and COMET. Sophie regularly works with NICE as an expert advisor.

Workshop title: Using the Public Involvement Impact Assessment Framework (PiiAF) to understand values around and impacts of involving patients and members of the public in research

Michelle Collins obtained a PhD from the Psychology department at Lancaster University exploring (amongst other things) smoker identity and its relation to smoking behaviour and this continues to be an enduring pre-occupation of hers. Since 2009, she has worked on a number of health-related projects within the Division of Health Research, with a focus upon health, health equity and the wider social determinants of health. She is primarily interested and experienced in using interviews, surveys and focus groups and qualitative data analysis methods. Michelle is also keen to further explore and develop her understanding of and practice in public involvement in research.

Joyce Kenkre

Workshop title: Disseminating research effectively

In October 2000, Joyce was appointed as Professor of Primary Care at the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales). In 2005, she was seconded part-time to the Office of the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales in Welsh Assembly Government to take forward the research strategy for nursing, midwifery and health visiting. In 2006, Joyce was also seconded to CRC Cymru the new research infrastructure for Wales as Associate Director for Training for all professions and people wishing to be active in research. Also in 2006 she became a Director of MediWales an organisation bringing together academia, clinicians and the medical device industry.

Having trained in the Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service in Wegberg, Germany, Joyce undertook midwifery training in Shropshire. She gained experience as a graduate nurse in the USA, where she passed the Georgia Board examinations as a registered professional nurse, before returning to specialise in neurology and neurosurgery at the Midland Centre in Birmingham.

Her research career commenced in 1982 in the Department of General Practice at the University of Birmingham, where she conducted over 50 research projects resulting in over 80 publications (reports, academic/professional journals and training packs) over a period of 19 years.

Joyce has taken an active role in the recognition of the nurse in research activities, and especially with regards to the clinical research nurse. Joyce has also taken an active role in the developing a training programme with consultant nurses, for consultant nurses development which included topics such as policy issues, strategic committee membership, research and working with the media.

She has been active in the RCN Research Society and was seconded as the RCN R&D adviser for the UK for a short period to cover maternity leave. She has been a member of the Study Site Co-ordinators Committee of the now Institute of Clinical Research addressing educational, ethical and career issues for investigator site personnel and is the award leader for the MSc in Clinical Research at the University of Glamorgan.

Her publications are wide ranging with recent articles on the prevalence of heart failure, the cost of accidents in the elderly, careers for nurses in research, and fraud. Joyce believes that it is essential for health care professionals to maintain standards of high quality research to improve the care within the community.

Andrew will be giving the introductory talk at the conference.

Andrew Evans was appointed Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Wales in 2016. He is an independent adviser to the Welsh Government on all matters related to medicines, prescribing and pharmacy practice. Andrew is a public health specialist and, prior to appointment, was Principal Pharmacist for Public Health and Primary Care Policy at Public Health Wales NHS Trust and the Welsh Government.

Andrew is a member of the UK Rebalancing Medicines Legislation and Pharmacy Regulation Programme Board and is the pharmaceutical adviser to the Home Office‘s Expert Panel on the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. He is an honorary lecturer at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University and has current research interests in the impact of pharmaceutical services on public health.