School of Healthcare
Research clusters
The School of Healthcare Research Team can be attributed into the following clusters. However, as with the Healthcare setting, the Team work as a holistic group:
Health behaviour change and implementation science
Cluster leads
- Professor Debi Bhattacharya (Professor of Behavioural Medicine)
- Associate Professor Sion Scott (Associate Professor of Behavioural Medicine)
Who we are
We are a team of quantitative and qualitative researchers, combining methodological diversity with clinical expertise. Our team includes behavioural and implementation scientists, speech and language therapists, pharmacists, physiotherapists and doctors.
What we do
We design, implement and evaluate behaviour change innovations to improve health and social care practice in the real-world environment. We have a track record in targeting both patient/service user and practitioner behaviour.
- Designing
- Applying behavioural science, we diagnose the key factors that require addressing in order to develop innovations to achieve the desired change in health practice.
- Implementing
- Drawing on behavioural and implementation science, we develop bespoke theory and evidence-based solutions to support effective implementation of innovations.
- Evaluating
- Using mixed methods, we evaluate both innovation effect and study processes in large-scale definitive trials.
Our research
Improving health and care across the life course
Cluster leads
- Professor Joseph Manning MBE (Professor of Nursing and Child Health)
- Associate Professor Linda Birt (LOROS Associate Professor for Palliative Care and Frailty)
From infancy to older adulthood, birth to death, everyone will have contact with health and care services. Our research cluster aims to explore and transform the experience, quality and outcomes of health and care across the life course through world leading and impactful research.
We seek to generate research to address real life/world problems by:
- working with diverse patient, family and public partners through inclusive and participatory approaches
- employing a range of methodological approaches and research designs (including qualitative, mixed-methods, large scale observational and big data, co-design/co-production, feasibility and definitive trials)
- developing and testing technological innovations
- working across health and care settings and pathways (hospital care, people attending GP practices and people living in care homes and hospices).
Current projects
- OCEANIC
- FARR
- SAPhE Pathway
- OPTI MND family carers
Physical activity and rehabilitation
Cluster leads
- Associate Professor Seth O'Neill (Research Director and Associate Professor in Physiotherapy)
- Dr Lesley McBride (Physiotherapy MSK Lecturer and Researcher)
We are a group of researchers focusing on physical activity and physical and biopsychosocial interventions for people living with acute and long-term conditions across the whole lifespan. Our primary focus is on Musculoskeletal conditions like tendon pain and rupture and muscle injuries.
What we do
Our work uses a variety of methods spanning the breadth of health research from fundamental science right up to implementation.
We are particularly interested in physical testing (strength tests of the cervical muscles (neck), plantarflexors (calf) and tendon function with a strong focus on the Achilles tendon.
We have a human movement laboratory on campus and share resources with the Leicester Biomedical Research Centre based at the Leicester General Hospital.
We have extensive local, national and international collaborations and aim to produce impactful research improving health care nationally and internationally.