University of Southampton

Faculty Member, School of Health Sciences

Professor of Healthcare Innovation & Associate Dean, Research

About

I am a social scientist with longstanding interests in healthcare and health technologies. Lately, my interests have also come to include implementation studies of complex healthcare interventions and health technologies. I have particular interests in organizational ethnography and discourse analysis, and theory building and testing.

I offer doctoral supervision and conduct research across the range of social science research topics in medicine and health care. Since the mid 1990s, I’ve led or participated as a co-investigator in more than 60 studies – with close to £20 million in funding – and I have supervised more than 20 postgraduate theses, and post-doctoral fellowships, to successful completion. Three of my former doctoral students are now full professors and many others hold prominent academic and service positions. I welcome enquiries about doctoral and post-doctoral supervision.
My research over the next few years is going to focus on four areas – and I am particularly interested in supervising doctoral students on these and related topics.

1. Exploring the changing dynamics of professional-patient interaction in terminal care, acute illness and recovery, and chronic disease management.

2. Understanding socio-technical change in healthcare, and particularly innovation and development around clinical interventions in patient care.

3. Developing explanatory models – especially Normalization Process Theory – that help us understand how health care interventions, technologies, and practices are implemented, embedded, and integrated in everyday life. You can find out more about Normalization Process Theory at www.normalizationprocess.org

4. Promoting Minimally Disruptive Healthcare in the face of increasingly complex and fragmented health services, and the increasing transfer of burdens of treatment across the boundaries between home and health services.


I collaborate widely and internationally, usually as a member of a multi-disciplinary research team involving both clinical and social scientists. My current work includes collaborations with Victor Montori and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic on applying Normalization Process Theory in clinical trials of shared decision-making tools, and working with Mary Ellen Purkis and colleagues to develop a program of work around healthcare, organization, and practice in British Columbia, Canada. In the UK, I am beginning studies on burdens of treatment in heart failure with Frances Mair and colleagues in Glasgow, and on ehealth interventions with Elizabeth Murray and colleagues at UCL. My work on Normalization Process Theory with Tracy Finch and Tim Rapley of Newcastle University continues.

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