The Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research is acknowledged internationally as one of the UK’s leading centres for health services and health policy research in primary care.
We aim to:
- Deliver high-quality research to inform the development of primary care;
- Disseminate and support implementation of research findings to promote the development of evidence-based primary care;
- Build capacity in primary care research.
Our work is multidisciplinary and brings together staff who are GPs, health services researchers, health economists,psychiatrists, sociologists, psychologists and statisticians.
The Centre is a founder member of the prestigious NIHR School for Primary Care Research, a collaboration of nine leading primary care departments in England.
We also make major contributions to:
- NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaboration
- NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Systems and Commissioning (HSSC)
- NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC GM)
- NIHR PRU Health and Social Care Systems and Commissioning
- NIHR Policy Research Unit in Healthy Ageing
- NIHR REVAL Rapid Service Evaluation Team
- NIHR Rose NET National Evaluation Team
Led by: Professor Peter Bower.
Our research
We have four themes of high relevance to care delivery.
Health Organisation, Policy and Economics (HOPE)
This interdisciplinary group undertakes research on the determinants of health, health inequalities, and the organisation and financing of health and social care services.
Our expertise encompasses rigorous econometric analysis and a wide range of qualitative social scientific methods, including particular experience in the use of ethnographic approaches to understand organisational processes.
We use mixed methods to study the important challenges facing health and care systems, including:
- Care organisation, delivery and integration;
- Payment and incentive systems;
- Determinants of health and health inequalities;
- Working conditions and labour supply.
HOPE provides a vibrant research community, with weekly internal or external seminars, a reading group, and frequent international visitors. The group compromises over 50 staff and PhD students, including economists, clinicians, social scientists, health service and policy researchers.
We aim to inform the development of future health and care policy, and communicate our findings to government, policy-makers, practitioners and academics.
Led by: Professor Kath Checkland and Professor Matt Sutton.
Our activity
- Ongoing projects include evaluations of health and social care devolution in Greater Manchester, integrated care models in England and Europe, and the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme.
- We are part of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Systems and Commissioning (HSSC).
- We have examined the work experiences of GPs for 20 years, most recently surveying GPs in 2017.
- We undertake research on various aspects of the primary care workforce, including the career choices of junior doctors and skill-mix in primary care teams.
- We also help to manage the Health Policy and Politics Network (HPPN) and the UK Health Economists' Society, HESG.
Quality and safety
This theme focuses on conducting innovative, needs-driven and applied research to improve quality of care and patient safety in primary care, particularly in general practice and community pharmacy as well as the interface of hospital and social care.
We are an interdisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians in primary care, pharmacy, mental health, informatics, epidemiology and statistics.
We develop and test the mechanisms for high quality, safer primary care systems, which are integrated with hospital and community settings.
Our aims are to:
- Work together with patients, carers, members of the public and healthcare providers using a co-design and learning approach that takes a shared responsibility approach to better quality of care and making health and care safer
- Develop ground-breaking digital and behavioural interventions to facilitate effective communication between patients, healthcare providers and healthcare systems creating cycles of continuous safety improvement.
- Create evidence-based strategies to reduce common sources of patient safety problems (e.g. medication and prescribing) and improve safety in marginalised groups of patients.
Led by Professor Stephen Campbell and Dr Maria Panagioti.
Our activity
- We host the Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (GM PSTRC), which was funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) in 2012 and received a second award in 2017 for five years.
- GM PSTRC is the first patient safety centre with a focus on primary care at the interface of hospital and community care.
- We work closely with colleagues across The University of Manchester and other universities nationally (e.g. University of Nottingham, Cardiff University) and internationally.
Person-centred care and complex health needs
We focus on ensuring patient and professional experience is at the centre of research to address health and healthcare needs. We have particular expertise in self-management, multimorbidity, mental health and health technology assessment.
Our aims are:
- To conduct high quality research into the delivery, effectiveness and experience of care for patients with long-term conditions.
- To have a demonstrable impact on the delivery of care for long-term conditions nationally and internationally.
To achieve this, we:
- Develop evidence-based interventions grounded in an in-depth understanding of everyday lives and practices to manage health and illness, and the interface with routine clinical practice.
- Navigate the challenge of maximising the utility of technologies/interventions while minimising treatment burden for patients and unnecessary clinician workload.
- Support system resilience through collaboration across the interfaces of care and through partnership with patients, carers and members of the public.
Led by Professor Caroline Sanders and Dr Thomas Blakeman.
Our activity
- Health and illness experience – understanding such experiences is crucial for designing and evaluating interventions to support management of long-term conditions and for maximising health and wellbeing, minimising deterioration and secondary morbidity.
- Primary care mental health – improving quality and access to primary mental health care for people with either common mental health problems or serious mental illness.
- Multimorbidity and frailty – develop the evidence base to improve the delivery of care for people living with multiple long-term conditions.
- Technology and service delivery – focused on their role for supporting management of long-term conditions, including physical and mental health problems.
Health in a wider context
We focus on how the wider context impacts on health and on health and care policy.
Wider influences are important in shaping patterns of health, health inequalities and in designing efficient and equitable health and care systems.
There is a major challenge in understanding the relationships between the health and social care system and population health in different contexts. Little is known about the boundaries between the formal care system, community assets, informal care in families, and individual health behaviours.
We are also interested in the full patient pathway, from primary care, to secondary care, and back to primary care, especially in the context of cardiovascular disease.
The wealth of data routinely collected across both primary and secondary care is vastly underutilised. These datasets can be linked to others to provide clear geographical snapshots of service quality, disease burden, finances and socioeconomic deprivation, and identify regional differences. It can then be used to address a range of primary care research questions.
Led by Professor Evan Kontopantelis and Dr Luke Munford.
Our activity
- Epidemiology and time trends of chronic conditions, processes, health service utilisation and medication use.
- Particular interest in cardiovascular disease.
- Inequalities and regional variation in health outcomes (across and within English and UK regions).
- Spatial analyses and mapping.
- Risk prediction modelling and machine learning approaches.
- Methodological research in this, especially in large observational databases.
- Applying statistical and econometric methods to existing secondary data to investigate the causes and consequences of health and health inequalities.
Mental health
Our focus is on improving health outcomes and making service provision safer for people with mental ill health in primary care and across wider services (especially during transitions of care). We are also interested in preventative strategies for mental health and wellbeing of larger population groups in primary care and community settings.
We are an interdisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians. Our specialisms are in primary care, psychology, psychiatry, nursing, pharmacy, epidemiology, social science, economics and statistics.
We aim to:
- Better understand which subgroups of people with ill mental health experience poor health outcomes, care inequalities and safety risks.
- Co-design and test innovative organisational solutions and psychosocial interventions to improve the wellbeing and safety of people with ill mental health.
- Co-design and test preventative strategies to maintain and improve mental health and wellbeing.
- Build equitable partnerships, and share learning and capacity in mental health research between high and low resource settings.
We use mixed-method approaches, such as:
- Methodologically advanced evidence syntheses (network meta-analysis, individual participant data meta-analysis, mixed-method reviews).
- Quantitative observational research (patient/staff/population surveys, analysis of routinely collected patient and administrative data records).
- Qualitative research.
Our service solutions and psychosocial interventions are co-designed in partnership with patients and carers. We use rigorous consensus building exercises with practitioners, providers, commissioners and researchers. This is to ensure that these are evidence-based and a good fit for routine clinical practice.
We test the feasibility and acceptability of our service solutions and psychosocial interventions in feasibility studies. In these, we assess their effectiveness using a range of designs, including quasi-experimental studies, observational studies and randomised controlled trials.
Led by Professor Maria Panagioti
Our activity
- Best practice solutions in transitions of care: Refine and test care bundles to improve the wellbeing and safety of patients and their carers discharged from mental health hospitals into primary care, including adults, young people, and people with dementia.
- Healthcare staff wellbeing: Examine the precursors of burnout among primary care staff, its impact on staff disengagement and unsafe patient care. Make recommendations and practice improvements to enhance the wellbeing and teamwork of primary care staff.
- Service delivery interventions: Examine the effectiveness of collaborative care for reducing depression and suicidal ideation among people with mental-physical multimorbidity. Understand which patient subgroups might benefit most from collaborative care.
- Low intensity psychosocial interventions: These include psychosocial, behavioural or peer-support interventions to improve health outcomes and reduce safety risks for subgroups of people with ill mental health. This includes people at risk for suicide, people with mental-physical multimorbidity and people exposed to traumatic events.
- Care inequalities: Understand how to reduce care inequalities across the population and for subgroups of patients with mental ill health, such as ethnic minorities, those unable to access health services, people with dementia and carers of people with ill mental health.
- Global mental health care: Design and test preventative programmes for suicide in the primary care and community settings of low and middle income countries (LMICs). Understand and improve the health care safety of people with ill mental health in LMICS. Comprehensive psychosocial rehabilitation of people exposed to accidental injuries such as burns in LMICs.
Courses
We have a range of options if you are interested in primary care.
Postgraduate research
Search for PhD projects in related areas of research.
Postgraduate taught courses
Academic Clinical Fellow (ACF) programme
This is an NIHR-funded integrated academic training programme for junior doctors. It enables newly-qualified doctors who are interested in an academic career to pursue their academic interests in parallel with their clinical training.
Information about applications is available on the North West Deanery’s website.
Events
We have an active seminar series, covering many aspects of clinical and academic primary care.
Our seminar series is host to both internal and external speakers, covering key topics in primary care, policy, and health services research. We hold joint seminars with leading academic primary care departments in the North, sharing expertise and fostering collaboration opportunities.
View a list of our forthcoming seminars here:Public engagement
Members of the public and patients play a key role in our research.
The Centre aims to support and promote the involvement of patients and the public in health research, through our patient and public involvement group PRIMER.
Contact
If you want to know more about our work in primary care and health services research, get in touch.