PhD Students

Background

Gail Is a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse who has worked in Bradford community nursing across all age groups and demographics . Gail has most recently worked with the NIHR in their ARC research support group and currently works one day a week with The Born in Bradford Age of Wonder Research team to maintain her involvement and expertise in public health and research.

PhD Overview

The NHS is increasingly introducing virtual wards, many of which are digitally enabled, to support people in the place they call home. Virtual wards allow patients to get the care they need more conveniently at home, rather than being admitted to an acute hospital environment. For many patients this can be beneficial allowing them to maintain independence, social contacts and feel secure in their own environment. However, patient safety in terms of hospital inpatient care remains a challenging area to address and now  safety in the context of individual patients home appears largely unexplored.

The hospital setting offers control of variables that are for the most part, not possible to control in the community. Given that, the question arises about whether it is possible to ensure patient safety for different groups outside of the hospital setting. Gail aims to explore the safety equity of virtual wards, investigating how social setting, and the ability and education of the patients and those around them may influence their safety.

Research interests

Patient safety, equity, public health, community care, care pathways and transitions.

Shire, K, Newsham, A, Rahman, A, Mason, D, Ryan, D, Lawlor, DA, Opio-Te G, et al 2024, ‘Born in Bradford’s Age of Wonder cohort: protocol for adolescent data collection’, Wellcome Open Research, vol. 9, 32.

Johnson J. Mitchinson L. Parmar M. Opio-te G. Serrant L. & Grange A. (2021) Do Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic nurses and midwives experience a career delay? A cross-sectional survey investigating career progression barriers. Contemporary Nurse Vol. 57(1-2) 99-112

Johnson J. Cameron L. Mitchinson L. Parmar M. Opio-te G. Louch G & Grange A. (2019) An investigation into the relationship between bullying, discrimination, burnout and patient safety in nurses and midwives: Is burnout a mediator? Journal of Research in Nursing Vol 24(8) 604 – 619

Background

My background is in Nursing, and my educational background spans Public Health and Advanced Clinical Practice. I have a special interest in the care of older persons.

PhD Overview

My PhD research will explore the safety, benefits and risks of virtual wards. I hope to understand and establish evidence for this initiative to enhance its sustainability and improve standards of care.

Research interests

Health systems and policies.

Background

I graduated from the University of Hull with a 1^st class honors in BSc Psychology (Clinical) in 2023 after completing my dissertation titled: “The Effects of Naturalistic Aquarium Visits on Restoration and Wellbeing”. Following my graduation, I became a full time member of staff with Humber NHS at the Recovery and Wellbeing College. During my second year in this post, I undertook a taught MSc in Clinical Neurology at the University of Sheffield, graduating with a Merit in 2025. My MSc thesis was titled: “Brick by Brick: Building up to the discussion of sensitive topics through LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® – a systematic review”.

PhD overview

My PhD research will be first understanding and then evaluating the use of restorative approaches in response to patient safety incidents within a mental health trust.

Research interests

Publications

Background

Saima graduated with a BS in Bioinformatics from COMSATS University Islamabad, Pakistan. She started working as a Research Associate and had interest in the field of Data Science and use of data science techniques in Biology. To pursue this, she won Bestway Foundation Scholarship for Master’s degree in Data Science from University of Bradford. This is where she developed a particular interest to work with Healthcare data.

Saima is now a PhD student funded by NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration, working to investigate Patient Safety inequities.

PhD overview
Saima is applying the latest data science methods and analytic techniques to system-wide integrated data to understand variations in the quality and safety of health care. She is finding answers to pressing research questions concerning sources of inequality in patient safety for marginalised groups

Publications
None as of yet.

Background

Martha Miles holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, an MSc in Forensic Psychology, and a PGCert in Specialist Adult Mental Health. Before starting her doctorate, Martha worked as a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner in the NHS, where she developed a strong interest in how staff experiences, everyday communication, and team culture shape safety and quality in healthcare.

Martha is a PhD researcher at the University of Leeds, funded by the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC) and Applied Research Collaborative (ARC). Her work sits within the Rethinking Safety Intelligence theme.

PhD overview

Maternity services face persistent safety challenges highlighted by national inquiries, including concerns about how staff raise issues and how services listen and respond. Martha’s PhD investigates how employee voice is captured, used, and acted upon in maternity settings, and how this can improve patient safety and team culture.

Her programme aims to generate clear, feasible guidance for teams and leaders to hear, value, and act earlier on staff insights, supporting safer care, inclusion, and workforce wellbeing by integrating a systematic scoping review of approaches to capturing staff voice in maternity, subject-matter expert interviews to identify practical barriers and enablers, and a critical-realist focused ethnography of how voice is enacted and responded to in everyday practice.

Research Interests

Employee voice and soft intelligence; psychological safety; teamworking and safety culture; maternity safety; equity and inclusion in healthcare; qualitative methods and focused ethnography; implementation and improvement science.

Background:

Jacob has a master’s degree in physics from the University of Birmingham. He conducted research in computational astrophysics, automating and tailoring exoplanet detection algorithms to demonstrate a 10% improvement in detection resolution.

Jacob also has a background in mixed-methods research, working for York Consulting. He specialised in evaluating interventions across health and social care, while also designing an automated system to track the management of sensitive data throughout project lifecycles.
Jacob is now a PhD student funded by the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration. He is working in the Rethinking Safety Intelligence for Improvement theme.

PhD overview:

Jacob is researching the use of artificial intelligence, particularly large language models, to automate the analysis of text data regarding patient safety events. He is aiming to create tools to identify novel and emerging risks to patient safety and enable the utilisation of greater quantities of patient safety data.

Research interests

Background

Megan Smith is a second year PhD student at the University of Leeds, funded by NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Applied Research Collaboration. Prior to this,  Megan completed her integrated master’s degree (MSci) in Psychology at the University of York between 2018-2022.

PhD overview

Megan’s PhD investigates smoking cessation within individuals with Severe Mental Illness (SMI), as this group have a lower life expectancy than the general population, with smoking being one of the most modifiable risk factors. Standard smoking cessation guidance is often ineffective within the SMI population, yet evidence suggests these individuals are just as capable of quitting with appropriate support.

Megan aims to use the positive deviance approach to identify high performing smoking cessation practices, using this to develop a ‘gold standard’ for treatment within the SMI population. Megan hopes for this to inform healthcare staff and patient’s knowledge of appropriate and effective services, and influence policy in a way which improves quality of life and life expectancy for patients with SMI.

Research interests

• Health psychology
• Smoking cessation
• Mental health
• Positive deviance
• Improvement science
• Applied psychology

Background:

PhD overview:

Background

Hannah is currently a PhD student with the PSRC and the School of Healthcare at the University of Leeds. Hannah holds a BA (Hons) in Social and Political Sciences with Philosophy from the University of York.

Hannah’s background is in mental health service quality improvement, with a particular focus on patient and public involvement and co-production relating to service improvement and patient safety. 

PhD overview

Hannah’s PhD seeks to identify opportunities for systemic improvements which can improve the safe and effective management of self-harm in adult inpatient mental health settings. It focuses on the organisational perspective, rather than a focus on therapeutic approaches, which is under-researched and presents a strong opportunity for improvement. 

Research interests

Patient safety in mental health settings, mental health policy, patient and public involvement, co-production

Participation in Children and Young People’s Mental Health: An Essen (routledge.com)

Background:

Fatima is an experienced Elderly Care Specialist Pharmacist who previously worked at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. While there, she led quality improvement projects that motivated her to pursue further research to support elderly populations. Fatima is now a PhD student funded by the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration.

Background:

Background

Brook graduated with from the University of York with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and Linguistics and subsequently an MA in Applied Ethics. Brook became a Knowledge Transfer Associate with the Greater Manchester Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (GM CLAHRC) in 2009, supporting primary care professionals to implement NICE guidance and put research into practice through improvement collaboratives. Brook then joined Aqua, an NHS organisation that supports quality and safety improvement for health and care services. She worked as an Improvement Facilitator for shared decision making and self-management support. She completed her PGCert in Innovation and Improvements Science at Lancaster University in 2015 and then became a Senior Improvement Advisor, delivering training and facilitating quality improvement projects focused on personalised care and safety, developing an interest in human factors and how it can be applied to different quality challenges.

She completed her MSc in Human Factors and Ergonomics at Loughborough University in 2023, and having worked with a number of teams to improve their understanding and application of human factors in practice is a Technical Member of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (TechCIEHF). Brook is also an Advanced Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner and has a particular interest in working with frontline staff to make improvements based on identifying and developing the existing strengths and positive skills of teams.

Brook is now a PhD student funded by the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration, working with the Safer Systems, Cultures and Practices theme.

PhD overview

Brook’s PhD is exploring safety management systems and how learning from other industries may support safety improvement in healthcare

Research interests

Human factors, patient safety and quality, personalised care, human factors, appreciative inquiry.

Waterman, H., Boaden, R., Burey, L., Howells, B., Harvey, G., Humphreys, J., Rothwell, K. and Spence, M., 2015. Facilitating large-scale implementation of evidence based health care: insider accounts from a co-operative inquiry. BMC health services research, 15(1), pp.1-13. (https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-015-0722-6