University of Glasgow

Faculty Member, General Practice and Primary Care

Professor of Primary Care Research/Head of Unit

Institute of Health and WellBeing within MVLS

About

I am Professor of Primary Care Research and Head of General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Glasgow, based within the Institute of Health and WellBeing.  I also work part time as a general practitioner at the McColl Medical Practice based within Thornliebank Health Centre in Glasgow. 

I lead a programme of research looking at the implementation and evaluation of innovative services and technologies and care delivery issues for those with multiple morbidity, especial heart failure using mixed methodologies.

Since my arrival in Glasgow in 2005 I have been PI or co-investigator on nearly £ 8 million of grant funding from DoH, MRC, ESRC, SFC, CSO, British Heart Foundation, EU and Marie Curie.  My work involves
collaboration with the Universities of Dundee, Aberdeen, Southampton, Liverpool, UCL, National University of Ireland (Galway), Radboud University (Nijmegen),  University of Crete, University of Melbourne and the Mayo Clinic and interdisciplinary working with colleagues from medical sociology, psychology, computing science, and business and management backgrounds as well as industrial colleagues. Examples of recent projects include: (http://www.sdo.nihr.ac.uk/sdo1352006.html;
http://www.fastuk.org/research/projview.php?id=1334).

I was a member of the Royal Society Working Group that produced the 2006 report on Digital Healthcare and am former President of the Royal Society of Medicine Telemedicine and e-Health Section.

A key collaborator is Professor Carl May, of the University of Southampton, and I am particularly interested in using his Normalisation Process Theory to help increase understanding of why complex
interventions become embedded or not within routine health care delivery contexts but importantly also its potential to explore the issue of patient "work" and how to conceptualise self management issues for those with long term conditions.

Together with Prof May and Prof Victor Montori (Mayo Clinic) I have begun to explore the idea of "Minimally Disruptive Medicine" (see http://minimallydisruptivemedicine.org/) and the subject  of "Treatment Burden" an issue of growing importance in view of the increasing
prevalence of chronic illness and multiple morbidity.

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