We’re thrilled to welcome Professor Alicia O’Cathain to our board of trustees. A leading expert in health services research, Alicia brings a wealth of experience in evaluating healthcare interventions, improving patient care and shaping health policy. In this Q&A, we delve into her career, research passions, and what she hopes to bring to her new role.
How did you first get involved in the HSR community?
I started life in academia as a statistician. As a fixed term contracts researcher on a two year contract, I was offered the opportunity to lead an evaluation of shifting minor surgery from hospital to primary care. I became a health services researcher at that point because I loved using a variety of methods to understand the feasibility, acceptability, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and safety of an innovation in the delivery of health care.
What research areas do you see becoming a priority for the HSR community in 2025?
The government has set out the priorities of analogue to digital, hospital to communities, and sickness to prevention. I think that a key funder of health and social care research - NIHR - will make calls around these priorities and this will shape the work we do in the HSR community in 2025 and beyond. Social care research will continue its rising trajectory as a key priority for HSR (which I think stands for Health care and Social care Research).
What made you want to become a HSR UK Trustee?
If I was a stick of seaside rock, I would have HSR at my centre. I am a health services researcher (working closely with social care researchers and voluntary services researchers) because I think that how our services are configured, delivered and managed has an enormous effect on people's lives. It is important to base decision-making about the configuration of services, workforce, access etc on evidence. HSR UK brings a community of people together (researchers, policy makers, service providers, experts by experience) with a common interest to learn from each other. I wanted to be a leading part of that.
What do you hope to achieve in your time as a Trustee?
I have always taken a keen interest in how we do our research e.g. writing guidance on mixed methods research, using qualitative research with randomised controlled trials, process evaluations, and intervention development. I would like to consider the debates and education that our HSR community needs to engage in around methods and facilitate this nationally. How can AI help us to do our research? How can we best communicate the utility of our research in our academic papers? How can we encourage attention to health literacy in all aspects of our research to facilitate research inclusion?
What challenges do you face when conducting HSR?
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) recognises HSR because it is named in the title of unit of assessment 2. However, I feel that methods used in other types of research are valued more than those used in real world research in HSR. We use a lot of qualitative research to explore how services work, and controlled before and after analyses to identify the extent to which service innovations achieve intended outcomes. Yet research based on randomised controlled trials is seen as of higher quality and (I think) is more likely to be assessed as 4*. We deliver high quality research to help decision-makers in the UK improve services for the 68 million people in the UK. Policy makers from other countries are often interested in how innovations fare in the UK so they can establish those innovations (or not) around the world. I think we need to promote the quality, utility, and international transferability of our approach to research and campaign to see it valued in the REF. I am delighted that HSR UK has already taken a stand on this by responding to REF consultations. It is important because universities can make decisions about the careers of individual researchers and departments based on a REF performance.