Catherine Pope, Professor of Medical Sociology at the University, has been selected to join the inaugural participants of a ground-breaking new initiative to improve the quality of care for patients in the NHS.
The Q initiative, run by independent health care charity the Health Foundation together with NHS England, will connect people dedicated to improving the quality of care across the UK.
Professor Pope will join front-line clinicians, managers, researchers, policy makers and patient leaders to design, refine and test Q during 2015. The initiative will then launch more widely in 2016, with an aim to recruit significantly more participants by 2020.
Professor Pope said:
“I’m very pleased to be directly involved in the Q initiative, joining colleagues from across the spectrum of health care provision, leadership and research to effect positive changes to our country’s health care systems. This initiative is particularly important to ensuring that our focus is on actively developing and improving the delivery of patient-focused care for now and for the future.”
Through her research and teaching at the University, Professor Pope works closely with clinicians and health service managers to understand, develop and improve health care quality and services. She has undertaken evaluations of health services including Treatment Centres, and Walk-In centres, carrying out research on Ambulance Handover and Safe Nurse Staffing. Professor Pope currently teaches on nursing, midwifery and allied health degree programmes at the University.