PhD Studentship: Measuring and Monitoring the Safety of Care in the Home

Supervisors: Dr Adam Sutherland, Professor Beth Fylan

Summary of Project

We are inviting applications to commence study for a PhD in the academic year 2024-25 for a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC) Scholarship. This scholarship is open to UK applicants and covers tuition fees plus £19,237 annual maintenance. This prestigious NIHR-funded award provides an exciting opportunity to pursue postgraduate research in health services and patient safety and become a member of the NIHR Academy.

The focus of this PhD will be on establishing an evidence base about how safety in monitored and measured when care is delivered at home and on developing solutions to meet the needs of patients and the health service to safely move the focus of care away from acute settings. To achieve this, you will work in partnership with patients and families and health and social care staff. The anticipated outputs will support patients and carers to be safer in their own home and to address the needs of the health service to move the focus of care away from acute settings. The aims of the PhD are therefore to:

• Understand what measures of safety are currently used or can be adapted to be used when care is delivered at home.
• Establish how safety is created and monitored when care is delivered at home and how this differs to when care is delivered in hospital or residential care settings.
• Understand the risks inherent in the home setting and how care providers understand and manage those risks.
• Create tools to support the management of safety when care is delivered at home.

Methodology

This project is predicted to use a variety of methods and the successful candidate will be supported to develop capabilities in: systematic / scoping literature review, qualitative and quantitative research methods, case study methods and co-design methods.

The PhD studentship is based in the School of Pharmacy & Medical Sciences and  the successful candidate will be supported by a variety of research groups including the Yorkshire Quality and Safety Research Group based at Bradford Institute for Health Research, the Faculty of Life Sciences Health Society People and Place research theme, and the Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research.

If you would like further information or details about this project, please contact Professor Beth Fylan (b.fylan@bradford.ac.uk).

Suitable Student Qualifications

Minimum 2.i Honours degree or equivalent. English qualification of at least IELTS 6.5.

Funding notes: This is a fully funded project for a maximum of 3 years full-time; applicants will receive a stipend and tuition fees will be funded. The successful candidate will be expected to start late January / February 2023. UK applicants only.

We would like to encourage applications from all backgrounds including the following groups:

(1) Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority students
(2) Disabled students 
(3) Female students
(4) Care leavers
(5) Polar Q1 and Q2 students
(6) Refugees given the sanctuary status of the university
(7) Estranged students
(8) Gypsy, Roma, Traveller students
(9) Children from military families, veterans and partners of military personnel.

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