Dr Nagina Khan, Senior Clinical Research Fellow, N.Khan-523@kent.ac.uk
‘GP practices across the country are experiencing significant and growing strain with declining GP numbers, rising demand,
struggles to recruit and retain staff and knock-on effects for patients.’
(British Medical Association website, Jan 2024)
The Primary Care Research Group is a team of academics and clinicians based in the Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS) at the University of Kent. Our aim is to support GPs and primary care practitioners to generate evidence and explore solutions that will address the health and care needs of the local population.
Over the last five years we have:
- established strong academic links with primary care providers in Kent and Medway. These links can help improve care quality, efficiency, staff satisfaction, recruitment, retention and population health through generating and using evidence that creates solutions for challenges in care provision.
- built a partnership between CHSS, NHS Kent and Medway and other key partners to develop a centre of excellence in delivering research.
The quadruple aim: how research adds value
Our work is built around how research can add value in achieving the ‘quadruple aim’ of healthcare (see diagram below).
Get involved
We are looking to build up a community of research-interested and research-active GPs and primary care practitioners across Kent and Medway to provide mutual support and ideas. There are different ways to be involved, including:
- Hosting local research studies
- Recruiting to National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) ‘portfolio’ studies
- Developing and implementing ‘home-grown’ research projects
- Taking part in audits and evaluations
- Writing articles and blogs
As the Primary Care Research Group we are committed to public and community involvement in research. We have significant and wide experience in this, including developing research alongside those with lived experience (co-production).
Primary Care Research – Involvement and Engagement
Why should General Practices in Kent get involved in research? Presentation (pdf)
– Dr Nagina Khan, Senior Clinical Research Fellow, CHSS and Research Involvement and Engagement Lead, Primary Care Research Community
Did you know?
Last year more than 732,000 people in the UK took part in clinical research to help improve healthcare and develop life-saving treatments in the NHS and care organisations. Thanks to these patients, we were able to continuously learn about a wide range of medical conditions and the best ways of treating them in Primary Care.
In 2022/23, over 1,700 participants were recruited into NIHR portfolio research studies in primary care in the Kent and Medway area.
Meet the Team
Clinical Lead: Dr Vanessa Short, BSc, MBBS, MRCP (2005),DCH, nMRCGP (2010), Dip Derm
Dr Vanessa Short is a GP at Newton Place Surgery in Faversham and is an honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent. She has experience and special interests in dermatology and research. As a result of Vanessa and her team’s research interests, Newton Place Surgery is a research-active practice. They are currently taking part in a large number of National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) high quality studies.
Research Involvement and Engagement Lead: Dr Nagina Khan, Senior Clinical Research Fellow RMN, BHSc (Hons), PGCert, PhD
Dr Nagina Khan is a health services and mental health researcher. She is also experienced in working as a mental health professional in both primary and secondary care. She has vast experience of leading high-performing multidisciplinary teams of medical leaders in the UK, Canada and the US, representing a diverse portfolio of subjects in research. She is a mixed methods researcher. Her role supports primary care research from the NIHR portfolio and other projects across CHSS and NHS Kent and Medway.
Research Partnerships and Funding Lead: Dr Melanie Rees-Roberts, Senior Research Fellow and ARC KSS Research Programme Manager, PhD, BSc (Hons)
Melanie is an experienced researcher and research programme manager with over 15 years’ experience in clinical research. She has worked with academics, clinicians and multi-disciplinary health professionals within university, charity and NHS settings across public health, secondary, primary, community and social care sectors.
Melanie has an interest in exploring health service delivery, patient self-management and circumstances impacting health at the individual and place level including wider determinants of health. Her current projects span population health across public health, primary and community care.
Outreach and Network Lead: Rachel Borthwick, Research Manager, BSc, MRes
Rachel spends much of her time working with GP practices in Kent, supporting them to deliver clinical research and embed it into practice. She also assists on a number of research studies that are being led by investigators based within CHSS.
Rachel has a background as a qualified nurse and midwife and has over 18 years’ research experience in the public, academic, voluntary and private sectors. Rachel has extensive experience of qualitative research and has an interest in research involving carers, self-management of long-term conditions and the interface between mental and physical health.
Primary Care Research Board:
To be confirmed.
For more information, please contact:
Rachel Borthwick (Research Manager) R.Borthwick@kent.ac.uk
Tel 01227 816242
Dr Nagina Khan (Senior Clinical Research Fellow) N.Khan-523@kent.ac.uk