Staff Profile

I am currently working on a project exploring parent-to-parent support interventions for parents of babies being cared for in neonatal units. Alongside Rebecca Whear (Principal Investigator), Jo Thompson Coon, Chris Morris, Kate Boddy, Becca Abbott, and Alison Bethel within PenCLAHRC, we are working with colleagues from the charity SNUG (Supporting Neonatal Users and Graduates), the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust and the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford. Within this year-long project, we plan to:

• bring together studies which have explored the experience of parent to parent support from the perspective of the persons giving and receiving peer support;

• determine key characteristics, components and processes that should be included in parent to parent support for parents of babies cared for in neonatal care settings, whilst on the unit and after discharge home;

• determine (where there is sufficient evidence) the effectiveness of parent to parent support interventions on the health and well-being of parents and their premature babies; and

• arrange a one-day impact conference with representatives from neonatal units, national neonatal networks, commissioners of services and parents with experience of neonatal unit life to discuss what the findings mean for clinical practice and service provision.

Another interest is in how people understand test information, and in addition to my role with the parent to parent support project I work with Professor Chris Hyde and the Exeter Test Group (http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/testgroup/) to explore medical test evaluation and associated issues such as diagnosis. We run the monthly Exeter Test Club (http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/testgroup/news/club/) which is a discussion forum for anyone interested in evaluating medical tests and testing. We meet on the first Tuesday of the month from 4-5pm, and everyone is welcome – see link for details.