Featured Blogs
Academic Leadership: Sit on the sidelines or ‘dare greatly’?
11 December 2024
As the first cohort of MSc Global Healthcare Leadership graduates, Professor Kamal Mahtani reflects on leadership's core challenge: daring to make a difference.
The Human Connection: Why Relational Continuity Matters in General Practice
Strong, lasting relationships between patients and their clinicians can improve outcomes, reduce costs, and strengthen the NHS. Here, our Workforce and Learning Research Group explores the evidence behind relational continuity of care and how rebuilding these human connections could be key to the future of primary care.
Veganuary and Beyond: Practical Tips for Sustainable Eating
With Veganuary underway, Lia Willis explores how our everyday food choices affect both the planet and our wellbeing - and how small, achievable changes can make a real difference.
Pathways into emergency care and what they reveal about inequality
Emergency departments are central to the NHS, but inequalities in emergency care may begin well before patients arrive. Drawing on new evidence, this blog explores how socioeconomic deprivation shapes routes into emergency departments, and why referral pathways, more than deprivation itself, influence patient experiences and outcomes. The findings highlight the wider urgent care system as a key lever for reducing inequality and pressure on emergency services.
Listening to Workforce Voices: Rethinking Sustainability in Under-Served General Practice
As concerns about workforce sustainability in general practice continue to grow, particularly in under-served communities, this blog reflects on how evidence and lived experience can inform one another. Drawing on the Workforce Voices research programme and a co-production workshop with GP tutors, it explores what sustains people in their roles – and why listening to those on the frontline matters as much as policy ambition.
From conflict to connection: Challenging polarisation in medical debates
Medical debates around early detection and overdiagnosis have become increasingly polarised, often masking shared values and ethical complexity. Here, Elspeth Davies reflects on why evidence alone cannot resolve these conflicts – and how changing our language and listening practices could help move medicine from entrenched disagreement toward more constructive dialogue.
Storytelling to undo sexism, shame, and stigma: Dr Tori Ford presents evidence to Parliament
On 3 December 2025, Dr Tori Ford gave oral evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry into the reproductive health of women and girls, speaking as a gender health equity researcher and Founder and Executive Director of Medical Herstory.
PPI workforce recognition – where next?
The workforce supporting patient and public involvement in research has grown, but career pathways and recognition haven't kept pace. Here, we reflect on our work to define the skills needed for these roles – and why that alone isn't enough.
Menopause: moving on from myths and misinformation
Finding joy, peer support, and the fight against misinformation: Dr Anne-Marie Boylan reflects on a public event she held on 29 November to discuss menopause
Seeds of change: Reflections on the Decolonising Global Health blog series
10 December 2025
We've reached the final chapter of our twelve-part journey through decolonising global health. This instalment brings together contributions from several of our series participants – colleagues who have challenged assumptions, shared hard truths and opened new pathways forward. As we reflect on where we've been and revisit key themes from across the series, we also turn our gaze towards the future and the ongoing work of shifting power, transforming practice and reframing how we see global health itself.
Values blog series: Why Ambition matters for wellbeing
Anne Ferrey, this year’s Ambitious Value Award winner, reflects on what ambition really means and how it can support our wellbeing when we approach it with flexibility, purpose and care.
From ballet to DPhil: completing a doctorate at 78
After a 60-year career in professional ballet, a Rosamund Snow Scholar shares their experience of completing an Oxford DPhil at 78, researching how clinicians communicate with elite dancers facing career-ending injuries.
Values Blog Series: Why Collaborations matters for wellbeing
Our department’s Values guide how we work together, support each other, and create a positive place to be. They aren’t just words — they influence our wellbeing every day. This new blog series invites the winners of our Values Awards to share what their award means to them, and how living these values has shaped their own and others’ wellbeing. We're kicking off the series with Anna Moore, winner of the Collaborative award.
Lessons on accompaniment: November edition of the Decolonising Global Health series
26 November 2025
Drawing on parallels between palliative care and global health practice, MSc in Translational Health Sciences alumnae Debbie Dada and Anne Neumann reflect on the concept of ‘accompaniment’ - walking alongside communities, listening deeply and committing to shared struggle. They invite readers to consider how relational practice can help reimagine decolonisation as co-liberation.
Can technology help people with COPD stay well at home? Lessons from a UK rapid evaluation
As the NHS expands digital support for long-term conditions, a new rapid evaluation from our DECIDE programme examines how technology-enabled remote monitoring is working for people with COPD. By exploring patient and staff experiences across four NHS sites, the study highlights what TERM can offer, where it falls short, and what services need to ensure remote monitoring genuinely supports people to stay well at home.
Navigating GP access and triage: Resources to support patients
For patients, understanding how decisions are made about the format, urgency and staffing of the care they receive in their GP practice can feel complicated. By examining everyday interactions, our ModCons study has shed light on how decisions are made in general practice - and created a visual guide to help patients understand how to book an appointment and get the right kind of care from their GP practice.
Beyond the dipstick: why we need better UTI diagnosis in care homes
21 November 2025
Why diagnosing UTIs in care home residents is challenging and how new diagnostic tests could reduce inappropriate antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance. Dr Abi Moore, a care home GP, shares insights from research with older people.
Prescription without diagnosis: Why LMICs must lead with evidence in healthcare
20 November 2025
In this blog, MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership student Dr Cosmas Mugambi reflects on concepts from the ‘Leading with evidence-based healthcare’ module of the programme, specifically how it may be applied to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
People at the Heart of AMR: Driving Change Through Collaboration and Community
The PEOPLE AMR Network brings together researchers, clinicians and communities to tackle antimicrobial resistance through co-designed interventions. Led by Oxford with UKRI funding, we're building people-centred solutions for prudent antimicrobial use.
How Real-World Evidence in Wales Is Empowering Informed Antibiotic Use
How can CRP point-of-care tests tackle antimicrobial resistance? The SPARROW study in Wales investigates real-world implementation of rapid testing to support smarter antibiotic prescribing in primary care.
Making the most of a long summer: My NIHR internship in Health Economics at Oxford
13 November 2025
For PPE students, a summer spent in a healthcare research department may not seem the usual path, but for Leyi Pan an NIHR Health Economics internship at in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences was the perfect fit. In this reflective blog, Leyi shares insights from her eye-opening experience, exploring the rigour, real-world impact, and ethical depth of research that shapes health policy and wellbeing.
Reimagining Type 2 Diabetes Prevention and Management: From Lived Experience to Digital Equity
For World Diabetes Day, Dr Eleanor Barry shares insights from her DPhil in Primary Health Care, exploring how to build more equitable and digitally inclusive approaches to type 2 diabetes prevention and management.