Supervision

Geoff's research interest is in the use of realist approaches to make sense of complex health and social interventions. Students interested in undertaking a full or part-time Masters or DPhil at the Department in Oxford using realist synthesis and/or realist evaluation in their research are invited to contact him.

Current DPHil students

Adrian Rohrbasser

Katrin Micklitz

Courses

Realist Reviews and Realist Evaluations

Geoff joined the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences team in March 2015. He is a highly experienced and internationally recognised expert in realist synthesis and evaluation and works closely with researchers in the field of evidence syntheses of complex health and social interventions.

Clinically he works as a General Practitioner (GP) in Swiss Cottage, north London. He has previously worked at University College London and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

He gained his first degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Cambridge and his MBBS from Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital. He undertook his vocational training in north London and is currently a GP Trainer. His MD(Res) on the use of the Internet in medical education was supervised by Professors Trish Greenhalgh and Ray Pawson.

Geoff’s research centres on making sense of complex health and social interventions in which context and human agency are key. His work focuses on applying a realist logic of analysis in evidence syntheses or evaluations to explain and understand these types of interventions.

Researchers interested in realist syntheses or realist evaluations may wish to join the RAMESES JISCMail email list or visit the RAMESES Projects website.

Current research projects:

• Optimising a whole-person-centred approach to stopping medicines in older people with multimorbidity and polypharmacy: the Tailor Medication Synthesis (funder: NIHR HTA Programme)
  

• Remediating doctors’ performance to restore patient safety: A realist review (funder: NIHR HS&DR Programme)
  
  

• Care Under Pressure: a realist review of interventions to tackle doctors’ mental ill-health and its impacts on the clinical workforce and patient care (funder: NIHR HS&DR Programme)

• Improving the evidence-base for primary care: NIHR Evidence Synthesis working group (funder: NIHR SPCR)

• NIHR Systematic Review Fellowship (supervision of Fellow - funder: NIHR TCC)

• Effective Psychotherapy in Integrating Care (EPIC) Study (funder: Health Services Research & Development, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs)

• Independent Evaluation of SITA Africa: Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (funder: DFID)

• Developing a framework for a novel multi-disciplinary, multi-agency intervention(s), to improve medication management in older people on complex medication regimens resident in the community - the MEMORABLE project (funder: NIHR HS&DR Programme)

• Optimising hearing-Related Communications for Home Care Residents with Dementia (ORCHARD): a realist synthesis (funder: RfPB Programme)

Completed research projects:

• RAMESES II: Realising the potential for realist research for improving the delivery of health services (funder: NIHR HS&DR Programme)

• Interventions to improve antimicrobial prescribing of doctors in training: A realist review (funder: NIHR HS&DR Programme)

• Internet-based learning for training health care professionals in service: A realist review (funder: World Health Organization)

• Does therapeutic writing help people with long term conditions? Systematic review, realist synthesis and economic modelling (funder: NIHR HTA Programme)
   
• RAMESES (Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards): A project to develop methodological guidance and publication standards for realist and meta-narrative forms of systematic review and provide support to teams undergoing such reviews (funder: NIHR SDO Programme)
   
• Research synthesis in action: This project explored the potential for using Realist synthesis in partnership with NICE and was refined to focus on understanding the use of legislative interventions in public health policy (funder: ESRC)
   
• The use of the Internet in Medical Education: A project that used realist synthesis to understand the ‘in what circumstances, for whom and how to best to use’ the internet in medical education (funder: NoCLoR)