MRes Health Research (Online), University of Stirling
Anne Downing, Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust
I am a hospital pharmacist by background but in May 2024 took up a secondment to NHS England (NHSE)’s Medicines Repurposing Programme, based in specialised commissioning. This secondment has used skills I developed at university and medicines information training to search literature, critically appraise evidence and synthesise into appropriate outputs. From this secondment I have realised that I have knowledge gaps in research, for example why particular methodologies are chosen and quantitative analysis.
My career aspiration is to work for an organisation like NHSE, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) or National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), using research outputs to inform patient and cohort-level decision making. I look towards NHSE colleagues in policy, commissioning and innovative treatments, and in all of these areas I recognise that having a firm grasp of the research is essential to making evidence-based, fair and legal decisions for patients. Furthermore, for medicines for rare diseases, NHS England either commissions directly or works with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to commission studies to develop the evidence-base for future use.
As I go through my career I aim to impact larger groups of patients. I started with individual patients on my ward, increasing to specific groups through patient group directions, through to the whole hospital through policies and guidelines, and currently to medicines repurposing to positively impact people with specific diseases. In order to continue on this trajectory, I believe I require more training in research methods to accurately interpret the research to create policy or to commission further research. In particular, understanding different statistical tests, their meaning in real-life and their disadvantages would be of particular benefit to assess whether drug companies’ claims reflect the primary literature. Beyond this, in the future I would like to undertake doctoral studies and research, finding a portfolio career pathway if possible.
The PRUK training bursary would allow me to undertake the proposed MRes with protected time away from full-time NHS service to focus on developing skills for the next steps in my career. I have been studying for BSc Geography and Environmental Science with the Open University for the past three years. Having studied part-time alongside full-time work, I understand the stress involved but also the inability to get everything out of it. Therefore, I would like to reduce to part-time work (3.5 days/week) to ensure I engage with all the facets of the course and other university services available to me.
