Professor Chris Salisbury is Professor of Primary Health Care and an NIHR Senior Investigator. He has published 5 books and over 250 research papers on the broad topic of how to improve provision of primary care. He has conducted several high-profile evaluations of new models of care, such as changes in out-of-hours arrangements, NHS walk-in centres, GPs with Special Interests, telehealth for chronic disease management, and the potential of new forms of consultation such as e-consultations. In recent years he has focused on how health care should address the challenge of the growing number of people with multimorbidity.

Professor Salisbury was one of the first to recognise the tension between the increasing standardisation of care for individual chronic diseases, while the ageing population means that many people have several conditions at one time (multimorbidity). He conducted the first study of the epidemiology of multimorbidity in the UK, along with systematic reviews on the prevalence, outcomes and measurement of multimorbidity. Professor Salisbury has championed the case for providing more patient-centred care for patients with multimorbidity. He has developed and evaluated interventions to improve chronic disease management, including the largest ever trial of an intervention for patients with multimorbidity – the 3D trial.  The findings from this trial were published in the Lancet in 2018. Professor Salisbury recently co-chaired the MRC call for research on multimorbidity, was a member of the RCGP patient-centred care commission, and a member of the Taskforce on Multiple Conditions established by the Richmond Group of Charities. He is currently involved in a trial of an intervention to improve prescribing for patients with multimorbidity who experience polypharmacy.

Professor Salisbury has been a board member for the NIHR Health Services & Delivery Research programme and the NIHR School for Primary Care Research, chair of the RCGP Scientific Foundation Board and RCGP Research Paper of the Year Panel, and a member of several other national and international boards and advisory bodies. In December 2018 he gave the prestigious James Mackenzie lecture at the RCGP AGM, entitled ‘Designing health care for the people who need it’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1dydRE-WUA). In 2023 he was awarded the RCGP George Abercrombie prize for outstanding contribution to the literature on general practice.