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PhD Studentship in Primary Health Care 2018

13 November 2017

We are inviting applications for a PhD studentship in primary healthcare funded by the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR).The award is for three years of study and includes fees and an annual tax-free stipend, normally of £16,000.

Awards will normally be taken up in October 2018. Deadline for applications: 12 noon on 14 February 2018.

Applicants must have a first degree in a discipline relevant to primary care research and will be expected to complete a PhD/DPhil during the award period. This award will fund tuition fees up to the value of Home/EU fees; students with overseas status are welcome to apply but will need to fund the remainder of their fees from alternative sources.

All applicants must ensure that their proposed research project is compatible with the published NIHR remit

Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to contact potential supervisors at the Centre for Academic Primary Care and also to look at the list of potential PhD projects (enter ‘primary care’ as your keyword search).

Further details and the application process can be found on the NIHR SPCR website.

What we offer

The Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) at the University of Bristol is one of the largest and most productive centres for primary care research in the UK. It provides high quality evidence to address some of the most important health challenges relating to primary care, including the use (and misuse) of antibiotics, managing multimorbidity, reducing avoidable hospital admissions, improving mental health, helping victims of domestic violence, enabling early cancer diagnosis, and assessing the role of telehealth.

CAPC members use qualitative and quantitative research methods and publish their research in high impact journals such as the Lancet, the BMJ, Annals of Family Medicine and the BJGP. CAPC was ranked 4th overall in the most recent Research Excellence Framework in its Unit of Assessment.

CAPC is a friendly and thriving centre comprising around 120 people, including academic GPs and nurses, statisticians, social scientists, health economists and support staff. We are based within the Bristol Medical School, in the Department of Population Health Sciences, which has an international reputation for research, with centres of excellence in genetic and life-course epidemiology, public health, health services research, medical ethics, medical statistics and health economics, as well as primary care.

CAPC offers excellent training opportunities via an internationally recognised programme of short courses offered within the Bristol Medical School. These cover a range of health services research and epidemiological methods, as well as generic and specific research skills. We have an outstanding track record of helping academic trainees to obtain prestigious externally funded research PhD and post-doctoral fellowships.

CAPC’s research sits within three broad themes:

Management of disease: Diagnosis and management of illness mainly treated in primary care, with a focus on: addiction, cancer, cardiovascular disease, childhood health, depression and anxiety, domestic violence, eczema, infection, musculoskeletal conditions.

Organisation and delivery of care: The role of primary care within the health care system, with a focus on: commissioning and quality, service delivery, avoidable hospital admissions, multimorbidity and long term conditions, prescribing, new technology and complementary therapies.

Methodology: Methodological research that aims to improve the design and conduct of randomised controlled trials and conducted in collaboration with the MRC ConDuCT-II Hub for Trials Methodology Research and the Bristol Randomised Trials Collaboration (BRTC). We are proud of our diverse expertise in methods such as conversation analysis, ethnography, meta-synthesis and analysis of large primary care data sets, to answer complex research questions aimed at improving the content and delivery of health care.

CAPC’s research aims to impact primary care practice and health policy, leading to benefits for patients. Aided by our Knowledge Mobilisation team, we seek to generate knowledge that is accessible and useful to academics, commissioners, clinicians, service providers, the voluntary sector and the public. We involve patients and the public in our research at all stages.

Further information

Contact: Dr Rebecca Barnes or visit the CAPC website for further information.

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