Professor of Primary Care
0113 343 4879
G14; Charles Thackrah Building
Qualifications
2004 PhD - Edinburgh
1997 MFPHM - Royal College of Physicians (Faculty of Public Health Medicine)
1995 MSc in Public Health & Epidemiology - Manchester
1992 MRCGP - Royal College of General Practitioners
1991 DCH - Royal College of Physicians (London)
1988 MBChB - Edinburgh
Current and Previous Roles
Robbie joined the Leeds Institute of Health Sciences in September 2008. He has held previous posts in Newcastle University (Clinical Senior Lecturer in Primary Care 2002-8) and the University of Edinburgh (MRC/Scottish Executive Health Department Training Fellow in Health Services Research, 1998-2002). Prior to this, he completed training in general practice and in public health medicine. He was a 2006-7 Harkness / Health Foundation Fellow in Health Care Policy, based jointly between the Veteran's Administration Centre for the Study of Healthcare Provider Behavior and RAND in Los Angeles. His research focuses on understanding and closing the gap between best evidence and routine practice.
Robbie also works one day per week as a general practitioner at Craven Road Medical Practice in Leeds.
Current Research Interests
1. Measuring and understanding the uptake of evidence-based practice
This theme is mainly based around hypothesis generating studies, qualitative and quantitative, to describe and explain the uptake of evidence-based practice. This will entail:
- Identifying health problems with high impacts (e.g. mortality, morbidity, costs) where there are potentially significant gaps between evidence and practice
- Developing criteria and methods for measuring the implementation of evidence-based practice;
- Identifying patterns of variations in implementation (e.g. areas of care where all or most practices perform poorly, subsets of practices or patients consistently associated with poorer performance); and
- The use of individual and system-level theories and frameworks in diagnosing the most important causes of inappropriate variations that are amenable to change.
2. Changing clinical and organisational practice
Work in this theme is mainly based around hypothesis testing studies to estimate the effects of implementation strategies with embedded process evaluations to explore causal mechanisms. It will entail:
- The design of implementation strategies targeting the most important determinants of practice based upon available systematic reviews, diagnostic analyses (theme 1) and the explicit mapping of intervention elements to key determinants of change;
- Randomised and quasi-experimental studies to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of interventions; and
- Theory-based process evaluations, using qualitative and quantitative methods, embedded within intervention studies to explore and explain effects.
3. Methodology
This theme inherently incorporates many of the methodological aspects and tasks embedded in the aforementioned themes. However, one further critical objective is to critically engage with national and international researchers and quality improvement leaders in order to advance the methodological and epistemological debate about how research can best inform and influence the implementation of high quality health care.
Current and Recent Research
Evaluation of screening for depression in patients with chronic physical disease in primary care. Foy, R, Alderson S, McLintock K, West R, Potrata B, House A, Johnson K. NIHR Research for Patient Benefit. £242141; 2011-13 for 18 months. Principal Investigator
Incentives, inequalities and influences: an evaluation of a local pay-for-performance scheme for primary care. Foy R, Glidewell L, West R, Hand W, Doran T, Newton M. NIHR Research for Patient Benefit. £203,339; 2011-13 for 18 months. Principal Investigator.
Understanding and Improving the Outcome of Viral Encephalitis. Solomon T, Levin M, Riley J, Jacoby A, Kopelman M, Easton A, Menson E, Foy R, Lara M, Faragher B, Eccles M, Brown D. NIHR Programme Grant. £1999987; 2009-14 for 60 months. Co-investigator.
Closing the gap between guidelines and practice in primary care. Eccles M, Foy R, Bradshaw C, Lambert M, Cassidy P, Steen N, Cook J. NHS South of Tyne and Wear. £249,620; 2009-12 for 36 months. Co-investigator.
Improving the management of pain from advanced cancer in the community (IMPACCT). Bennett MI, Stark D, Brown J, Foy R, Godfrey M, Jones R, Closs SJ, Flemming K, Hulme C, Rainey P, Pavitt S, Dempster P, Bewick B, Fox D, NIHR programme Development Grant. £99729; 2009-10 for 12 months. Co-investigator.
Developing Criteria for Context Sensitive Patient Safety Practices. Shekelle PG, Wachter R, Pronovost P (Co-Principal Investigators); Hempel S, Foy R, Øvretveit J, Rubenstein L. US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. US $999,983; 2008-9 for 12 months. Co-investigator.
Advancing the Science of Continuous Quality Improvement: A Framework for Identifying, Classifying and Evaluating Continuous Quality Improvement Studies. Rubenstein LV, Shekelle PG (Co-Principal Investigators); Hempel S, Foy R, Ogrinc G. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. US $221,028; 2008-9 for 12 months. Co-investigator.
An evaluation of a quality improvement system for diabetes care. Foy R, Hawthorne G, Gibb I, Eccles M, Hrisos S, Steen N. Newcastle Primary Care NHS Trust. £14738; 2008 for 4 months (for extended follow up to project below). Principal investigator.
Developing and evaluating the effectiveness of educational prompts in improving diabetes care. Foy R, Hawthorne G, Gibb I, Eccles M, Hrisos S, Steen N, White T. Newcastle Primary Care NHS Trust. £69,523; 2005-7 for 12 months. Principal investigator.
Harkness / Health Foundation Fellowship in Health Care Policy. Foy R.
Teaching Responsibilities
Supervision of students on MSc and Intercalated BSc courses in Primary Care
PhD Supervision
I am interested in understanding and changing professional behaviour
Current PhD Students
Dr Kate McLintock. Influences on the management of depression associated with chronic disease in primary care. Co-supervised with Prof Allan House
Dr Sarah Alderson. Beliefs about depression associated with chronic physical disease. Co-supervised with Prof Allan House and Dr Liz Glidewell
Guanyang Zou. Integrating and improving tuberculosis care in the general hospitals: a case study in two counties of Zhejiang province, China. Co-supervised with Prof John Walley and Prof Xiaolin Wei (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Professional Activities
Deputy editor of the BioMed Central journal, Implementation Science (2005 to present) http://www.implementationscience.com/
Member of NICE Implementation Strategy Group (2008 to present)
Chair of Local Organising Committee, Annual Scientific Meeting 2010, UK Society for Behavioural Medicine: http://uksbm.org.uk/
Fellow, NHS Improvement Faculty (2009 to present)
Executive member, West Yorkshire Comprehensive Local Research Network (CLRN, 2009 to present)
Chair, West Yorkshire CLRN Primary care Advisory Group (2008 to present)