Laura Jefferson
Associate Professor

Profile

Biography

Laura is an expert in qualitative and mixed methods research based in the Health Services and Policy Research Group in the Department of Health Sciences. She leads the qualitative research projects for a programme of rapid, responsive health policy research that is directly commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care. Her research portfolio is broad, using skills of rapid research and qualitative methods to address the needs of healthcare policymakers and commissioners.

Alongside this rapid policy work, Laura has received national and international recognition for her research on general practitioner workforce, most notably the ‘GP wellbeing during the COVID pandemic’ mixed methods study. Building on her work on gender in medicine, for which she was awarded her Doctorate in 2013, she has recently led research exploring gendered barriers to career progression and uptake of partnership roles in general practice.

Laura is an experienced qualitative researcher, using both traditional and more novel approaches to investigate various stakeholder perspectives and develop deeper understanding to support health policy decisions. Most recently, this includes using asynchronous online focus group methods and social media analysis to supplement wider mixed methods work and deliver research findings in fast timeframes in order to respond to rapidly evolving health policies. In 2017 she founded the Department of Health Sciences Qualitative Research Network, which grew to include 100 researchers from multiple disciplines and departments.

Qualifications

• PhD Health Sciences
• MSc Health Services Research
• BSc Health Sciences

Departmental roles

• Founder and convener of the Department of Health Sciences Qualitative Research Network (2017-2022)
• Contract Research Forum co-chair (2019-2020)
• Contract Research Forum member (2018-2020)
• Research Committee Member (2014-2019)
• Impact Co-ordinator (2021-2022)

Research

Overview

Laura uses qualitative and evidence synthesis methods to understand a broad range of health and social care research questions. Often led by rapidly evolving policy needs through her work on the PREPARE programme of fast response research, these have included topics ranging from Women’s Health to Social Prescribing.

Laura’s particular interest in workforce policy research and gender research has included the following themes:

• General practitioner wellbeing
• General practitioner workforce retention
• Gender differences in general practice career progression
• GP partnership uptake – exploring the gender pay gap in general practice
• Gender in medicine – exploring differences in hospital consultants’ working lives
• Gender differences in doctor-patient communication.

Projects

• The GP wellbeing during COVID study, funded by the NIHR Policy Research Programme to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on GP wellbeing as part of the ‘recovery, renewal, reset’ rapid policy research to inform medium- to longer-term policy decisions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (led by Dr Laura Jefferson).   
• A systematic review of ‘Barriers and facilitators to women general practitioners’ career progression’ – this built on the PREPARE project ‘Exploring gender differences in uptake of GP partnership roles’ (led by Dr Laura Jefferson).
• A rapid review and evidence map of retention strategies in general practice (led by Dr Laura Jefferson) as part of a wider project funded by the University of York, Centre for Future Health (led by Prof Karen Bloor).
• The Partnership for REsponsive Policy Analysis and REsearch (PREPARE) programme, funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme, and involving a team of researchers at the University of York (led by Karen Bloor) and the King's Fund (led by Richard Murray) this programme of research aims to improve the quality of evidence upon which strategic health policy decisions are based, by providing expert advice, policy briefings and empirical and theoretical analysis. Projects include:
  • Exploring gender differences in uptake of GP partnership roles
  • Women’s priorities for women’s health: a focus group study
  • Understanding domiciliary care in England
  • Adult social care local authority commissioning behaviours
  • The patient experience of multi-morbidity: a systematic review
  • Social prescribing and employment: a mixed methods study exploring the use of social prescribing employment support
  • Support and follow-up needs of patients discharged from intensive care after severe COVID-19: a mixed-methods study of the views of UK general practitioners and intensive care staff during the pandemic’s first wave.
• The CCE study of patient experiences of Colon Capsule Endoscopy (CCE): a mixed methods evaluation, funded by NHS England (led by Prof James Turvill, York Hospital NHS Foundation Trust). Laura led the qualitative evaluation of patients’ experiences and acceptability of using this novel diagnostic test as an alternative to colonoscopy.
• Two Week Wait study, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research (led by Dr Peter Knapp). Laura supported the final study phase of this project using qualitative interviews to explore the views patients and GPs on why patients do not attend urgent cancer referral appointments.
• Health professionals’ screening of mental health in the perinatal period: a qualitative study associated with the Born in Bradford’s Better Start (BiBBS) study.
• Exploring gender differences in doctors’ working lives. Doctoral research investigating reasons for gender differences in hospital consultant activity rates. Including the following key papers:

• • A qualitative study of gender differences in doctors’ working lives
  • Women in medicine: historical perspectives and recent trends
  • The effect of physician gender on length of patient consultations: observational findings from the UK hospital setting and synthesis with existing studies 

Randomised Controlled Trials

• The SWIFFT randomised controlled trial of treatments for scaphoid waist fractures, funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment
• The BreatheMOR-HFtrial: Morphine for Breathlessness in Heart Failure, funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment
• The PRofHER randomised controlled trial of treatments for proximal fractures of the humerus, funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment
• Education trials, funded by the Education Endowment Fund:
  • Independent Evaluation of the Discover Children's Story Centre Summer Writing Programme
  • Independent Evaluation of the Calderdale Excellence Partnership's Improving Writing Quality Progamme
  • Independent Evaluation of University of Exeter's Grammar for Writing Programme
  • Independent Evaluation of the Third Space Learning’s Online Maths Tuition Service – A cluster randomised controlled trial

Research group(s)

• Health Services and Policy Group

Publications

Full publications list

• Laura Jefferson's publications

Teaching

Postgraduate

Laura supervises postgraduate students and advises on Thesis Advisory Panels. She is open to supervising Masters and PhD students on projects using qualitative or mixed methods approaches, or with a focus on medical workforce policy research.

External activities

Memberships

• Member of the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) regional funding committee (Yorkshire and the North East)

Editorial duties

• Reviewer for funding body Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
• Reviewer for numerous journals including BMJ Open, British Journal of General Practice and the Journal of Women's Health 

Invited talks and conferences

Laura has given invited talks on her health policy research findings to national and international policymakers. She has presented at several research conferences, mostly with a focus on her gender research.

Laura has chaired a session for the York Festival of Ideas on the topic of women’s health and has been invited to participate in multiple podcasts and radio interviews on GP wellbeing and Gender in Medicine.   

Prizes and Awards