My role as an Assistant Professor involves utilising electronic health records for observational and interventional research. 

In the observational stream of my work, I use the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, Hospital Episode Statistics and the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project to carry out studies investigating cardiovascular disease and its prevention.  

I have been awarded a NIHR Post Doctoral Fellowship to investigate the way that we manage blood pressure in the UK.  I will use records from general practice in the UK and New Zealand to explore whether it would be best to use blood pressure thresholds or absolute cardiovascular disease risk to guide blood pressure lowering treatment.

In the interventional stream of my work, I recently completed a cluster randomised trial in 156 UK primary care practices, which investigated the effectiveness of a text message influenza vaccine reminder on vaccine uptake in at-risk groups under 65.  I am involved in the StatinWISE trial, which investigates whether statins cause muscle symptoms.  I am also interested in the use of electronic health records in randomised trials.