Ms Lorraine Williams
Research Fellow
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
United Kingdom
I am an experienced qualitative researcher working in the Policy Innovation Research Unit at the School. Here I have been engaged in evaluating a range of health and social care policy initiatives, I am currently working on a large mixed method national study to evaluate the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act in England. As a named co-investigator for this project, I contributed to writing and developing the research proposal and research/ethics approvals. I am leading on a case study to investigate the implementation of the Act within healthcare trusts. Recently I have been required to take a more project management and co-ordinating role for this work. This has meant much more high-level involvement in the overall project, supporting the PI and other members of the research team, liaising with the funders (DHSC policy and research team) and other key stakeholders, to ensure that the project meets its key milestones for reporting and disseminating outcomes.
I am also contributing to a mixed method study looking at food provision in early years settings in England, where my focus has been parental understanding and experience. Two papers have recently been submitted from this work, one of which I am lead author. Prior to this I led the qualitative arm of a national evaluation of heatwave planning in England. I formed part of a small team to write and develop the research proposal and led on the process of gaining NHS and LSHTM ethics approval. My role involved setting up, undertaking and coordinating the data collection and analyses within five case study sites in England. I had also contributed to other elements of the evaluation, including taking a prominent role in making links with nursing bodies to develop a survey of nursing and frontline care workers, and helped develop questions for a general public survey. I was lead author for the final report of the evaluation and co-authored a paper reporting the findings on heat health risk behaviour from the survey and qualitative interviews.
I have also made a significant contribution to understanding personalisation for older people in care homes through two major projects: evaluating the introduction of direct payments in long term residential care in England as a way of better personalising the care and services received, and another study to explore more about personalisation in care homes, and how this is conceptualised by those delivering and inspecting services. This work led to a series of papers, many of which I led or co-led on, published reports and presentations both nationally and internationally
I have also contributed to PIRU’s work investigating the legacy of Policy Pilots and contributed to a paper recently published in special series in Governance.
Affiliations
Teaching
I have been tutor and supervisor to students on the MSc Public Health programme since 2009 and am currently teaching on the MSc module Principles for Social Research. I am also the advisor for the half time MSc Programme.
Research
My research interests stem from a background in healthcare and education, focusing on exploring the impacts of health and social care policy in practice, particularly those relating to choice, both from a perspective of the user, as well as on local health and social care systems and workforce. Through my work as research fellow on a number of research programmes within the Department of Health Services Research and Policy, and particularly within PIRU, I have been able to investigate in some depth, a range of national policy initiatives and objectives. These include how commissioning is carried out in changing healthcare structures and organisations, including its effect on the workforce and user and, more recently, investigating initiatives to promote personalisation, choice and control in the care home sector through providing direct payments to the user. I now have a growing publication track record in this area, including first and second authorship in peer reviewed journals as well as published reports.
The implementation of health policies in practice have formed a key focus of my work. Within an evaluation framework I have employed qualitative and case study methodology to explore, in depth, how policies such as planning for hot weather, is working in local authorities in England including how heat-health messages are being received by the public. The outcomes from this work, including a final report and published paper on public awareness and behaviour during heatwaves, has informed an NIHR Research Alert, alongside other policy changes. Currently I am named co-investigator for an evaluation of the organ donation (deemed consent) Act, England. Within this project I have been able to employ my knowledge and experience in case study methodology with a focus on how the Act is being implemented in practice within regions in England, using the theoretical framework of normalisation process theory.
Selected Publications
Payments in Residential Care Trailblazers