Dr Catherine Pope

My role

Professor of Medical Sociology at University of Southampton and Deputy Director NIHR CLAHRC Wessex. 

My responsibilities

Researcher and Educator. Leading and doing research about the organisation and delivery of health services.

My teaching focuses on research methods and social sciences applied to health care at undergraduate and postgraduate level. I also teach and supervise postgraduates in the EPSRC Web Science Centre for Doctoral Training.

In CLARHC Wessex I have responsibility for the training and development of staff and for improving the impact of our work. I contribute my academic expertise across the themes and research projects as needed.

My background

I trained in sociology and research methods, and have spent thirty years working higher education in London, Leicester, Bristol and Southampton (with a brief early stint in an NHS District Hospital planning department). 

Why I love my job

I get to work with inspirational people who deliver health care, and teach students about theory and methods that can help us improve services and care. My mission is ‘to make a positive difference’ and I know this is something that Solent NHS Trust and its Academy does every day, so I love working with them!  

More about me

I am a licensed Springboard Women’s Development trainer and deliver this award winning programme in Southampton.

I serve on the editorial boards of Sociology of Health and Illness, Digital Health, and the Journal of Health Services Research and Policy and I am a past editor of Sociology.

I am also a member of the Health Foundation founding cohort of the 'Q' quality improvement initiative and an elected member of the Academy of Social Sciences Council, Health Services Research UK, and the Society for the Studies in Organising Healthcare.

Current projects/research studies

Current projects include studies of

• urgent care help seeking

• using a network tool called GENIE to understand how social isolation might make people attend emergency departments

• why interventional doctors do and don't follow safety rules

• how to tailor e-health interventions to make them work better

Published work

Over 200 publications across sociology and a range of disciplines, and in applied and clinical journals. Books include:

• Gabbay J, le May A, Pope C, Robert G (2011) Organisational innovation in health services: lessons from the NHS treatment centres. Bristol, Palgrave.

• Pope C, Mays N, Popay J. (2007) Synthesizing qualitative and quantitative health evidence: a guide to methods. Buckingham: Open University Press. Japanese translation 2009, Igaku-Shoin Ltd, Tokyo.

• Pope C, Mays N. (Eds) (2006) Qualitative research in health care 3rd Oxford: Blackwell/ BMJ (2nd Edition, 1999; 1st Edition, 1996; Japanese translation, 2001; Portuguese translations, 2005, 2007)

Some recent papers include:

• Pope C, Turnbull J. (2017) Using the concept of hubots to understand the work entailed in using digital technologies in healthcare. Journal of Health Organization and Management 31(5):556-566

• Pope C, Turnbull J, Prichard J, Jones J, Rowsell A, Halford S. (2017) Has the NHS 111 urgent care telephone service been a success? Case study and secondary data analysis in England. BMJ Open

• Pagel C, Banks V, Pope C, Whitmore P, Brown K, Goldman A, Utley M. (2017) Development, implementation and evaluation of a tool for forecasting short term demand for beds in an intensive care unit. Operations Research for Health Careorg/10.1016/j.orhc.2017.08.003

• Cameron A, Brangan E. Wye L, Gabbay J, Klein JH, Pope C. (2017) Discourses of Joint Commissioning. Health and Social Care in the Community doi: 10.1111/hsc.12462.

• Reidy C, Kennedy A, Pope C, Ballinger C, Vassilev I, Rogers A. (2016) Commissioning of Self-Management Support for people with long-term conditions: An exploration of commissioning aspirations and processes. BMJOpen 6:e010853