Health, Education and Society KERI

MULTIPULM is an ambitious multi-million pound project funded by the EU which aims to deliver integrated care digital-based interventions for multimorbid patients living with chronic respiratory conditions. The project will also address health inequalities by designing an inclusive, connected and integrated care pathway. The consortium is multi-disciplinary and consists of 18 partner organisations with leading expertise in digital health and will deliver the work over 4 years. The University team led by Principal Investigator (PI) Professor Shereen Nabhani-Gebara and co-PI Professor Reem Kayyali will conduct the needs assessment and implementation strategy for the clinical trials that will take place in Serbia, Turkey and Brazil.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most pressing global health threats of our time. One major challenge in tackling AMR is the presence of biofilms—complex bacterial communities that allow microbes to survive in diverse environments. The COMBAT project—short for COMplex Biofilms and AMR Transmission—is a groundbreaking initiative which aims to identify effective ways to disrupt complex biofilms in healthcare environments, in the home and in the veterinary and animal care sectors.

Kingston University’s Professor of Medical Microbiology Mark Fielder is part of a team of international researchers working on COMBAT, funded through a Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) call.

The SkillMix-ED study aims to study how emergency departments and urgent treatment centres balance their workforce. By exploring the outcomes that are associated with different skill-mix of doctors, nurses and non-medical practitioners, it will provide information for NHS managers and clinicians designing their workforces to enhance patient care and support healthcare professionals as the demand for emergency care grows.

A pioneering research initiative is transforming how end-of-life care is planned for individuals with learning disabilities. The Victoria & Stuart Project, led by Professor of Intellectual Disability and Palliative Care Irene Tuffrey-Wijne, aimed to ensure people were better informed and actively involved in decisions about their care.

What makes the NIHR-funded project especially powerful is its inclusive approach – four members of the research team have learning disabilities themselves. It resulted in a free toolkit that supports individuals, carers, and families, created with people with learning disabilities, families, support staff, and healthcare professionals.

As the cost of living continues to surge, families – especially those in deprived areas or minoritised communities – face mounting economic pressure. The Nuffield Foundation-funded research is using data and stakeholder voices to analyse the extent financial precarity is associated with higher likelihood of child social care referral and interventions.

Led by Kingston University’s Professor of Social Work Rick Hood, the project unites expertise from the University of Sussex, Policy in Practice, the National Children’s Bureau, Research in Practice, and six local authorities. 

Find out more about the project

Antibiotic residues in wastewater drive emergence and spread of AMR. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are not designed to fully eliminate antibiotics, allowing traces to persist and eventually reach drinking water sources. Dr Khoder’s group, supported by funding from the British Council (£50K), are developing eco-friendly metal-alginate particles that selectively remove multiple antibiotic classes from water. A lab-scale vertical filtration unit incorporating these particles has already shown success, removing ciprofloxacin from sewage samples collected in UK and Turkey. These promising findings highlight potential real-world applications, either integrated into WWTPs or deployed as standalone drinking-water filters for in-house use.

There are concerning rates of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in women’s football, with female players two to six times more likely to sustain the injury compared to male counterparts. Kingston University’s Dr Simon Augustus has secured funding from the CIES FIFA Research Scholarship to investigate the effect of the menstrual cycle (and fluctuations in reproductive sex hormones) on biomechanical indicators of ACL injury risk. The findings will enable development of practical tools related to management and reduction of female specific ACL injury risk factors, and contribute towards FIFA’s aims of enhancing player wellbeing and long-lasting engagement with physical activity.

Exploring how healthcare middle-managers experience and manage the speaking up process, and the impact on their wellbeing: A mixed-methods study, is a multi-disciplinary 2-year research project funded by the MPS Foundation and adopted by the NIHR. 

The project will provide novel insights into the unique experiences and complexities of the middle-managers' role in the speaking up process, how they experience this process, their decision making around this process, and how it impacts their wellbeing in both the private and public health sectors. It will identify good practice as well as challenges, and what support or changes are needed or desirable at four different levels, namely at individual, team, hospital, and policy levels.

The project follows a four-phase, exploratory sequential mixed methods design and will result in the development of recommendations in collaboration with an Advisory Group, consisting of people with lived experience, and policy makers. 

The project is led by Professor Ann Ooms (Principal Investigator) and Dr Celayne Heaton-Shrestha (Second Principal Investigator), in collaboration with Dr Theodora Stroumpouki (Co-Investigator), Dr Helena De Rezende (Co-Investigator), Dr Chao Wang and Dr Sarah Spence. 

For more information, please visit the project website: Healthcare middle-managers’ experiences of the speaking up process

DNA and drug testing company AttoLife (formerly Anglia DNA) is set to transform its analytical drug testing services through a £275,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) funded by Innovate UK. The 30-month collaboration with Dr Brian Rooney, Associate Professor in Forensic Science, will bring advanced toxicology capabilities to Attolife’s laboratory, enhancing method development and validation. The KTP will result in a novel toxicology screening service that improves on the current market offer with long-term benefits for the company and the economy.

By bridging academic insight with industrial application, the partnership reflects the power of collaborative research to drive progress across forensic science and healthcare sectors.

Kingston University is part of a consortium of universities who secured a £3.38 million funding award from the Office for Students to help transform the country’s healthcare education. The investment will drive the creation of the Healthcare Education Consortium – a collaborative effort focused on expanding and coordinating degree apprenticeship programmes in line with the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

At Kingston University, this work is being led by Professor Claire Thurgate, supported by the central apprenticeship team, enabling the sharing of best practice and innovation in apprentice delivery and contributing to research within the field.