Professor Heather Iles-Smith is a clinical academic nurse working in a joint post between the University of Salford and Northern Care Alliance Foundation Trust (NCA). She has a track record of research leadership addressing health, social care and public health challenges with £6M associated income. Key areas of her research include long term conditions, psychological wellbeing, and healthcare technologies. Her research methods expertise includes mixed methods and qualitative research.

Professor Iles-Smith has extensive experience of supporting more than thirty successful early career academic and clinical academic staff/students to gain health and care research experience and funded awards. This includes research internships, pre-doctoral clinical academic fellowships (PCAF) and doctoral fellowships. Her experience as a member of the NIHR Doctoral Fellowship panel provides her with greater understanding of what constitutes a high quality NIHR candidate, project and overall fellowship application.

Professor Helen Hurst is a clinical academic nurse consultant. She is a Professor of Nursing at the University of Salford, Consultant Nurse within Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust and a member of NCA’s Centre for Clinical and Care Research. Please view Helen’s  University of Salford profile for more information.

Dr Claire Howard is a clinical academic orthoptist, a neuro/stroke specialist orthoptist in the Manchester Centre for Clinical Neurosciences based at Salford Royal hospital, part of  Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust; an honorary senior lecturer in research (University of Salford), honorary research fellow (University of Liverpool) and a clinical research fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research. She is a DVLA medical advisory panel member for vision disorders and the Greater Manchester hub lead for the Council for Allied Health Professions Research (CAHPR).

Dr Howard’s research interests include post stroke visual impairment, driving, adaptation to visual impairment, hemianopia, blindsight and brain injury. Her research methodologies include mixed methods, observational studies, consensus methods, clinical validation studies and randomised control trials.

Dr Deborah Antcliff is a Chartered clinical academic physiotherapist, an Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner in the Bury Integrated Pain Service, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, a Visiting Clinical Research Fellow (Keele University) and a Clinical Research Fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research.

Dr Antcliff’s research interests include the management of chronic pain, activity pacing as a behavioural change coping strategy, accelerometry to measure physical/sedentary activity, peer-mentorship for osteoarthritis, and pain management among older people with frailty. Her research methodologies include mixed methods, scale development, psychometric testing, consensus methods, and complex intervention development and adaptation.

Dr Kate Grimshaw is a clinical academic dietitian based within Northern Care Alliance, working at Salford Care Organisation. She is an honorary senior research fellow with the University of Manchester, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton and Clinical Research Fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research.

Dr Grimshaw’s research interests include adverse reactions to foods in adults and children including aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of food allergy and also the nutritional adequacy of exclusion diets. The importance of the whole diet and its influence on the gut microbiome and immune system are of particular interest following on from her PhD findings. Her research methodologies include observational studies, randomised control trials including food challenge and blinding methodologies, pattern analysis, and research on dietary intake including food frequency questionnaire design and analysis. 

Dr Lauren Lucas is a clinical academic physiotherapist based within the Northern Care Alliance. She is a specialist Physiotherapist in Bury community stroke and neurological rehabilitation team, a Clinical Research Fellow in the NCA Centre for Clinical and care Research, and an honorary Research Associate at University of Manchester.

Dr Lucas’s research interests include stroke self-management, understanding how to navigate the therapeutic alliance within stroke and neuro rehabilitation settings, and community based rehabilitation research. Following on from her PhD she is particularly interested in the importance of perceived identity after stroke and the use of mind-body therapies and behaviour change techniques to support adjustment. She has also been involved in health inequalities research investigating the prevalence and management of long-term conditions within the UK prison population. Her research methodologies include qualitative and mixed methods research, mixed methods systematic reviews, using big data sets, and involving people with lived experience in all aspects of research through co-production and patient and public involvement.

Beth Howard is an advanced critical care oractitioner based on the Salford critical care unit within Northern Care Alliance and a clinical research fellow with the NCA Centre for Clinical and Care Research. Beth completed her MSc in advanced clinical practice at the University of Salford in 2022.

Beth’s areas of interest include critical care medicine and chronic critical illness, neurological disease and trauma, and post-intensive care rehabilitation with patient follow-up. Beth has acted as local investigator on a remote multicomponent rehabilitation programme for survivors of critical illness after hospital discharge and a phenomenological study to increase insight into individual experiences of the patients’ relatives in decision-making processes.