Professor Ruth Harris PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons), RGN, FRCN, FEANS

Biography

Ruth Harris is a nurse and health service researcher. Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of complex nursing interventions to improve fundamental care and explaining how the organisation of interprofessional teams and services has an impact on patient experience and outcome of care, particularly for older people and those with long-term conditions. She is also a deputy director of the NIHR Health & Social Care Workforce Research Unit based in the Policy Institute at King’s.

Ruth graduated as a registered nurse with a BSc (Hons) at King’s College London, before completing an MSc and PhD at King’s. Her clinical background is in acute medical nursing and the care of older people. She worked as a primary nurse in a King’s Fund-funded Nursing Development Unit and as the senior primary nurse/ward manager in a nursing-led intermediate care unit and acute care of older people ward. She has worked in a range of research posts in the NHS and academia with the responsibility to lead research and build research capacity. These include Deputy/Acting Director of the National Nursing Research Unit at King’s College London and Professor of Nursing Practice and Innovation at Kingston University and St. George’s, University of London.

Ruth is particularly interested in evaluating complex care interventions and approaches to organising care delivery. Most of her work uses mixed methods and she has expertise in realist synthesis and evaluation. Her current work includes developing the initial programme theory for interventions to reduce diabetes distress for people with type 1 diabetes as part of the NIHR PGfAR D-Stress study. Recently completed work includes the first national evaluation of intentional rounding in the UK, a realist synthesis of the leadership of complex integrated care systems and a realist synthesis of local accreditation programmes to improve quality of care in acute NHS Trusts commissioned by the Chief Nursing Officer for England's Policy and Strategy Unit.

Ruth is a former chair of the Royal College of Nursing Research Forum, a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Nursing Studies, a member of the Council of Deans for Health Research Advisory Group and currently serves as a panel member of the NIHR Doctoral Fellowship Programme. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing (FRCN) and the European Academy of Nursing Science (FEANS).

Research interests

• Development and evaluation of fundamental nursing care interventions
• Health and care needs of older people
• Development and evaluation of nursing-led interventions
• Designing and evaluating innovations in quality improvement and service delivery
• Self-management
• Realist evaluation and synthesis
• Mixed methods research

Enquiring about potential PhD supervision

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Research profile