Georgina Ferry interviews Julia Hippisley-Cox, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and General Practice, 16 March 2022.
Topics discussed include (00:00:32) JHC's medical training at Sheffield University Medical School, work as an NHS GP in Oxfordshire and work as a researcher in Nottingham and Oxford; (00:01:08) the main question that informs research interests, particularly relating to decisions doctors and patients need to make about their healthcare; (00:01:35) research in electronic healthcare records, including development of large databases and use of data to investigate how common different diseases were, outcomes, risks and treatments, as well as investigation into safety of medicines; (00:03:37) electronic health databases, including anonymisation, information relating to illness, tests and treatments, use of databases for research purposes; (00:06:58) Q risk assessment tool, adoption throughout the NHS; (00:11:45) experience of programming, transfer of coding skills put to use to combine with clinical practice and epidemiology, Doctors Who Code; (00:12:59) JHC's first awareness of COVID-19, development of Q surveillance system in 2005 relating to bird flu, pandemic planning, work with the Government Chief Medical Officers on COVID-19 to identify at risk patients, data modelling and patient engagement; (00:22:49) development of clinical risk calculator QCOVID, updates to the risk model owing to vaccination output and virus variants; (00:26:20) prioritisation of therapeutic treatments for patients using the QCOVID tool; (00:27:06) at risk groups identified by the tool at the start of the pandemic; (00:28:20) investigation into vaccine safety in at risk groups including comparison of vaccines and their side effects, comparisons of risk from vaccines and from infection with COVID-19; (00:34:34) drug safety surveillance and the Yellow Card System; (00:37:33) change in patient understanding and behaviour towards their medical data, personal risk assessment and consideration towards others; (00:39:50) NIHR funding and COVID-19 Research Response Fund; (00:43:39) future funding opportunities, work with NHS Digital, screening processes within the NHS including for cancer; (00:50:30) multi-disciplinary collaboration within the University to research the pandemic; (00:53:18) research on the safety of new COVID-19 therapeutics, work with an Oxford team led by Ben Goldacre, continuation of collaborative working once the pandemic has ended; (00:58:26) JHC's personal response to the threat of COVID-19, adherence to Government guidance; (01:00:24) changes to work, including commuting, remote meetings, return to usual ways of working; (01:02:03) continuing work as GP, delivering remote surgeries; (01:03:44) the experience of researching COVID-19 on JHC's well-being; (01:05:24) changes JHC would like to see in future research, including working relationship with patients; (01:07:15) trip to House of Lords relating to all-party parliamentary group on medical research.
