Meet the Expert
Dr Philippa Hunter-Jones - Health: Service, People and Service Systems
Pippa is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Liverpool Management School. She has an active interest in health-related research and is currently working on multiple projects linked to the patient experience and service (re)design within primary and acute health contexts. Alongside this, she has a wider interest in the consumer behaviour of marginalised/hidden consumers (e.g. informal carers) and in exploring the circumstances of those who travel with pre-existing health conditions.
Pippa is part of the Consumption and Experiential Marketing Knowledge Platform in her School, the Heseltine Institute and is an elected Governor at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust Hospital. She is also the founding Chair of the Tourism Marketing Special Interest Group at the Academy of Marketing.
The past eighteen months have been a particularly exciting time for her core areas of research and KE activity. In January 2014, she published her first co-authored book Service and Service Systems: Provider Challenges and Directions in Unsettled Times with Professors Steve Baron and Gary Warnaby.
In September 2014, together with colleagues from the Management School Dr Lynn Sudbury-Riley and Paul Matthews, Senior GPs and a Hospital based-team, she was awarded ULMS pump-priming funding to examine the service re-design of outpatients at the Royal Liverpool University Teaching Hospital. Later in the year, with Lynn and their colleague Laura Menzies, Pippa was awarded a grant from East Cheshire Hospice to develop a systematic tool to measure the impact of hospice services upon patients, carers and families.
In March this year Pippa and Lynn were part of a team headed up by GP Dr Neil Paul and Michael Pyrah that was awarded £1.9 million under the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund tasked with transforming primary care and improving healthcare access in South Cheshire. Pippa and Lynn are working on the evaluation of the project, a critical element in determining the long-term funding of this initiative.
Other collaborations have also resulted in two ESRC funded PhD studentships and a number of funded projects and PhD studentships with colleagues from XJTLU. A ‘Business of General Practice’ CPD offering is also emerging from collaboration with the HLS Faculty.
Taking these projects forward has been a real joy
Commenting upon what has made these successes possible Pippa spoke of the fantastic support provided by her School. In particular, she paid tribute to the work of Professor Michael McKenzie, Director of ULMS, who passed away in April: “Michael became the Director of Research in ULMS just as the health-related work began to appear. It was a number of years since I’d engaged properly in this area of research. Confidence levels were pretty low! He smiled, said “whatever you need”, and from then on was always available to discuss and offer support to the projects which snowballed from there. Taking these projects forward has been a real joy”.
With no shortage of work to do on existing projects, and more projects in the pipeline, Pippa (phj@liverpool.ac.uk) is always keen to hear from interested colleagues who share her passion for research in these areas.