Members
Professor Sally Sheard
Professor of the History of Medicine
S.B.Sheard@liverpool.ac.uk
Sally Sheard is the Andrew Geddes and John Rankin Professor of Modern History, with an appointment divided between the Department of Public Health and Policy and the Department of History. She is a health policy and medical historian, with a special interest in the interface between expert advisers and policymakers. She is a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator, leading a seven year project (2015-2022): The Governance of Health: medical, economic and managerial expertise in Britain since 1948
She was founding Director in 2015 of the Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences of Health Medicine and Technology (CHSSoHMT).
Sally has written on the history of hospitals, the finance of British medicine, the development of the NHS and medical education. She worked with Professor Sir Liam Donaldson (Chief Medical Officer, UK Department of Health 1999-2010) on a Nuffield Trust funded study, published as: S. Sheard and L. Donaldson, The Nation’s Doctor: the role of the Chief Medical Officer 1855-1998 (Oxford, 2006). In 2013 she published the first biography of Brian Abel-Smith - The Passionate Economist: how Brian Abel-Smith shaped global health and social welfare (Bristol, 2013).
She has extensive experience of using history in public and policy engagement, and currently serves as a senior associate for History and Policy: www.historyandpolicy.org. She works with local health authorities and government organisations providing historical context for contemporary health policy issues, and as a guest curator and adviser for National Museums Liverpool. She has written for and appeared in television and radio programmes, including Health Before the NHS, A House Through Time, Who Do You Think You Are?, How the Victorians Built Britain, and Woman's Hour. In 2018, to mark the seventieth anniversary of the NHS, she was commissioned to write and present the twenty part BBC Radio 4 series, National Health Stories
Dr Paul Atkinson
Senior Research Fellow
Paul.Atkinson@liverpool.ac.uk
Paul is a social and cultural historian of health in Britain since 1800, with interests in demography, the family, quantitative methods and oral history. His career goal is to apply his research skills in a range of research environments including academia and health policy, translating the findings of his research into better policy and better population health outcomes.
Since February 2017 Paul has been based at the University of Liverpool in the Department of Public Health and Policy. After a First in Modern History at Oxford, he spent twenty years in the British civil service and on secondment to the European Commission, working on public health, health system reform, regulation of the health professions and the financing of the National Health Service. Paul's PhD in History was awarded by the University of Leeds in 2010 for a thesis on the cultural factors affecting the decline in working-class fertility in late nineteenth-century Britain: He has a contract for a book on this for Boydell and Brewer’s ‘People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History’ series. Paul has recently had a major article on rural infant mortality in the nineteenth century published by the Economic History Review, and has also published in journals including the Journal of Interdisciplinary History and Demographic Research.
Dr Michael Robinson
Early Career Researcher
Michael Robinson is a Leverhulme Trust Funded Early Career Researcher on a project entitled: ‘Disability, Welfare and Ageing: First World War veterans of the British Empire’. His first book Shell-Shocked British Army Veterans in Ireland, 1918-39: A Difficult Homecoming was published as part of Manchester University Press’ Disability History series. His postdoctoral work on veteran welfare policy and medical systems in the aftermath of the First World War across the British Empire was funded by the Wellcome Trust. His current research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, focuses on Britain, Australia, and Canada and their respective veteran welfare systems and rehabilitative infrastructures established in the aftermath of the First World War. His most recent publication is a policy paper for History & Policy comparing Great War veteran pensions during the Great Depression to Universal Credit policy during the time of Covid-19.
Richard Sloggett
PhD student
Richard.Sloggett@liverpool.ac.uk
Richard Sloggett is the Founder and Programme Director of Future Health. He was previously a Senior Fellow at Westminster’s leading think tank Policy Exchange and from 2018-19 was Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Richard is a regular commentator in the national media on health and social care including in The Times, Telegraph, Financial Times, Economist and on Times Radio and LBC. He has been named as one of the top 100 people in UK healthcare policy by the Health Service Journal.
During his time with the Secretary of State, Richard worked across Whitehall, the NHS and local government on major policy decisions including the NHS Long Term Plan, the creation of NHSX and the Prevention Green Paper. He also supported Ministers on global healthcare issues including preparations for the G7 and action on antimicrobial resistance. He has fifteen years’ experience in public policy and healthcare, starting his career in Parliament before a successful career in public affairs where he led a team of 20 to the prestigious Communique Public Affairs Team of the Year Award.
Richard is undertaking his doctoral thesis in policy development for preventative healthcare systems at the University of Liverpool, supervised by Iain Buchan and Sally Sheard.
Helen Piotrowski
PhD student
Helen.Piotrowski@liverpool.ac.uk
Helen Piotrowski is a PhD student at the Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems. She is funded by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, and her research explores the development of UK policy for the prevention and containment of pandemics since 1947. This PhD will use historical methods to inform case studies. Prior to joining the University of Liverpool, Helen worked as a research assistant at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. In this role, Helen worked with Ministries of Health in Nigeria to co-develop strategies to improve equity in community-based programmes for Neglected Tropical Diseases. Her main research interests are the social and political impacts of infectious diseases and Health Systems. Through her research career, she has used a variety of qualitative research methods, including: historical methods, Participatory Action Research, ethnography and interviews. With a background in Nursing, Helen also has experience of clinical research at the NIHR HPRU in Respiratory Infections.
Dr Philip Begley
Lecturer in the History of Medicine
p.begley@liverpool.ac.uk
Philip's main research interests lie in contemporary history, particularly post-war British politics. His research within the project focused on the evolving role of management consultants and their interaction with health policy makers and the NHS. He moved on from the University of Liverpool in July 2022.
Dr Michael Lambert
Research Associate
M.H.Lambert@liverpool.ac.uk
Michael Lambert took up a new position as a Research fellow at Lancaster University in September 2019. He remains engaged with the Governance of Health project through an honorary research fellowship at the University of Liverpool. Read more.
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