Summary
Joanne is an inner-city GP committed to clinical scholarship and excellence in academic primary care driving person-centred redesign of primary medical care services.
As professor of primary care research, she leads a body of work on innovative scholarship driving excellence in primary care. She established the Academy of Primary Care at Hull York Medical School, where she supports a range of research on person centre care in the context of problematic polypharmacy, sleep management in dementia care, and homeless healthcare. She works with a range of partners to establish a series of innovative projects including the WISE GP programme (SAPC and RCGP), the CATALYST programme for new to practice GPs (NHSE and HCV Primary Care Partnership) and the WISDOM project supporting clinician scholarship (HEE Yorkshire).
She has worked for 20 years as a salaried GP within inner city practices in Liverpool and Hull, including leading innovative service development work addressing care for people living with multimorbidity and problematic polypharmacy.
She regularly teaches primary care clinicians and academics at all career stages, and is privileged to be a mentor to future primary care leaders who continue to inspire her everyday work.
Joanne graduated from Liverpool Medical School in 1997, and started out planning a career in public health medicine. A Masters in Public Health rekindled her interests in the professional, clinical and academic challenges of developing person-centred healthcare. She returned to General Practice and successfully applied for doctoral funding from the NCCRCD (the precursor to NIHR) to look at person-centred management of distress in terminal illness. Following her PhD, she worked in Manchester, Liverpool and Warwick developing a portfolio of work on Primary Care redesign based on the principles of medical generalism (whole person medical care). Her work has been supported by fellowships from the NIHR (including a Clinical Lecturership at Manchester, and a Clinician Scientist Award at Liverpool). Joanne joined Hull York Medical School in 2017 to establish the Academy of Primary Care - championing innovative scholarship driving excellence in primary care provision.
The focus for Joanne's teaching reflects her research areas: in supporting health professionals at all career stages to critically and safely understand and deliver high quality individually tailored medical care. She works with colleagues at Hull York Medical School to develop a programme of research-informed educational materials at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels (including for local Vocational Training Scheme and Protected Learning Time sessions). These include teaching on Goldilocks Medicine, the Principles of Person-Centred Care, Managing Problematic Polypharmacy, Generalist management of common mental health problems, and the principles of the expert generalist consultation.
Joanne is an experienced supervisor at Masters and PhD level, and welcome expressions of interest from students interested in developing primary care projects.
Journal Article
Exploring health and social care preferences for people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment: a systematic review of discrete choice experiments
Morrish, N., Fox, C., Reeve, J., Maidment, I., Livingston, G., Scott, S., Hilton, A., Allan, L., van Horik, J., Wong, G., Khondoker, M., Rook, G., & Medina-Lara, A. (in press). Exploring health and social care preferences for people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment: a systematic review of discrete choice experiments. Aging and Mental Health, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2025.2468409
Improving the reporting of primary care research: Consensus Reporting Items for Studies in Primary Care - the CRISP Statement
Phillips, W., Sturgiss, E., Glasziou, P., olde Hartmann, T., Orkin, A. M., Prathivadi, P., Reeve, J., Russell, G. M., & van Weel, C. (2025). Improving the reporting of primary care research: Consensus Reporting Items for Studies in Primary Care - the CRISP Statement. Annals of Family Medicine, 28(4), 385-392. https://doi.org/10.12114/j.issn.1007-9572.2024.A0025
Experiences of integrating social prescribing link workers into primary care in England: Bolting on, fitting in or belonging
Tierney, S., Westlake, D., Wong, G., Turk, A., Markham, S., Gorenberg, J., Reeve, J., Mitchell, C., Husk, K., Redwood, S., Pope, C., Baird, B., & Ram Mahtani, K. (online). Experiences of integrating social prescribing link workers into primary care in England: Bolting on, fitting in or belonging. The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2024.0279
Patient buy-in to social prescribing through link workers as part of person-centred care: a realist evaluation
Tierney, S., Wong, G., Westlake, D., Turk, A., Markham, S., Gorenberg, J., Reeve, J., Mitchell, C., Husk, K., Redwood, S., Meacock, T., Pope, C., Baird, B., & Mahtani, K. R. (2024). Patient buy-in to social prescribing through link workers as part of person-centred care: a realist evaluation. Health and Social Care Delivery Research, https://doi.org/10.3310/ETND8254
Research interests
Joanne is internationally known for her expertise in medical generalism. Her research and scholarship focuses on redesign of primary care on advanced generalist principles. Current projects target particularly the knowledge work of generalist practice. These include strengthening clinical scholarship for professional practice (WISE GP and the CATALYST programmes); practice redesign for generalist prescribing (TAILOR); and championing modern primary care (TIMES, SPLENDID).
Revitalising medical generalism is an NHS priority, recognised within the Future Doctor Programme and the establishment of the new Enhanced Generalist Skills programme. Joanne was a Subject Matter Expert on the Educational Offer Development Group for this work and contributes regularly to Enhance programmes in England.
Lead investigator
Project
Funder
Grant
Started
Status
Project
The CATALYST Programme: Working with new GPs to re-energise General Practice across Humber coast & vale
Funder
NHS Hull Clinical Commissioning Group
Grant
£1,182,403.00
Started
1 January 2021
Status
Ongoing
Project
The clinical, social and cost effectiveness of a decision support tool to optimise tailored community-based tailored management of sleep (TIMES) for people living with dementia or mild cognitive impairment and sleep disturbance TIMES - Tailored ManagEment of Sleep TIMES
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£434,337.00
Started
1 February 2022
Status
Ongoing
Project
SPLENDID: Social Prescribing for people to Live ENjoyably with Dementia/memory problems In Daily life
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£55,931.00
Started
1 October 2022
Status
Ongoing
Project
ENHANCE –TailorEd iNtervention for brain HeAlth aNd Cognitive augmEntation
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£232,075.00
Started
1 January 2023
Status
Ongoing
Project
Management Capacity and Capability in NHS trusts and system-level partnerships
Funder
University of York
Grant
£2,000.00
Started
16 July 2024
Status
Ongoing
Project
The regular general practitioner scheme: integrated and equitable pathways of depression care, facilitating work participation
Funder
Norwegian Research Council
Grant
£0.00
Started
1 January 2020
Status
Complete
Project
Understanding the implementation of link workers in primary care networks: A realist evaluation to inform current and future policy
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£15,698.00
Started
1 August 2021
Status
Complete
Project
WISE GP Fellowship
Funder
Health Education Yorkshire and the Humber
Grant
£115,000.00
Started
1 June 2021
Status
Complete
Project
PRU Quality, Safety and Outcomes of Health and Social Care
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£44,417.00
Started
1 January 2019
Status
Complete
Co-investigator
Project
Funder
Grant
Started
Status
Project
PrimaryBreathe: programme to develop and test a brief remote primary care intervention for chronic breathlessness
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£171,920.00
Started
1 September 2022
Status
Ongoing
Project
PPI for PBP research - Exploring the role, responsibilities and impact of pharmacists working in primary care (GP surgeries)
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£470.00
Started
1 April 2019
Status
Complete
Project
BREATHE: Breathlessness RElief AT HomE
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£232,098.00
Started
1 April 2019
Status
Complete
Project
NIHR In Practice Fellowship Dr Aarti Bansal
Funder
NIHR National Institute for Health Research
Grant
£112,900.00
Started
1 November 2018
Status
Complete
Postgraduate supervision
Joanne is an experienced supervisor at Masters and PhD level. She currently supervises four PhD students: Myriam Dell Olio (Patient knowledge work in Person Centred Care), Dr Sara McKelvie (Clinical decision making in uncertainty), Krissy Tabiner (Engagement with primary healthcare amongst the homeless population), and Becci Lee (Living with chronic illness and homelessness).
Joanne welcomes expressions of interest from students interested in developing primary care projects.
Primary Care, Living with chronic illness, mental health, generalism, person-centred care.