Nicholas Steel

Biography

Nick’s research interests focus on preventing adverse events and improving health outcomes in older people. Current research projects include measuring health in older participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing including during the COVID-19 pandemic, a study of GPs and people with multiple conditions setting goals together, and applying the Global Burden of Disease Study in England.

After graduating from Bristol medical school, he trained in general practice in Yorkshire, Australia and New Zealand. Working as a general practitioner in the contrasting environments of urban deprivation in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh and rural North Norfolk, he became interested in the different views of patients, GPs and hospital clinicians about the balance of benefits and harms from treating raised blood pressure. He went on to train in public health and health policy at the University of Cambridge and RAND Health in California as a Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy.

He supervises postgraduate students and doctors and specialists on the NHS regional public health training programme, and teaches medical students and doctors in training.

Career

• Professor of Public Health, Norwich Medical School, 2016 - present
• Clinical Reader in Primary Care, 2014 - 2015
• Clinical Senior Lecturer in Primary Care, Norwich Medical School, and Honorary Public Health Academic Consultant at Public Health England, 2004 - 2014
• Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine, NHS Norfolk, 2003 - 2013
• Clinical Senior Research Associate, Dept of Public Health & Primary Care, University of Cambridge, 2003 - 2004
• Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, RAND Health, Santa Monica, USA, 2002 - 2003
• Specialist Registrar in Public Health Medicine, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Health Authorities, and University of Cambridge, 1998-2003
• General Practitioner in Norwich and Holt, Norfolk, and Health Services Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia, 1995 - 1998
• General Practice Vocational Training, UK, Australia and New Zealand, 1990 - 1994
• House Officer, Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare, 1988 – 1989

Research interests

Current research projects include the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, goal setting with high risk patients in primary care, the Global Burden of Disease Study, and primary care databases (THIN and CPRD).

Previous research projects include evaluating primary care for vulnerable adults and refugees, assessing the applicability of NICE guidelines to primary care, managing referrals in general practice, and evaluating local and national effects of UK quality improvement initiatives, including the UK Quality and Outcomes Framework for general practices. 

Academic Background

• PhD: ‘National Population Evaluation of Quality of Health Care: Developing and Using Quality of Health Care Indicators’, University of East Anglia, 2008
• Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, 2006
• Member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, 2001
• Diploma in Public Health (distinction), University of Cambridge, 1999
• Tripos Prize for Public Health, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, 1999
• MSc in Health Sciences, University of East Anglia, 1998
• Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 1993
• MB ChB , University of Bristol, 1988

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