Rehabilitation
This fellowship seeks to engage underserved and under-represented populations undergoing surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis to understand their perspectives on engagement with prehabilitation programmes.
Refine prehabilitation intervention with input from underserved communities Building on a Programme Development Grant (PDG) exploring prehabilitation for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS), I aim to ensure the intervention reflects diverse patient needs. Our initial public engagement group lacked diversity, being mostly white, middle-class participants. This fellowship will enable engagement with underserved communities (e.g. Birmingham, Nottingham, London, rural Devon) through community events, religious centres, and other outreach. I will run PPIE sessions across 3–5 UK sites to explore these communities’ views on spinal surgery, prehabilitation, and preferred engagement methods, helping refine our intervention accordingly.
Build relationships with potential PGfAR delivery sites Leveraging existing connections (via Dr Esther Williamson and Prof Sallie Lamb), I will contact the 15 BOOST trial sites to assess interest in a future PGfAR trial on LSS prehabilitation. I will engage lead clinicians to understand site-specific considerations and feasibility, and use my networks (Society of Back Pain Research, National Spinal Network, APPN) to identify alternative sites if needed.
Shadow Exeter Clinical Trials Unit To develop my trial expertise, I will spend three days shadowing Exeter CTU and Associate Professor David Keene. This will cover trial design, set-up, delivery, data collection, and analysis—key gaps in my current research skillset as an early-career investigator.
Undertake MSc-level Health Economics training The fellowship will support my enrolment in MSc Health Economics modules at the University of Exeter, strengthening my capacity to contribute to trial cost-effectiveness evaluations.
Write application for Programme Grant for Applied Research (PGfAR) and/or NIHR Advanced Fellowship (December 2026). I plan to submit the PGfAR and/or Advanced Fellowship in December 2026 using the time, training and learning from this fellowship. This project speaks to the BRC’s objectives by developing a prehabilitation intervention to reduce poor health outcomes, in this case in a surgical population. The proposed prehabilitation intervention will use multidisciplinary and novel ways of delivering rehabilitation to support those in rural, underserved or ethnically diverse communities.
Dr Lianne Wood, Prof Sallie Lamb.
Other collaborators: Prof Opinder Sahota (Nottingham), Prof Beth Phillips (Nottingham), Dr Esther Williamson (Oxford), Dr Paul Hendrick (Nottingham), Prof David Keene.
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