Professor Barbara Jack

Profile

Biography

Professor Barbara Jack is a registered nurse having completed her nurse training at Sefton School of Nursing and held various clinical posts in the NHS. She completed her postgraduate teaching diploma at the University of Manchester before joining Edge Hill University in 1992, where she specialised in research methods. Barbara undertook a part time PhD at the University of Manchester “Evaluating the Impact of the Hospital Specialist Palliative Care Team, followed by a part time secondment to the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool, to undertake palliative care research. Barbara was awarded a Readership in 2003 and Professorial chair in 2006 and is until going part time in 2018 was the Faculty of Health & Social Care, Head of Research and Scholarship as well as Director of the EPRC. She is now part of the Faculty Professoriate in the Medical School and is the academic programme lead for the MSc and Pg Cert Transforming Palliative and End of Life Care.  She had published over 170 papers, and presented over 100 oral and poster conference presentations and secured over 40 grants totalling nearly one million pounds. Barbara has extensive research supervision and mentoring experience.

Research interests have particularly focused around End of Life Care. Ongoing research includes the needs of family carers of patients with cancer & advanced progressive illness, especially during the final year of life funded by a National Institute for Health Research RfPB grant (2010).The resulting Carers Alert Thermometer (CAT) is currently being used in difference setting across the UK and internationally .

In 2006, Barbara established research links with Hospice Africa Uganda and studies include: exploring the Impact of Nurses Prescribing Morphine (which informed a World Health Organisation report); and an evaluation of the Community Volunteer Worker scheme. In 2010, Barbara was made a Visiting Professor at Hospice Africa and worked on a THET funded project to support the development of a degree in palliative care.

She was awarded an English National Board (ENB) Research Bursary in 1997, the Palliative Care Research Society Research Award in 2003 the Marie Curie Research Society poster award in 2006, and the International Palliative Care Network e Conference, November 2013 poster award, and the EAPC 2019 abstract prize

 In 2010 Barbara became chair of the Palliative Care Research Society which she held until 2016.She is editorial board member of Nurse Researcher, Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine and a Royal College of Nursing Research Academy mentor.

Research Interests

Palliative and end of life care, spirituality and end of life care, carers

Research interests have particularly focused around End of Life Care. Projects e included a National Institute for Health Research, RfPB grant (2007) focusing on the Optimisation of services for patients with Motor Neurone Disease, a systematic review of Best Supportive Care for patients with lung cancer and an evaluation of the Queenscourt Hospice at Home Service, the evaluation of the Six Steps to Success -The North West End of Life Care Programme for Care Homes Evaluation (2012-2013). Ongoing research includes the needs of family carers of patients with cancer & advanced progressive illness, especially during the final year of life funded by a National Institute for Health Research RfPB grant (2010).The resulting Carers Alert Thermometer (CAT) is currently being used in difference setting across the UK and internationally. Currently studies the impact of a key worker role to support patients and families with MND, the impact of COVID and the role of hospital chaplain teams.

The collaborative links with the  Palliative Care Institute Liverpool continue, and included a national project to Modernising the Palliative Care Minimum Data Set used to collect data from all palliative care services. This project was used as a case study in the REF 2014 and deemed to be ‘outstanding in places’. Barbara was appointed an Honorary Professor  at the University of Liverpool in 2015.

Teaching

Barbara is the  academic  programme lead for the MSc and PG Cert Integrating Palliative and End of Life Care with Queenscourt Hospice