The hub of our past, current, and future research projects. Find out how to get involved here.
The rise of multiple long-term conditions is one of the greatest challenges facing modern healthcare. Increasingly, people live with two or more conditions that interact in complex ways, creating significant treatment burden, reducing quality of life, and driving demand on services. Traditional single-disease models are no longer sufficient, and new approaches to prevention, diagnosis, and care are urgently needed.
EPIC’s research develops personalised and preventative models of care that reflect the realities of multimorbidity. We focus on tailoring interventions, improving care coordination, and reducing the burden on patients and carers. Our work ensures that solutions are grounded in lived experience and responsive to system-wide pressures.
Internationally, our evidence has informed WHO and World Bank initiatives on strengthening primary care responses to chronic disease. These contributions have helped shape strategies that reduce fragmentation, support health system resilience, and guide policymakers in responding to the global challenge of multimorbidity.
Integrated care is essential for addressing fragmentation and ensuring people experience seamless, person-centred services. Patients often navigate complex systems spanning health, social care, and community support, and without effective integration, duplication, inefficiency, and poor outcomes can result.
EPIC’s research examines the organisational, financial, and workforce factors that support or hinder integration. We work with system partners to test and evaluate new models of care, focusing on how to improve efficiency, strengthen collaboration, and enhance outcomes for patients and families.
Our findings contribute to international frameworks for integrated care. For example, the WHO models and OECD’s Health System Performance dashboards use insights from our work to help governments monitor and improve integration at scale, providing evidence that shapes system-wide policy and practice.
Digital health has the potential to transform access, safety, and outcomes — but only if digital services are inclusive, evidence-based, and carefully evaluated. Digital-first approaches such as virtual consultations, wearable monitoring, and electronic care coordination can expand access and efficiency, but they also risk deepening inequalities if barriers to access and digital literacy are not addressed.
EPIC’s research evaluates the effectiveness, safety, and equity of digital health tools across prevention, treatment, and self-management. By embedding patient and community perspectives into the design and evaluation process, we ensure that digital innovations are relevant, trusted, and scalable.
Globally, EPIC’s research has informed WHO guidance on virtual primary care, shaping policy on how digital services should be deployed across different health systems. By addressing digital exclusion alongside innovation, our work ensures that digital-first strategies support vulnerable groups rather than reinforcing existing disparities.
Health and wellbeing are shaped not just by healthcare services but by the environments in which people live. Housing, education, transport, employment, and community assets all contribute to health outcomes, and addressing these wider determinants is central to improving population health and reducing inequalities.
EPIC investigates how healthy neighbourhood model design and community-led interventions can build healthier, more resilient communities. We collaborate with local authorities, voluntary sector partners, and residents to co-develop initiatives such as social prescribing, community hubs, and place-based health programmes. Our approach emphasises prevention, resilience, and co-production.
Our evidence also informs international policy frameworks, with contributions to WHO, World Bank and OECD reports shaping policy on embedding neighbourhood models and system design to improve health outcomes.
A third of the Cheshire and Merseyside population live in the most deprived 20% of neighbourhoods in England, with healthy life expectancy up to six years below the national average. These inequalities are linked to early-onset long-term conditions, poor access to social care, and widening gaps in preventative services.
EPIC leads the Deep End Cheshire and Merseyside network, partnering with practices serving the most deprived communities. We study the challenges of delivering care in these areas, including workload intensity, workforce sustainability, and patient complexity. Our research also evaluates innovative models that seek to address the “inverse care law,” where those most in need often have the least access.
Through Deep End, EPIC ensures underserved communities are represented in health system design. Our findings contribute to local policy and to international debates led by the WHO and OECD on tackling inequalities and strengthening primary care in disadvantaged populations.
We are connected with the Deep End International GP network and ‘UpCARE’ Yokohama-Kawasaki Urban Primary Care and Social Medicine Programme in Japan.
A sustainable, competent, and well-supported workforce is essential for the future of primary and integrated care. Rising demand, increasing complexity, and workforce shortages pose significant challenges, particularly in general practice and community settings.
EPIC’s workforce research is closely linked to the EDGE-GP clinical education team, which designs and delivers high-quality, primary care–based education at scale across the North West of England and beyond. Our work spans the key domains of medical education and scholarship: teaching (advancing and evidencing effective methods), learning (understanding how students acquire knowledge and skills), assessment (designing valid and reliable measures of competence), curriculum (creating and evaluating educational programmes), and educational management and leadership (studying and improving systems, policy, and leadership in education).
Many of our team are also practising primary care clinicians, bringing first-hand understanding of primary care context to our research and education.
Internationally, our evidence has informed WHO and World Bank reports on strengthening primary health care, as well as OECD workforce policy reviews, providing governments with practical recommendations for building sustainable, capable, and future-ready primary care teams.