Professor Umesh Chauhan

Umesh is Professor of Primary Care at the Mackenzie Clinical Research Institute which is a newly established clinical research centre based at the UCLan Burnley campus. This is an exciting collaboration between the university’s School of Medicine and Dentistry and its NHS partners. The Institute brings clinical research excellence back to Burnley, where clinical research in primary care really began, as it follows in the footsteps of Sir James Mackenzie, a Burnley GP in who is considered as the father of general practice-based research. The Mackenzie Clinical Research Institute will develop research expertise and educational capacity to meet the challenges faced by health and social care. The Institute benefits from a number of Academic Fellowships jointly funded by the East Lancashire NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Umesh has extensive personal experience of General Practice and have practised as a GP since 1994 with a sustained commitment to high quality patient centred care in a deprived area of East Lancashire for over 25 years (NHS East Lancashire CCG is ranked lowest on the multiple-deprivation and health deprivation and disability indices in the Lancashire). Umesh has combined his role in delivering face-to-face individual clinical care with efforts to support and promote wider development of general practice and policy- both locally, nationally and internationally. Umesh has in parallel developed a career as a researcher and leader that has enabled him to contribute both to the knowledge base of tackling health inequality in health care and social care and improving quality at a local, regional, national level and international level. Umesh has developed advanced skills and expertise in several clinical areas which is reflected in my direct involvement in wider health care audits and research (local and nationally) around cardiovascular disease and learning disability, planning of health needs, and the development of local and national services. For example, Umesh has helped to create a network of experts within the policy field through the links established in organisations such as the Royal College of General Practitioners; within the health service and social service through service user groups and health professionals responsible for delivering care and academic institutions through the Special Interest Group within the Society of Academic Primary Care and Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) (now ARC) to support improvement in the care of patients with learning disability [1,2,3,4,5,6]. This has also led to the development and implementation of local and national guidelines [7,8,9,10]. Umesh has supported the development of number of guidelines as a member of NICE guideline development groups and am currently standing member for the Quality Standards Committee.

References:

1. Buszewicz, M….Chauhan, U. et al. Assessment of an incentivised scheme to provide annual health checks in primary care for adults with intellectual disability: a longitudinal cohort study. Lancet Psychiatry 2014; 1 (7) 522-532 
2. Doherty, A.J. Jones, S.P., Chauhan, U., Gibson, JME., An integrative review of multicomponent weight management interventions for adults with intellectual disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 06/2017
3. Doherty A J, Jones S P, Chauhan U, Gibson J M E. Eating well, living well and weight management: A co-produced semi-qualitative study of barriers and facilitators experienced by adults with intellectual disabilities. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities 2018. 
4. Vereenooghe, L, Flynn, S, Hastings, R. P, Adams, D, Chauhan, U, Cooper, S-A, et al (2018) Interventions for mental health problems in children and adults with severe intellectual disabilities: a systematic review. BMJ Open, 8 (6). e021911. ISSN 2044-6055
5. Doherty, A J, Atherton, H, Boland, P, Hastings, R, Hives, L, Hood, K,…Chauhan, U et al (2020) Barriers and facilitators to primary healthcare for people with intellectual disabilities / autism: An integrative review. BJGP Open. 
6. Chauhan, U, Reeve, J, Kontopantelis, E, Hinder, S, Nelson, P., Doran, T. (2011) Impact of the English Directly Enhanced Service (DES) for Learning Disability.
7. Glover, G, Williams, R, Branford, D, Avery, R, Chauhan, U, Hoghton, M and Bernard, S (2015) Prescribing of psychotropic drugs to people with learning disabilities and/or autism by general practitioners in England. Technical Report. Public Health England.
8. Cooper, S A, Pilling, S, Alexander, R, Ayettey