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Prof Fraser Birrell

Rheumatologist, BSLM Director of Science & Research

Morpeth

About Fraser Birrell

Consultant Rheumatologist Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Honorary Professor of Lifestyle Medicine & Innovation Newcastle University, Visiting Professor Northumbria University, Adjunct Professor Southern Cross University

Engagement Lead, MRC-Versus Arthritis Centre for Integrated Research into Musculoskeletal Ageing, Director of Science & Research, British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. Editor-in-Chief, Wiley open access journal ‘Lifestyle Medicine’. Senior author of An Essential Book of MCQs for Certification in Lifestyle Medicine.

Clinician, educator & researcher: PhD, Dip Clin Ed and the highest UK educational recognition, Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. British Society for Rheumatology Young Investigator & Innovation in Development awards, plus Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Training Fellowship, plus Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Patient Care Awards Lancet Research Award (shortlist) for whole pathway group consultations work. Sir Jules Thorn Trust funded NIHR CRN-adopted national evaluation study. Inaugural Fellowship of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and passionate advocate for Lifestyle Medicine globally.

Research interests
Clinician, educator & researcher whose research interests span clinical, translational and educational, including osteoarthritis, healthy ageing, epidemiology, biomarkers, patient engagement, in-person, hybrid and virtual group consultations and lifestyle medicine. Authored over 100 publications with >6700 citations. H-index 39, Google Scholar 2022.
First UK clinician to establish the group consultation model in routine clinical practice with over a decade of experience, now published in Rheumatology Advances in Practice. Now helping others to understand and share the benefits for patients and staff, securing funding from Sir Jules Thorn Trust to establish a virtual training and evaluation hub at Newcastle University, training over 1000 general practice and 500 hospital teams, supporting best practice and wider spread across the UK. This now supports an NIHR CRN-adopted national evaluation study. Grant funding also from NIHR HTA, BRC for Ageing, CRN, plus Medical Research Council-Versus Arthritis Centre for Integrated research into Musculoskeletal Ageing totalling over £2m attributable from over £8m grants. This includes industry contributions from collaborator HTG Molecular Ltd for translational biomarker work on the Newcastle Thousand Families Study, Newcastle 85+ Study, MRC Hip Study and NIH-sponsored Osteoarthritis Initiative Study Cohorts.

Awards
Winner of British Society for Rheumatology Young Investigator & Innovation in Development awards, plus Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Training Fellowship, as well the Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Patient Care Awards Lancet Research Award (shortlist) for work on group consultations in primary & secondary care. Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy for work developing interprofessional learning models including the Master of Clinical Research Programme at Newcastle University and national group consultation training.

Editor-in-Chief
Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley gold open access journal Lifestyle Medicine- the official journal of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.