2004 - 2007 - Cicely Saunders Institute - King's College London

Cathy Shipman BA MSc
Senior Research Fellow
Cathy’s background is in medical sociology and her
previous work has included research on out of hours
care, transition to community settings for people with
learning disabilities, health needs assessment, mental
health promotion, local history and the impact of
unemployment on the work of health and social service
professionals. Currently, her main area of interest is
palliative care in primary care. She is working on a
scoping exercise on generalist end of life care commissioned
by the SDO and is supporting the evaluation of a
palliative care helpline for NHS Direct and the evaluation
of the Policy Unit for the National Council of Palliative
Care. She has conducted a needs review for a hospice
and a pilot study developing methods for a longitudinal
study of cancer patients over time. She has worked on
the national evaluation of the Department of Health
funded palliative care education and support
programmes for district and community nurses, and on
work with PCTs concerning palliative care service
development and commissioning. Cathy also works in
the Department of General Practice & Primary Care at
KCL, on a study investigating the palliative care needs of
COPD patients.
Victoria Simms BSc MSc
Research Associate
Vicky has a BSc in Natural Sciences from Durham
University and an MSc in Public Health in Developing
Countries from the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine. She has previously worked on trials
of environmental and sanitary improvements to reduce
trachoma in The Gambia, community-based surveys in
Sudan, and a national survey of physical disability in
Rwanda, which included a case-control study of the
relationship between disability and poverty. She is now
working with Dr Richard Harding on an evaluation of
palliative care provision for people with HIV in Kenya and
Uganda, funded by PEPFAR. Vicky’s research interests
include sanitation, communicable disease epidemiology,
statistics and study design, and healthcare provision in
Africa.
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