Dr Foster Unit
We can be found at:
Dr. Foster Unit
1st Floor Jarvis House
12 Smithfield Street
London EC1A 9LA
Tel: 020 7332 8960
The Dr Foster Unit is approaching its tenth anniversary. The Unit is headed by Sir Brian Jarman, Emeritus Professor of Primary Care, with Dr Paul Aylin, Clinical Reader in Epidemiology and consultant in Public Health, as Assistant Director.
Our research is funded through a grant from Dr Foster Intelligence. We also receive funding through our work with the Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality (CPSSQ) and Centre for Infection Prevention and Management (CIPM).
We work with a number of surgeons at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, GP colleagues in our department (Primary Care and Public Health), various external clinicians and Imperial College's Department of Mathematics.
Our expertise is in making the most out of routinely collected health data. The NHS has been said to be awash with data but short on information. Our aim is to convert the former into the latter, recognising that there are a number of barriers to the use of information, in order to highlight variations in quality and safety of care. The identification of unacceptable variation in outcomes such as death or complications, using validated and published indicators, is the vital first step in the quality improvement efforts of NHS managers and clinicians.
Despite our small size, the unit has an excellent publication record, publishing in leading academic journals, including the BMJ and the Lancet.
