Bertha Ochieng is Professor of Integrated Health and Social Care at De Montfort University. She has extensive experience of health and social care provision as a clinician, an academic and as a researcher working with community groups and health and social care providers.
Her academic and research focus is on improving health and social care through the provision of high-quality education and research that provides positive results to marginalised and social disadvantage populations throughout the life span. Bertha’s strengths are in developing solutions for addressing the health and social care needs of socially disadvantaged populations and building relationships with community groups and practitioners in the health and social care sector. Her work has resulted in collaborations with diverse teams, comprising of, voluntary sector organisations, academics, NHS Trusts and social care teams locally, nationally and internationally. Her research portfolio includes three broad themes:
Collaboration
Community empowerment and engagement to enable the voices of marginalised and socially disadvantaged populations to be heard in the planning and delivery of services. Examples of work in this area: Migrants families – barriers with accessing and utilising health promotion services in the UK; examining multi-ethnic parents’ views on healthy eating practices for children, Black and minority ethnic young people and their families’ experiences and views on healthy lifestyles.
Healthcare & Social Care Support
Engaging health and social care providers to identify framework that supports development of integrated models of health and social care to manage long-term non-communicable diseases such as incorporating digital solutions in health and social care, identification of cultural sensitive health promotion models for prevention and self-management of lifestyle related illnesses; examples of work include: Using smart-home sensors with older adults with long-term complex multi-morbidity; working with health practitioners to develop an evidence-based training tool for weight management.
Social Care Workforce
Service development and knowledge transfer activities to enable health and social care workforce deliver high quality care. Examples of projects she has led include: community health practitioners experiences of using telephone triage; practice nurse development programme to manage patients in the community with long-term conditions, examining the impact of continuing professional development on healthcare outcomes;