My main interest is in using information to help people within the health service make better decisions. Often this will involve mathematical modelling or other operational research techniques, but sometimes it can be just presenting the data in a more intuitive way. I want my work to be relevant to, and used by, those working within the NHS and so I am also very interested in the process of how to get theoretical knowledge into practical application.

I am currently focusing on projects around:

• mortality and morbidity outcomes following cardiac surgery in children in the UK;
• understanding the course of a child's stay in paediatric intensive care;
• evaluation of service delivery within hospitals.

From September 2016 to August 2017, I will be a Harkness Fellow in Health Policy awarded by the Commonwealth Fund. I will spend that year in the US researching how information and data can be better used in intensive care settings.

Since 2006, I have worked on a great variety of projects including:

• capacity planning within hospitals;
• building tools to help design new provisions for care for anxiety and depression;
• risk models for surgical outcomes;
• modelling to inform decisions on the national immunisation programme;
• modelling to investigate possible triage policies during times of reduced capacity;
• clinical trial analysis;
• modelling to inform decisions about interventions in Asia and Africa to help maternal and child health;
• data analysis and modelling to understand current provision of skilled birth attendance in Asia;
• a website tool to distill evidence on health financing for policy makers.

Many of these projects have involved building software tools, mostly within Microsoft Excel, to help people interpret information and results about their service. For more on these tools please see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/operational-research/AnalysisTools.