Dr Alex Faulkner

My current research is focused in three areas:

• the sociopolitics of health technologies;
• sociology of healthcare scientific knowledge;
• social aspects of healthcare.

The dynamics of healthcare policy provides an over-arching focus. These three areas encompass more detailed interests in: the relationship between health technology innovation and healthcare regulation and governance; organisation and shared healthcare practices in delivery of care services, especially primary-secondary care interface; the evidence-based movements in medicine/healthcare; accountability practices and risk in health services; European medical device and human materials policies; comparative case study methodology. Health technologies of particular interest are: human implant technologies including artificial hips, and tissue and cell-based therapies including tissue-engineering; technologies for early detection of disease, such as prostate cancer testing; and home-monitoring of chronic illness.

Current research projects:
01 April 2006 - 01 April 2008
Economic and Social Research Council - Regulatory innovation of a contested technology zone: Follow-up study of human tissue engineering in the UK and EU. £80,564

Wales Office of Research and Development - Long term anti-coagulation therapy:developments of patient self-monitoring and primary care service in Wales and England. £26,269

Completed research projects:
01 March 2005 - 30 April 2005
Wales Office of Research and Development - Scoping study for a research network in self-care R&D for Wales. £13,700

01 June 2002 – 31 July 2004
Economic and Social Research Council – Medical device governance: regulation of tissue engineering in the UK and EU. £175,749 from ESRC.

As Principal Applicant
01 July 2001 – 03 August 2002
Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care – Pilot study to validate hospital-based sampling frames for complex delayed discharge cases and to test case-finding methods for parallel repeat admission cases in the community. Ca. £11,600

20 Aug 2001 – 19 April 2002
Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care – Overview and survey of effectiveness of interventions to promote stability and continuity of care for looked after children. £24,927.

1999-2000
Wales Office of R&D in Health and Social Care Systematic review of the effect of primary care-based service innovations on quality and patterns of referral to specialist hospital outpatient and outreach care. £32,000

As coapplicant:
10 Jun 2002 – February 2003
Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care – Practitioner research in social care: a survey and case study analysis.
£9995 (with Prof Ian Shaw).

Publications:
Faulkner A, Kent J, Geesink I, Fitzpatrick D. (2006). Purity and the dangers of regenerative medicine: regulatory innovation of human tissue engineered technology. Social Science & Medicine, 63, 2277-2288.

Brown, N.; Faulkner, A.; Kent, J; Michael, M. (2006). Regulating Hybrids: `Making a Mess' and `Cleaning Up' in Tissue Engineering and Transpecies Transplantation. Social Theory & Health, 4, 1, 1-24.

Faulkner A, Kent J, Geesink I, Fitzpatrick D. (2006). Purity and the dangers of regenerative medicine: regulatory innovation of human tissue engineered technology. Social Science & Medicine, 63, 2277-2288.

Brown, N.; Faulkner, A.; Kent, J; Michael, M. (2006). Regulating Hybrids: `Making a Mess' and `Cleaning Up' in Tissue Engineering and Transpecies Transplantation. Social Theory & Health, 4, 1, 1-24.

Shaw I, Faulkner A. (2006). Practitioner Evaluation at Work. American Journal of Evaluation, 27: 44-63.

Kent, J., Faulkner, A., Geesink, I., & FitzPatrick, D. (2006). Towards Governance of Human Tissue Engineered Technologies in Europe: Framing the case for a new regulatory regime. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 73, 41-60. (online at: http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0040162505000879).

Faulkner A, Kent J, Fitzpatrick D, Geesink I. (2003). Human tissue engineered products—drugs or devices? British Medical Journal; 326: 1159 - 1160.[Editorial].

Faulkner A, Mills N, Bainton D, Baxter K, Kinnersley P, Peters T, Sharp D. (2003). Systematic review of innovations in primary care affecting referral to specialist secondary care. British Journal of General Practice. (November 2003).

Best C, Shaw I, Latimer J, Young C, Faulkner A. (2003). Pilot study to validate hospital-based sampling frames for complex delayed discharge cases and to test case-finding methods for parallel repeat admission cases in the community. Research Report to Wales Office of R&D (WORD).

Kent J, Faulkner A. (2002). Regulating human implant technologies in Europe – understanding the new era in medical device regulation. Health, Risk & Society, 4,2, 190-209.

Faulkner A. (2002). Casing the joint: the material development of artificial hips. In: Ott K, Serlin D, Mihm S. Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: modern histories of prosthetics. New York, New York University Press. pp199-226.

Perez-del-Aguila R, Holland S, Faulkner A. (2002). Overview and survey of effectiveness of interventions to promote stability and continuity of care for looked after children. Research Report to Wales Office of R&D (WORD).

Faulkner A, Kent J. (2001). Innovation and regulation in human implant technologies: developing comparative approaches, Social Science and Medicine, 53, (2001) 895–913.

Faulkner A (2001). ‘Exploring Expertise: Issues and Perspectives’, (Eds. Williams R, Faulkner W (no relation), Fleck J), Science and Public Policy, 28 (1), 80-82. [Book review].

Faulkner A, Donovan J, Brookes S, Selley S, Gillatt D, Hamdy F. (2000). The use of prostate-specific antigen testing in the detection of localised prostate cancer: current opinion and urological practice in the United Kingdom. European Journal of Public Health, 10(4) 289-295.

Dieppe P, Lohmander S, Chard J, Faulkner A. Total hip and knee joint replacement for osteoarthritis. Annually in Clinical Evidence 1999 -2002 (British Medical Journal/American College of Physicians).

Watkins C, Harvey I, Langley C, Faulkner A, Gray S. (1999). General practitioners’ use of computers during the consultation and barriers to their use. British Journal of General Practice, 49, 381-3.

Somerset M, Faulkner A, Shaw A, Dunn E, Sharp D. (1999). Obstacles on the path to a primary care-led NHS: complexities of outpatient care. Social Science & Medicine, 48, 213-225

Donovan J, Frankel S, Faulkner A, Selley S, Gillatt D, Hamdy F. (1999). Dilemmas in treating early prostate cancer: the evidence and a qustionnaire survey of consultant urologists in the United Kingdom. British Medical Journal , 318, 299-300.

Watkins C, Harvey I, Langley C, Gray S, Faulkner A. (1999). General practitioners’ use of guidelines in the consultation and their attitudes to them. British Journal of General Practice, 49, 11-15.

Shaw A, Somerset M, Dunn E, Peters T, Faulkner A, Sharp D. (1998). Can we trust the quality of routine hospital outpatient information in the UK? Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, 3(4), 203-206.

Faulkner A. Laboratories for healthcare policy? (1998). ‘The progress of experiment: science and therapeutic reform in the United States, 1900-1990 - H.M. Marks’. Science and Public Policy, August, 25(4), 275-6 (book review).

Faulkner A, Kennedy LG, Baxter K, Donovan J, Wilkinson M, Bevan G. (1998). Effectiveness of hip prostheses in primary total hip replacement: critical review of evidence, and an economic model. Health Technology Assessment, vol 2 No.6. (whole volume).

Langley C, Faulkner A, Watkins C, Gray S, Harvey I. (1998). Use of guidelines in primary care: practitioners’ perspectives. Family Practice, 15(2), 105-111.

Faulkner A. (1997). ‘Strange bedfellows’ in the laboratory of the NHS? An analysis of the new science of health technology assessment in the United Kingdom. In: Elston MA (ed) The sociology of medical science and technology. Sociology of Health and Illness Monograph No. 3.

Faulkner A, Harvey I, Peters T, Sharp D, Frankel S. (1997). Profiling outpatient workload: practice variations between consultant firms and hospitals in South West England. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health , 51(3), 310-314.

Selley S, Donovan J, Faulkner A, Coast J, Gillatt D. (1997). Diagnosis, management and screening of early localised prostate cancer. Health Technology Assessment , 1 (2).(whole volume).

Areas of teaching:

• Lectures to Sociology undergraduates 3rd year option in medical sociology.
  1. Health technology 2. The knowledge based health service.
  Tutor, Health and Society – medical students.
• One PhD student supervision.
• Lead developer of ‘Health’ modules for integrated professional doctorate in social sciences. Modules on ‘Healthcare, medicine & society’, and ‘Health care governance’.
• Contributions to Health & Social Care Research Support Unit for SE Wales (HSCRSU) research awareness courses for health & social care practitioners: introduction to quantitative methods; systematic review methods; research governance and ethics; writing research grant proposals.