Professor of Healthcare Improvement Research & Deputy Head of the College of Life Sciences, SAPPHIRE group, Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Leicester; England

Natalie Armstrong is a medical sociologist whose research uses social science theory and qualitative methods to improve healthcare quality. She is based in the SAPPHIRE group, Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Leicester, where she is a Professor of Healthcare Improvement Research and Deputy Head of the College of Life Sciences. Natalie has worked across many healthcare contexts, but has particular long-standing interests in women’s and children’s health and in preventative healthcare, especially population-based screening. She has a significant portfolio of research funding, including training awards for doctoral students to work under her supervision, and several commissioned projects she has undertaken for key healthcare organisations. She has held two competitively awarded personal fellowships: an ESRC knowledge transfer secondment with the Cabinet Office and a Health Foundation fellowship supporting her work on mitigating overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Natalie is the Implementation Lead for the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands, and leads a theme within the new NIHR-funded Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaboration on the role of organisations within patient safety. She has been an Associate Editor at BMJ Quality & Safety for over 10 years, and recently taken up a role as Non-Executive Director of an NHS Foundation Trust.