Allison Hirst, QResearch Manager

Allison joined NDM in July 2021 as Senior Project Manager working on QResearch with Julia Hippisley-Cox.

She has a long background in project management and research roles in several types of health research.

During the last 8 years she developed and coordinated the work of the IDEAL Collaboration to progress research methodologies for innovation in surgery and medical devices.

She was Research Fellow at the EQUATOR Network for 4 years. She worked with all stakeholders in the health research and publication process to improve the quality of evidence by promoting the use of reporting guidelines.

Before this her career has included:

  • Senior Project Manager of the Kadoorie Biobank Study, a blood-based prospective cohort study of 500,000 adults in China, a collaboration between the University of Oxford and the Chinese National Centre for Disease Control.
  • Project Manager/Researcher of the HOPEFUL Study: a multi-centre retrospective cohort study comparing the efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of hysterectomy and uterine artery embolisation (UAE) for the treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids.
  • Research & Development Fellow, NICE. Allison developed the national clinical guideline on Osteoporosis.
  • Macmillan Research Fellow, Cochrane  Cancer Network., where she carried out a Cochrane systematic review “Benzodiazepines for insomnia in palliative care”.
  • Research Assistant, University of Oxford. She coordinated a research project looking at the influence of the media, specifically the TV hospital drama ‘Casualty’ on attendance rates for paracetamol overdose at A&E Departments across the UK.
  • Research Assistant, Department of Medicine, Pacific Medical Center, Seattle, USA. She carried out a project examining the bone density of female athletes.

Allison gained her first degree in Human Sciences, Wadham College, University of Oxford and an MSc in Exercise and Health Sciences from the University of Bristol. She has a Diploma in Teaching in Higher Education and is a registered Level 3 UK Athletics Coach.

She works on the primary care stream of Work Package 6 Primary Care / Population Health and Health Economics.