Alison Pighills

I am currently the Principal Research Fellow for Research Capacity Development in the Mackay Hospital and Health Service (HHS). I am also an adjunct Associate Professor with James Cook University (JCU).

In 2005 I was awarded a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) fellowship to undertake a PhD at the University of York, United Kingdom (UK), which I completed in 2008. For my PhD, I conducted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving 238 participants, to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of environmental assessment and modification to prevent falls in older people. In 2008 I was awarded the University of York K M Stott prize for the best PhD thesis. I am currently a co-investigator on a multi-centre RCT in the UK, which aims to recruit 1300 participants and replicates my PhD research on a larger scale. This research was awarded $1.6m in funding by the UK NIHR in 2016.

My recent research history includes a RCT and patient and staff qualitative studies to examine the clinical effectiveness and staff/patient perceptions of professional skill sharing. I have been using a professional skill sharing and delegation model of care (the Calderdale Framework) for over 10 years and became the first ever Calderdale Framework practitioner in 2012. As such, this allows me to train clinicians to facilitate professional skill sharing in their organisations. This involves competency-based training of clinicians to enable them to deliver care, involving tasks, which cross traditional professional boundaries. In 2014-5 I set up the first Allied Health Rural Generalist service in Queensland in the Hinterland of Mackay Hospital and Health Service.