Dr Lesley Baillie

Professional biography

Lesley's PhD thesis (completed 2007) was a qualitative case study of patient dignity in an acute hospital and she was then a consultant to the Royal College of Nursing’s UK-wide Dignity campaign, for which she conducted a survey of nurses’ experiences of dignified care. She developed educational resources, and conducted an evaluation of the campaign’s impact. She has worked on a number of other dignity-related projects, in collaboration with universities, care homes and NHS Trusts, and for the Design Council and the Scottish Human Rights Commission.

Lesley is an experienced doctoral supervisor and examiner for health and social care practitioners and at London South Bank University, she was the post-graduate research director (2016-17) and Professional Doctorate course director (2014-2017). She is currently supervising doctoral student projects on experiences of individuals of black ethnicity who are living with dementia, experiences of people from the Bangladeshi population who are living with ankylosing spondylitis, oral fluid intake for people with dementia in hospital, and experiences of living with Usher syndrome (deafblindness).

Lesley's recent research projects have focused on care transitions for frail older people from acute hospital wards, improving dementia awareness, student nurses' experienmces of people with dementia, improving transitions to professional practice for newly qualified nurses, and assessment of student nurses in practice. Lesley is particularly experienced in qualitative research methodologies, including phenomenology and case study, but also has experience in mixed methods, action research and appreciative inquiry.

Lesley is experienced in teaching nursing and healthcare students in a range of topic areas. Her current teaching interests are research methods and evidence-based practice, older people, dementia, person-centred and integrated care, and quality improvement.

From 2012-2017, in the first post of its kind, Lesley was Florence Nightingale Foundation Chair of Clinical Nursing Practice in 2012, a joint post between London South Bank University (LSBU), University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) and the Florence Nightingale Foundation. From 2015-2017, Lesley was Director of the Centre for Nurse and Midwife-led Research and Honorary Professor at University College London. In this role she gained extensive experience in building research capability and capacity within healthcare and supporting healthcare practitioners who aspire to a clinical academic career. In 2016, Lesley was part of a UK-wide group that developed a Department of Health sponsored resource: 'Transforming healthcare through clinical academic roles in nursing, midwifery and allied health professions: A practical resource for healthcare provider organisations': http://www.aukuh.org.uk/index.php/affiliate-groups/nmahps/transforming-healthcare Lesley is a visiting professor at London South Bank University and an affiliate of the International Care Ethics Observatory.