Dr Antonina Semkina is Research Associate at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce, King’s College London. Antonina brought together contributions for this blog from the other presenters at this Health Services Research conference session in Newcastle. (773 words)
One of the core functions of conferences is to allow colleagues to present and discuss work in progress. Here we share the results of a fruitful session where colleagues researching the introduction of new roles in health and social care saw many important parallels that will help them in developing and sharpening their analysis.
On the 2 and 3 July 2025 Newcastle University hosted the 18th annual Health Services Research conference. It featured nine thematic streams including Person Centred Care, Workforce, Digital, Social Care and Health Inequalities. Delegates had an opportunity to attend research discussions and Pecha Kucha sessions (short form presentations), workshops (e.g., ‘How do we know if HSR impacts on Policy?’ led by Unit Director Professor Annette Boaz), plenary sessions (e.g., ‘The 2030 workforce: how will innovative research deliver impact’?), meet ups (e.g., for Early career researchers) and to view research posters.
One of the research discussion sessions in the Workforce stream featured four presentations related to various new roles being developed in UK health and care services. Unit researcher Dr Antonina Semkina presented on the ‘New Roles in Health and Social Care: What is the nature of new care coordinator roles?’ project that she is conducting as part of the Health and Social Care Workforce Policy Research Unit programme of work. The research project, developed in collaboration with the Unit Public Contributors Involvement and Engagement group, focuses on what kinds of new care co-ordinator roles are being created, what tasks are delegated to them and the implications for various stakeholders (e.g., colleagues’ workload). Continue reading