Research in the Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy
Our researchers have influenced new health and social care legislation, protections and safeguards; identified gaps and pitfalls in existing regulations; and provided guidance on best practice in medical ethics, safety, and delivery. Some of our current and recent projects can be found below.
The impact of Covid-19 social care 'easements'
Removing rights from the vulnerable?
Devised to ‘ease’ staffing pressures during the pandemic, how do emergency social care easements impact support for those drawing on services?Led by Professor Jean McHale, this project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to COVID-19.
Project website
This project examined the short- and longer-term impacts of social care easements on service-users’ fundamental rights, focusing on their application in five local authority areas in the West Midlands – all home to diverse communities and each with locales of acute social deprivation.
COALITION
Co-Producing Accessible Legal Information
COALITION explored barriers to access to legal services for people with learning disabilities, and investigated how legal services could be made more accessible to disabled people with cognitive impairments.
COALITION project website
The Co-Producing Accessible Legal Information (COALITION) Project was a collaboration between Rosie Harding from Birmingham Law School, Amanda Keeling of the University of Leeds, Sophie O’Connell of Wilsons Solicitors, Philipa Bragman and Andrew Lee from People First.
Everyday cyborgs 2.0
Law’s boundary work and alternative legal futures
Everyday cyborgs are all around us, and most of them go unnoticed. However, their existence creates difficulties for the law.
Everyday Cyborgs 2.0
Everyday cyborgs are all around us. They are persons with attached and implanted medical devices; for example, artificial joint replacements, pacemakers, total artificial hearts, and limb prostheses. Increasingly, these devices are smart devices (also called integrated goods). They run software and have wifi capabilities. Because the law takes a bounded approach to persons and objects, this integration of technology with persons generates unexpected practical, conceptual, and normative problems.
Everday Cyborgs 2.0 is a five year cross-disciplinary project funded by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award and led by Professor Muireann Quigley
Building Reproductive Justice with Indigenous Women in Northeast Brazil
University of Birmingham & Federal University of Pernambuco
This project aims to consolidate reproductive justice by working with Indigenous women from the Pankararu and Xukuru peoples to consolidate reproductive justice by improving access to sexual and reproductive healthcare in a manner that respects their worldviews and cultural practices.
Building Reproductive Justice site
This AHRC-funded project is led by Birmingham's Atina Krajewska, Professor of Law, who has extensive experience in the field of sexual and reproductive rights, (global) health law, and the sociology of health law.