Dr Sophie Spitters

Dr Sophie Spitters

Health Services Management Centre
Research Fellow

Contact details

Email
s.j.i.m.spitters@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Health Services Management Centre
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Sophie is a social scientist at the BRACE Rapid Evaluation Centre, part of the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham. In her research, she explores the co-creation, implementation and evaluation of innovations aimed at improving people’s health, care, and wellbeing. Interests are digital innovations, integrated care, and child health. 

Prior to joining the Health Services Management Centre, Sophie worked on the NIHR-funded ModCons study exploring triage and decision-making about consultation modality in primary care. During her PhD, she studied the improvement and integration of children’s allergy services across four case study sites. 

Sophie specialises in Quality Improvement, Human Factors, and qualitative methodologies. And she enjoys working in interdisciplinary teams, collaborating with patients, healthcare professionals and mixed-methods researchers to understand real-world problems and implement creative solutions.

Qualifications

PhD, Health Services Research, Imperial College London

MSc, Human Factors and Engineering Psychology, University of Twente

Other activities

The Thinking In Between podcast explores how social theory and qualitative methods can illuminate the messy world of health and healthcare. In each episode, we invite a researcher working at the borderlands of social science and health to choose three “big ideas” that have influenced their research journey and the way they think. In this episode, Sophie speaks about her journey from physics to psychology to the social sciences, and how ‘Systems Theory’, ‘Dialectical Critical Realism’, and ‘Boundary Spanning’ have influenced her work and thinking

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Brenman, N, Spitters, S, Spooner, S, Wherton, J, Gill, M, Swinglehurst, D, Paparini, S & Shaw, S 2026, 'Choreographing Triage: Making Patient Requests ‘Flow’ Through Digitally Enabled Systems of Access and Decision-Making in NHS Primary Care', Sociology of Health & Illness, vol. 48, no. 4, e70172. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.70172

Other

Wu, F, Spitters, S, Sidhu, M & Smith, J 2025, 'A rapid evaluation of the commissioning and delivery of quality improvement programmes across general practice in England', Health Services Research UK 18th Annual Conference, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 2/07/25 - 3/07/25.

Wu, F, Spitters, S, Sidhu, M & Smith, J 2025, 'A rapid evaluation of the commissioning and delivery of quality improvement programmes in general practice in England', Health Services Research UK 18th Annual Conference, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 2/07/25 - 3/07/25.

Spitters, S, Wu, F, Sidhu, M & Smith, J 2025, 'Exploring the implications of health system reorganisation for quality improvement in primary care', 2025 Annual Conference of the European Forum for Primary Care, Vienna, Austria, 7/09/25 - 9/09/25.

Sidhu, M & Spitters, S 2025, 'Rethinking Rapid Evaluation: Challenges in Scoping and Decision-Making', The Future of Evaluation in Health and Social Care, Newcastle, United Kingdom, 14/01/25 - 16/01/25.

Other contribution

Wu, F, Spitters, S & Sidhu, M 2025, A rapid evaluation of the commissioning and delivery of quality improvement programmes across general practice in England - case study site workshops. <https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/social-policy/BRACE/brace-gp-quality-improvement-workshop-slides.pdf>

Sidhu, M & Spitters, S 2025, Beyond the Brief: The Role of Scoping and Co-Design in Shaping Rapid Evaluation Decisions.

Spitters, S & Dakin, C 2025, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in the NIHR ​BRACE Centre.

Wu, F, Spitters, S & Sidhu, M 2025, GPQI - Emerging findings from national stakeholder interviews.

Sidhu, M & Spitters, S 2025, Rethinking rapid evaluation: Challenges in scoping and decision-making​.

Sidhu, M & Spitters, S 2025, Rethinking rapid evaluation: ​Challenges in scoping and decision-making​; presentation to Public Health Interventions Responsive Studies Teams.

Newbould, J, Phillips, W, Dawney, J, Spitters, S, Dent, H, Morley, K, Pitt, C & Coldham, T 2025, Smoking cessation interventions for people with serious mental illness (SMI).

Phillips, W, Dawney, J, Spitters, S & Newbould, J 2025, Tobacco dependency treatment services for people with severe mental illness (SMI).

Waring, J, Sidhu, M & Spitters, S 2024, EDI and rapid evaluation.

Poster

Phillips, W, Dawney, J, Newbould, J & Spitters, S 2025, 'Tobacco dependency treatment services for people with severe mental illness: A mixed methods rapid evaluation', Health Services Research UK 18th Annual Conference, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 2/07/25 - 3/07/25.

View all publications in research portal