Prof Vari Drennan MBE

The Centre for Applied Health & Social Care Research, Kingston University, London.

Professor Drennan has led a programme of research into questions of adapting, innovating, and supporting health care workforces over the past twenty years. Vari joined the academic department of primary care at University College London (UCL), after working as a senior NHS community health service manager and professional nurse lead in inner London. At UCL she started a programme of research on health and social care workforce and evaluations of new and changing professional roles such as non-medical prescribing and nurse consultants.  On moving to the Joint Faculty of Health & Social Care Sciences at Kingston University and St. George’s University of London she built on the new roles research programme and led National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) funded studies investigating the contribution of physician associates to primary and secondary care in England.  She has led studies on introducing multi-professional advanced practice roles, strategies for retaining nurses in their jobs and their profession and understanding and addressing global nursing shortages. She is currently co-lead for a NIHR funded study investigating the impact of including advanced clinical practitioners and physician associates into the staffing of emergency departments in England as well as leading a study on retention strategies for home visiting community nurses.   More details of her work are available here. She was a visiting professor, Zhengzhou University China (2014-17) and Western Sydney University , Australia (2019-2022). She is a Fellow of the Queens’ Nursing Institute.  Professor Drennan was awarded Member of the British Empire for services to health services research and nursing in 2016.