Paul Hewitson

Dr Paul Hewitson is a Senior Research Officer in the Applied Health Research Unit (AHRU). He moved to the Oxford Population Health in 2011 and was involved in the design and evaluation of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and Experience Measures (PREMs) for the Health Services Research Unit (now AHRU).

Since 2013 he has worked as a research advisor for the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) supporting people applying for fellowships and researcher-led grants for the NIHR, MRC and other major funding bodies. He is also the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) officer for the Oxford branch of the RSS. 

Paul was a member of the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (NHS BCSP) Research Advisory Committee for eight years and led on a research priority setting exercise in 2018/19 for the NHS Cancer Screening Programme. His main research interests are health behavioural interventions for cancer screening, mixed methods research designs, risk communication, improving patient and public involvement in research and patient healthcare decision-making.

Originally from Newcastle (Australia) he moved to tropical England in 1999. Previously holding research posts at Southampton University (supporting the Health Technology Assessment programme and NICE Technology Appraisals), he joined the University of Oxford in 2002. As part of the Department of Primary Care he was chiefly involved in the development and evaluation of public and professional information materials for the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes.

During this time he published several systematic reviews concerning information provision for cancer screening, PSA testing for prostate cancer and the effectiveness of bowel cancer screening (Cochrane).  He was also involved in a number of qualitative studies regarding patient experience and surveys of public and health professional of cancer screening. As part of his NIHR Fellowship he was principal investigator of a randomised controlled trial which enhanced participation in the national bowel cancer screening programme.