Dr Clair Le Boutillier

I am a Senior Research Fellow in Qualitative Research working with the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) hosted by King’s College London (KCL) and partners. I also work as joint deputy director for the Qualitative Applied Health Research Centre (QUAHRC), hosted by KCL, where I facilitate an international peer-to-peer network (a monthly qualitative special interest group) and support others to showcase their research via blogs and podcasts (available at QUAHRC). My work role involves providing methods expertise to clinicians and researchers seeking health research funding, developing and delivering methods training, and supporting capacity development across the national RSS team. Alongside, I am the Qualitative Lead for King's Clinical Trials Unit and a member of the King's Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO) working group.

With a background in Occupational Therapy, I bring a participatory and collaborative ethos to my work. I work across research and practice, push traditional boundaries, establish collaborations across disciplines and organisations, and work within interdisciplinary teams to further my contributions. I am committed to understanding patient experience and improving healthcare and I have a passion to improve methods for health research. With a particular interest in integrating creative methods into more traditional healthcare research approaches, a recent Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship (awarded by THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute)) used design thinking, video-reflexive ethnography and co-design to consider the Holistic Needs Assessment for people living with cancer (The Personalised Care and Support Study) and achieved impact at public, professional, policy and practice levels.