Biography
Susannah Browne is the St Luke’s Hospice Research Fellow. She is motivated by a desire to ensure equality of access to best practice in End of Life Care provision, whatever the context. Her perspective draws on inclusiveness; bringing excluded or ‘other’ voices into the research arena to challenge received or ‘expert’ opinion in support of service transformation or illness experience.
Susannah completed her Psychology degree at the University of Plymouth and subsequently studied for an MPhil by research there as a recipient of a Science and Engineering Research Council Grant. Her MPhil used Time Series analysis to explore the relationship between mood, peak flow and the menstrual cycle in asthmatics. Susannah went on to work as a research manager designing and delivering research programmes in the Psychology Department at University College London and then the Department of Liaison Psychiatry at St Thomas’ Hospital.
Susannah taught, research methods and statistics, cognitive psychology, gender and psychology and social psychology to undergraduate and graduate students.
Susannah left academia in 2003 to join the Civil Service; where she lead Social Research, Policy, Horizon Scanning and Secretariat Teams in the Home Office, HMTreasury and the Government Equalities Office. She was Head of Social Research in HMTreasury and Head of the Government’s Economic & Social Research Service. The majority of her career was spent in the Home Office where she specialised in developing strategic research programmes in support of National Security. Latterly she was responsible for outcome reporting to the Cabinet Office’s Extremism Task Force and to No.10 on service transformation reviews.
Susannah is a former Trustee of the Social Research Association.
Research
Susannah is interested in service transformation using a systemic approach to understanding the delivery of measurable outcomes and impact assessment. Her current research funded by St Luke’s Hospice in Harrow is focussed on the provision of medical care at end of life in care homes. She is currently designing a systematic review of the evidence in this area, drawing on policy, academic research and the grey literature. Her fieldwork will examine the perspectives of all actors and agencies involved in the provision of End of Life Care in Long Term Care Facilities to understand what works and gaps in care provision. In particular she is interested in the interplay between private financial concern and benefit from public finance provision of end of life care.
Publications
Elizabeth A. Grunfeld, E. Jane Maher, Susannah Browne, Pippa Ward, Teresa Young, Bella Vivat, Gay Walker, Cathy Wilson, Henry W. Potts, Alex M. Westcombe, Michael A. Richards, and Amanda J. Ramirez. Advanced Breast Cancer Patients’ Perceptions of Decision Making for Palliative Chemotherapy. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2006 24:7, 1090-1098. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2005.01.9208
M. S. Hunter, J. M. Ussher, S. J. Browne, M. Cariss, R. Jelley & M. Katz (2002) A randomized comparison of psychological (cognitive behavior therapy), medical (fluoxetine) and combined treatment for women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 23:3, 193-199, doi: 10.3109/01674820209074672
Hunter MS, Ussher JM, Cariss M, Browne S, Jelley R, Katz M. Medical (fluoxetine) and psychological (cognitive-behavioural therapy) treatment for premenstrual dysphoric disorder: a study of treatment processes. J Psychosom Res. 2002 Sep;53(3):811-7. doi: 10.1016/s0022-3999(02)00338-0.
Browne, S; Hyland, M.E. (1992) Mood and Peak Flow in Asthma Lancet (British edition). 1992, Vol 339, Num 8785, pp 118-119. doi: 10.1016/0140-6736(92)91022-z.
