My early research was on language impairment in people with schizophrenia, which later evolved to include bilingualism – motivated by moving from England back to Malaysia and then Singapore after my PhD where almost everyone is at least bilingual. In the last five years I have been part of the D-PACT team (Dementia PersonAlised Care Team). This is a programme of research funded by the NIHR to develop and evaluate an intervention comprising a dementia support worker based in primary care. The D-PACT dementia support worker is trained to take a coaching-inspired and person-centered approach to supporting people with dementia and their unpaid carers; they provide ongoing, variable-intensity support in a range of areas depending on what matters to the person with dementia and carer as well as needs. This could include: anticipatory care, physical health, emotional and mental wellbeing, future planning, signposting, and being a single point of contact. As part of D-PACT I also worked on (i) developing and enhancing ways of including people with dementia in research as well as collecting data from them in a person-centred manner; and (ii) employing alternative methods to the randomised controlled trial and realist economic evaluation. My current interests within dementia care include advance care planning (ACP) and issues around this – e.g. taking a systemic approach to achieve better integrated care; the economics of ACP using a realist economic lens and the impact of uncertainty (prognosis/trajectories + multiple long-term conditions) on people initiating planning for the future. I have a developing interest in the use of citizen science and AI in healthcare. I am keen to develop international links and collaborations further.

Dementia-related:
Wheat H, Weston L, Oh TM (joint first authors), Morgan-Trimmer S, Ingram W, Griffiths S, Sheaff R, Clarkson P, Medina-Lara A, Musicha C, Spicer S, Ukoumunne O, Allgar V, Creanor S, Clark M, Quinn C, Gude A, McCabe R, Batool S, Smith L, Richards D, Shafi H, Warwick B, Lasrado R, Hussain B, Jones H, Dalkin S, Bate A, Sherriff I, Robinson L, Byng R. (2023). Longitudinal realist evaluation of the Dementia PersonAlised Care Team (D-PACT) intervention: protocol. BJGP Open. Sep 19;7(3): BJGPO.2023.0019. doi: 10.3399/BJGPO.2023.0019. PMID: 37160337; PMCID: PMC10646200.

Griffiths S, Gude A, Greene L, Weston L, Sutcliffe CL, Wheat H, Oh TM, Byng R. (2022) ‘Do I have the capacity to make capacity judgements?’ Researcher reflections from a person-centred dementia support study. Dementia (London). Apr;21(3):972-994. doi: 10.1177/14713012211067320. Epub 2022 Feb 11. PMID: 35148655; PMCID: PMC9003753.

Griffiths S, Weston L, Morgan-Trimmer S, Wheat H, Gude A, Manger L, Oh T, Clarkson P, Quinn, C, Sheaff R, Clark M, Sherriff I, & Byng R (2022) Engaging Stakeholders in Realist Programme Theory Building: Insights from the Prospective Phase of a Primary Care Dementia Support Study. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. January.