Tel: 0121 2044243

email: [email protected]

twitter: @dralexispaton

I am a qualitative social scientist and medical ethicist. My research seeks to create tangible social change and develop social agency within healthcare. I examine how people (patients, healthcare-professionals, policy-makers, industry) make decisions about health and healthcare. 

My research has two foci:

First, it focuses on how sociological theory and qualitative research methods can be combined with bioethical frameworks to improve healthcare services. I am particularly interested in how decision-making occurs in practice in the NHS. Using this sociological bioethics lens, my research identifies where existing policies and guidelines on decision-making require re-evaluating to facilitate improved support for patients and staff making healthcare decisions. By examining decision-making empirically, using qualitative methods, my research also explores the important role of the social sciences in the development of bioethical theories that are used in everyday medical practice.

Second, I examine how people make decisions about health within the context of/constraints of the social and structural determinants of health. Here my work focuses on understanding and improving the experience of healthcare, with a special interest in deprived, under-served and marginalised communities.  I work directly with communities to understand how their circumstances impact their health, the decisions they make about their health and what their health needs are now and in the future. Working together, we co-produce solutions at the local level to provide immediate support and improvement for their health, but also healthcare services and delivery. 

Outside of the university I am the Chair of the Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine for the Royal College of Physicians and a Trustee of the Institute of Medical Ethics. I am an expert advisor for the Fairness Foundation, the Horizon Europe TARGET project and the ESRC What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare? Project. I frequently appear in the media to discuss all things health and society and write for the Independent. All my pieces can be viewed at: https://www.independent.co.uk/author/alexis-paton

My PhD (Sociology, Newcastle University, 2015) research examined how female cancer patients make difficult decisions about preserving their fertility during cancer treatment. I hold an MA in Philosophy from the University of British Columbia (2010), and a BSc in Biology from the University of King’s College (2007).

 Prior to joining Aston in April 2020, I was a Lecturer in Social Sciences Applied to Health at the University of Leicester. I have also held positions as a Research Fellow at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre at Newcastle University, as a lecturer for Yale University’s Summer Institute in Bioethics, and as a research assistant at the University of British Columbia. I have also been a periodic lecturer for the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City University