Paula Baraitser Senior Lecturer/Consultant

About me

Paula is an Improvement Science Fellow, and Senior Lecturer, King’s College London and Consultant, King’s College Hospital.

Paula Baraitser is a Consultant in sexual health at King’s College Hospital and an Honorary Senior Lecturer in global health at King’s College London. She is also Clinical Director for the award-winning online sexual health service, SH:24.

After graduating from medical school, Paula built her social science skills with an MA in gender and development, and her improvement science skills with an MD on innovation within sexual health services for young people. She then completed a five-year specialist clinical training programme in public health that included an MSc from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Paula has combined her clinical experience of sexual health and public and global health knowledge to generate 15 years of health services research that has influenced improvements in patient experience, service re-design and national policy.

Her current research interests include user involvement in service development and new technologies to support self-management in sexual health care: ‘My work uses contemporary technology for patient-centred innovation in public health in the context of a rapidly changing and resource-limited health service’.

During her Improvement Science Fellowship, Paula investigated the use of ‘multi-modality’ health care services in sexual health and beyond. These combine self-management at home with a choice of remote and face-to-face clinical support: ‘I will use service activity data, clinical records and ethnography to study the impact of multi-modality sexual health services on patterns of use, cost effectiveness, user experience and clinical outcomes. These services require the collaborative development of new health systems where users “mix and match” service modality, drawing on clinical support as they need it’.