Professor Tim Rapley

Professor

School: Communities and Education

Tim works at the intersection of ethnomethodology, medical sociology and implementation science, engaging in conceptually-driven empirical research to create substantive practice change and impact. He likes to understand the everyday, taken-for-granted, aspects of medical, health and social care work. A focus on what people actually do, as opposed to only what they think they do, or they tell you they do, can offer unique, practical and tailored solutions. He is a Professor of Applied Health Care Research in the School of Communities and Education, having joined Northumbria University in November 2017.

Tim’s PhD focused on how social science research takes place in, through and as joint, collaborative, work. Since then, he has always worked in multidisciplinary teams, with diverse stakeholders. He collaborates with academic, patient, public and practice colleagues nationally and internationally, developing and supporting implementation and process thinking. Together, we have undertaken studies in community, primary, secondary and tertiary health care as well as dental, pharmacy and, more recently, social care and pre-school educational contexts.

He is interested in enabling implementation and process thinking to become more embedded across the research cycle. Key areas of include:

Making implementation research ideas, concepts and resources more accessible, practical and useable for people doing implementation work (see, for example ItFits-toolkit, I-STEM)
Developing more pragmatic, critical and inquisitive implementation research (see, for example NoMAD, NPT Coding manual)

Alongside this Tim has published a wide range of texts focused on research methods audiences. He has written as book Doing Conversation, Discourse and Documents Analysis, initially published in 2007, second edition in 2018.

Campus Address

Room B118 Coach Lane Campus West
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE7 7XA

Email Tim

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Key areas of expertise

Implementation research - theory and tools
Health and social care interventions

Key current projects include:

EQUIP-IN Maximising effective social care pathways for assessment and provision of assistive technologies for bathing for older adults, NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research 2025-2030

SCAN Strengthening Counter Fraud Provision across the NHS in England, NIHR Health Service Delivery Research, 2025-2027

ESCALATER Evaluating speech, communication, and language support at the 2- 2½ year Healthy Child review NIHR Policy Research Programme 2025-2027

Workforce Voices Partnership for Workforce Sustainability in Underserved Areas, NIHR Health Service Delivery Research, 2025-2030

SilverCloud Target Trials Real-world Studies Of Amwell’s SilverCloud Digital Enabled Therapies, NIHR Invention for Innovation, 2024-2027

CHESS Investigating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of CHildren’s Early Self-care Support in children with neurodisability, NIHR Health Technology Assessment, 2024-2028

PLACES Promoting Local Access to Children's Early language and communication Support, NIHR Health Service Delivery Research, 2024-2026

SINFONIA The SustaINed Drug-Free remissiON in rheumatoId Arthritis project, Foundation for Research in Rheumatology 2023-2027

Some key completed projects:

ImpleMentAll: Towards evidence-based tailored implementation strategies for eHealth. European Commission H2020. 2017-2021. Key outputs: ItFits-toolkit for self-guided tailored implementation strategies and I-STEM Model and resources for stakeholder engagement for implementation.

TRANSITION How can health services contribute most effectively to facilitating successful transition of young people with complex health needs from childhood to adulthood? NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research 2012-2017 Key outputs:informed multiple guidelines and plans, including 2016 Nice Guidelines, 2018 Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership Audit for Transition, and 2019 NHS Long-Term Plan. Also developed an implementation toolkit to assist embedding of Developmentally Appropriate Healthcare.

PMM: Toolkits in paediatric rheumatology for medical students, GPs and nurses. Pzier Educational Grant. 2012-2016. Key outputs: (1) PMM for doctors and medical students and (2) PPM for Nurses and Student Nurses.

NoMAD: Improving the normalisation of complex interventions: Developing quantitative measures for users based on Normalisation Process Theory. Economic and Social Research Council. 2012-2015. Key outputs: (1) measure development and (2) validation.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
GP workforce sustainability to maximise effective and equitable patient care: a realist review, Owen-Boukra, E., Burford, B., Cohen, T., Duddy, C., Dunn, H., Fadia, V., Goodman, C., Henry, C., Lamb, E., Ogden, M., Rapley, T., Rees, E., Roberts, N., Royer-Gray, E., Vance, G., Wong, G., Park, S. 1 Mar 2026, In: The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
‘Mum feels that the decision has already been made’: From shared decision-making to negotiated compromise in Adult Social Care, Whitehead, P., Rooney, L., Adams‐Thomas, J., Greenup, M., Raffle, A., Southall, C., Whittington, S., Rapley, T. 1 Feb 2026, In: Social Science and Medicine
Physiology of everyday sleep and physical activity: An exploratory mixed-methods study of multi-sensor wearables for infants and toddlers, Hunter, E., Kolehmainen, N., Nazarpour, K., Rapley, T., Collins, A., Eggett, C., Williams, C., Thornton, C. 6 Mar 2026, In: Behavior Research Methods
"Safe as possible or as happy and well as possible, because they might not be the same thing". Occupational therapy perspectives of intermediate care risks during COVID-19., Newman, C., Murray, J., Raffle, W., Drake, S., Whitehead, P., Rapley, T. 2 Feb 2026, In: British Journal of Occupational Therapy
Acceptability and feasibility of online delivery of chair-based yoga for older adults with multimorbidity – Lessons from a process evaluation of the Gentle Years Yoga trial, Ward, L., Bissell, L., Howsam, J., Tew, G., Wiley, L., Rose, F., Maturana Palacios, C., Rapley, T. 17 Mar 2025, In: BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies
A pragmatic double blind remote pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial of a self-management app for people with Sjögren disease, Hackett, K., Campbell, M., Pakpahan, E., Vines, J., Lendrem, D., McCready, J., Rapley, T., Ellis, J., Deary, V., McColl, E., McCallum, C. 3 Jun 2025, In: Frontiers in Digital Health
CONsensus-based Process evaluation reporting guideline for public HEalth intervention Studies (CONPHES) conducted alongside an effectiveness trial: An e-Delphi study, Van Nassau, F., Cillekens, B., Jelsma, J., Vis, C., Mokkink, L., Treweek, S., Van Der Ploeg, H., Anema, J., Baker, G., Bakker, F., Baranowski, T., Boendermaker, L., Burke, A., Chalkley, A., Chambers, D., Drozd, F., Edney, S., Engell, T., Finch, T., Fynn, J., Goense, P., Grant, A., Guthrie, B., Hannes, K., Hipple Walters, B., Hoffmann, T., Hulscher, M., Jones, A., Kelly, P., Koorts, H., Kwak, L., Maar, M., Maher, C., Mbuagbaw, L., McCleary, N., McHugh, S., Milton, K., Möhler, R., Neher, M., O'Cathain, A., Paulsen, M., Pawson, R., Pinnock, H., Potthoff, S., Powell, B., Rapley, T., Rosenkranz, R., Von Thiele Schwarz, U., Massey-Swindle, T., Thabane, L. 19 Dec 2025, In: BMJ Open
Exploring agency, autonomy and authority among lead tissue viability nurses: a qualitative study, Pagnamenta, F., Rapley, T., Lhussier, M. Dec 2025, In: Nursing Open
From eligibility to diagnosis: candidacy and the complex journey of cerebral palsy diagnosis within primary care, Baggaley, J., Seiboth, C., Rapley, T., Basu, A. 12 Feb 2025, In: BMC Pediatrics
Hospital in-reach family-centred social prescribing pilot for children with neurodisability: mixed methods evaluation with social return on investment analysis, Gordon, L., Hastry, M., Bate, A., Gordon, K., Greaves, E., Dimitriadou, S., Rapley, T., Basu, A. 30 Jan 2025, In: BMC Health Services Research

Further Information

Tim is an experienced supervisor of PhD and MD students and postdoctoral fellows. He has supervised nineteen PhD/MD students to a timely successful completion in a broad range of topics in applied health research.

Current postgraduate supervision:

Adam Webb - Developing the role of non-representational theory in evaluations in North East North Cumbria. ARC NENC

Amy Allan - What is the impact of the Academic Health Science Network North East North Cumbria (AHSN NENC) in the North of England. AHSN

Sam Armitage - Enabling self-care in children with disabilities

Kat Bevan - The relationship of participatory arts and creative development strategies to health inequalities. Northumbria RDF Studentship.

Caroline Fernandes - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: (COPD): The development of a brief intervention to improve pulmonary rehabilitation uptake. North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust and Teesside University

Nahdiah Purnamasari - Implementing an early intervention service for cerebral palsy in Indonesia: Overcoming the obstacles. LPDP (Indonesia Endowment Funds for Education)

Domna Salonen - Understanding opportunities to improve mental health care in everyday lives of families experiencing multiple long-term conditions. NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration