Jules was a distinguished Economist renowned for his profound impact on social and health care research both nationally and internationally. Throughout his career, he tirelessly pursued the aim of enhancing the lives of those reliant on these crucial services.
Jules always demonstrated his passion to deliver high quality research that made a difference within the social and health care sector and to people’s lives. With this aim, firstly Jules had the determination to continuously disseminate research findings. His work is held with high regard and has been published in the strongest of academic journals. In total, he is the author and co-author of more than 150 journal articles, official reports, discussion papers and book chapters. Secondly, Jules significantly contributed to building the much needed research capacity by supporting early career researchers.
Jules always believed in the importance of research being informed and guided by people with lived experiences of receiving services. His legacy is marked by his unwavering belief in the transformative power or research to drive positive change in the social and health care sector.
Picture of Ray Fitzpatrick used by permission of David Fisher / Fisher Studios
Ray Fitzpatrick was a Professor of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Oxford and Senior Fellow at Nuffield College. QSO colleagues are deeply saddened that Ray passed away in April 2024. Ray was the deputy director of QSO 1 (2019-2023) and was to reprise this role for QSO 2 (2024-2028).
The focus of Ray’s research was on evaluation of health and social care services, and the use of evidence from patient- reported outcomes and measures of health status and patient experience. Within QSO, he led projects on developing Core Outcome sets and on evaluating how the newly formed Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) addressed quality. His research brought the views of patients and service users into conversations about the quality of care
Ray was a highly valued colleague whose vision of interdisciplinary work contributed immensely to policy-related research and QSO. Ray was a kind, wise and supportive critical friend who was always available to help others and who enabled people to achieve their best.
Ray, and his contributions to the PRU directorship and programme of research, will be greatly missed.