Dr Ben Bowers

Ben is a clinical academic community nurse. He leads a programme of interdisciplinary research focused on improving last-days-of-life symptom control. Ben was recently announced as one of the 75 nurses and midwives whose work has had an especially significant impact on the NHS since its creation.

Academic interests

Ben’s academic interests include: 

• Last days of life symptom control
• Patients and families' experiences of care
• Medical ethics
• Healthcare systems design
• Human factors in healthcare
• Patient safety
• Community-based palliative care interventions
• Anticipatory prescribing of injectable medications
• Qualitative and mixed-methods research.

Degrees obtained

• BA (Hons) Nursing, 2006.
• MSc Advanced Practice, 2016.
• PhD Public Health and Primary Care, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 2021.

Awards and prizes

• Wellcome Early Career Award, 2023–2027.
• European Association for Palliative Care Early Researcher Award, 2023. 
• Queen Elizabeth Award for Outstanding Service, 2022.
• NHS England Community Nursing Research Award, 2022.
• NIHR School for Primary Care Research Scholarship, 2018–2021.
• Best Research Award, Association of Palliative Medicine Congress, 2019.

Biography

Ben is a Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow and a practicing Honorary Nurse Consultant in Palliative Care. As well as his research role at the Primary Care Unit and Department of Engineering, Ben is a Community Nursing Research Consultant with the Queen’s Nursing Institute, a Visiting Research Fellow at Cardiff University, and an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. Ben has held the title of Queen’s Nurse since 2009. His recent NIHR funded PhD with the University of Cambridge investigated community end of life anticipatory prescribing and patients’, families’, and clinicians’ perspectives of this care.

Ben’s postdoctoral research interests include improving last-days-of-life symptom control and systems for providing person-centred end-of-life care at home. Ben is an interdisciplinary researcher, working with colleagues in engineering, patient safety, social sciences, primary care, and palliative care.

He was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Award for Outstanding Service in 2022 and the European Association for Palliative Care Early Researcher Award 2023, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to community nursing and palliative care research.

Other interests

Improvisation (Improv), road biking, traveling with the family, gardening, and the allotment.