Miles Witham

I am an academic geriatrician with a particular focus on clinical trials for older people. Older people are underrepresented in clinical trials, and many clinical trials are not designed in a way that either facilitates participation for older people, or that provides outcomes relevant to older people, policymakers or health and social care professionals caring for older people.

My work as Professor of Trials for Older People will address this problem in three ways:

- by designing and running trials for older people across a range of disease states, seeking to improve physical function and quality of life in older people, testing interventions that target multiple pathologies of ageing, particularly cardiovascular disease and sarcopenia.
- by building capacity to conduct trials for older people in the UK and globally. Developing cohorts of older people ready and willing to engage in trials, developing sites and local investigators who can support recruitment and retention, and developing the next generation of trialists from across the multidisciplinary team.
- by researching how to do trials better – trials methodology research is essential if we are to design faster, more cost-effective, better quality trials for older people

In all of these activities, I seek to ensure that patients, carers and the public are at the centre of our activities, whether that be in trial design, trial management, or disseminating results.