Robert (bob) Phillips MA, BM BCh, MMedSei, MRCPCHH, PhD

Bob is a Senior Clinical Academic at CRD and an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric / Teenage-Young Adult Oncology at Leeds Children's Hospital. His main area of work is in the development of individual participant data meta-analysis, and the development of skills in appraisal and translation of clinical research in practice. He is the lead of the PICNICC collaboration, “Predicting Infectious ComplicatioNs In Children with Cancer” which was formed by engaging international clinical and methodological experts, parent representatives, and healthcare researchers to investigate primarily the patterns of risk in febrile neutropenia. The PICNICC collaboration now consists of 26 different study groups from 16 countries and is actively engaged in involving new members from around the world to further develop its aims. This work develops the CRD research themes of methodological improvement in IPD meta-analysis in improving outcomes in cancer medicine, and capacity building and translation of research in the NHS.

Bob qualified in Medicine from Somerville College, Oxford in 1997 after an undergraduate career at Clare College, Cambridge. He worked at CRD as an MRC Training Fellow since 2007, before being appointed into his current role in 2013. He has worked extensively to promote and teach evidence-based practice with the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine in Oxford, UK, and also the Centre for Evidence-based Child Health (Institute of Child Health, London, UK). He edits the evidence-based practice sections of the Archives of Diseases in Childhood and is an associate editor of the journal. He has lectured in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, and the Nordic Countries on the subject of evidence-based practice, and has written widely on this. Bob was the Clinical Lead for the NICE Guideline (CG151) on the management of Neutropenic Sepsis. In addition to the work in febrile neutropenia, he has undertaken many systematic reviews assessing the quality of evidence underlying interventions to ameliorate the side effects of cancer treatments in childhood. These areas include a Cochrane systematic review of the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, the treatment of constipation, and risk stratification in nephropathy. He has worked with the Cochrane Child Health field, the PRISMA-IPD group, and the Department of Health-funded Children and Young People's Health Outcomes forum to encourage the production, development, and use of high-quality health research in the care of children and young people.