Michael is a policy analyst at OECD, and is specialized in health systems performance assessment, quality of care, performance indicators and primary care. His current work is driven by the ambition to move towards a new generation of indicators that will enhance international learning on value of healthcare as reported by patients themselves. He is passionate about international collaboration and as a member of the OECD Health Division, he helps countries achieve high-performing health systems. Michael studied sociology, wrote a PhD thesis on the workload of GPs and has been working on health services research and policy advice more than seventeen years.
Michael is managing the development of an international survey of chronic patients within the framework of OECD’s Patient Reported Indicator Surveys initiative.
Dr Laura Abbott is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at The University of Hertfordshire in the UK and a Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives. Laura’s doctorate examined the experiences of pregnant women in prison: The Incarcerated Pregnancy: An Ethnographic Study of Perinatal Women in English Prisons. Laura volunteers with the charity Birth Companions and co-authored The Birth Charter for pregnant women in England and Wales published by Birth Companions in May 2016. She has been publicly recognised as one of the Nation’s ‘lifesavers’ from ‘Made at Uni’ and won the University of Hertfordshire Vice Chancellor award for research excellence in May 2020. Laura has also contributed to the review of operational policy for prison staff managing and caring for all women experiencing pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units (MBUs), and maternal separation in prison. In September 2020 Laura was awarded the Mildred Blaxter Post-Doctoral Fellowship from The Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness to continue with her research into the experiences of imprisoned perinatal women. Laura hopes to continue to highlight the issues facing women, campaigning for the recommendations arising from her research to be actioned, meaning change on the ground for pregnant women and new mothers in prison.
