Emma Parry

Biography

Emma undertook her undergraduate medical training (MBChB) and intercalation in the History of Medicine (BMedSc) at the University of Birmingham, completing her studies in 2008. She started on the North Staffordshire vocational GP training scheme in 2010 and was awarded a NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. She completed her GP training in 2014. During Emma's training, she completed the Diploma in Medical Studies and started her doctoral studies in 2012. During her training Emma was awarded the RCGP Midland Faculty Associate in Training Award and the RCGP Great Expectations Bursary. Emma was funded by an NIHR In-Practice Fellowship between 2014-2017, and a SPCR GP Progression Fellowship between 2017-2020. She completed her PhD titled "Acute flares in knee osteoarthritis" in 2020.

Emma was an awarded a NIHR Academic Clinical Lectureship in 2020. Emma is currently involved in the MIDAS study, CHIPP study and has research interests in musculoskeletal health, osteoarthritis, urgent care and social determinants of health.

Emma is a BJGP Open editorial board member and was honorary Secretary for the RCGP Midland.  She was also a GP representative on the NICE OA guidelines committee (2019-2022). Emma currently holds a NIHR Clinical Lectureship and recently completed a 12-month Zinc Fellowship (Sep 2025-25), gaining commercial experience working with start-up companies. Through this fellowship she worked with Calla Lily Clinical Care on Callavid® an innovative vaginal drug delivery platform.

Research and scholarship

Emma Parry completed her PhD titled , "Acute flares in knee osteoarthritis" in 2020. Her doctoral work resulted in a series of publications describing the natural history of flares in knee OA including their potential triggers, variability in pain, proposed definitions and qualitative perspectives from people living with OA. She also lead a education article on flares. This research has contributed to several follow-on studies, such as ACT-Flare and a systematic review of management options for OA flares.

Emma now leads multiple projects focussed on social determinants of health  within UK health and care settings. She has received funding from an NIHR Programme Development grant to test a screening tool and an AMS Starter grant. Additionally, she secured funding from the NWSSDTP to lead a  PhD studentship titled: “Identifying targets to reduce inequality; does area or individual-level data on social determinants of health perform better at predicting health outcomes?”
Her broader research interests include musculoskeletal health and chronic pain, particularly:

• Understanding more about OA flares from medical record coding,
• Investigating MSK population health through the Oliver Bird funded MIDAS study
• Exploring how social isolation and loneliness lead to high impact chronic pain in the MRC funded CHIPP study

Emma also co-leads the SPCR project: “Exploring Clinical Care Pathways In Both The Least And Most Socioeconomically Deprived Populations With Osteoarthritis: Applying Sequence Analysis To Pre-Arthroplasty Pathways”. She is co-applicant on MSK UP, a Nuffield funded project aimed at understanding MSK health in underserved populations to inform new approaches to care.

In collaboration with the Digital Health Innovation Unit at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Emma works on a series of linked studies that apply data algorithms to primary, secondary and community care records to better identify at risk patients, with a focus on people nearing EOL.

Finally, Emma is working with a Calla Lily Clinical Care (a start-up company) to develop their clinical trial protocol for regulatory submission for a first in human study comparing a novel vaginal drug delivery platform to an existing vaginal pessary.

Teaching

Emma contributes actively to teaching, delivering public health modules to undergraduate students at Keele University, where she also serves as a Personal Development Tutor.

She is the lead supervisor for a PhD student undertaking the project:
“Identifying targets to reduce inequality: does area- or individual-level data on social determinants of health better predict health outcomes?”
and co-supervises another PhD student working on a project applying sequence analysis to patients with osteoarthritis using primary care data.

Emma has supervised several master’s students on Keele’s Masters in Public Health and Global Health programmes.

In addition, she leads the placement programme for GP Postgraduate Doctors in Training from the West Midlands Deanery at Keele University.

Further information

Emma is a GP in Birmingham. She is a member of the Keele University Psychology course ethics panel, a BJGP Open editorial board member and panel member of the NIHR doctoral fellowship committee.