SPHeRE, the Structured Population and Health-services Research Education programme, held its first annual Spring Seminar in the Albert Lecture Theatre, RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) on 10 March 2015.

The invited speaker was Professor Nick Black of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the talk was entitled, ‘To do the service no harm: the dangers of quality assessment’.

Professor Black was the first head of the Health Services Research Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was Founding Chair of the UK Health Services Research Network and editor of the Journal of Health Services Research and Policy. His main research interests are in quality and appropriateness of healthcare. Professor Black chaired the National Advisory Group for Clinical Audit & Enquiries, which advises the UK Department of Health and NHS England and he serves on several other national advisory bodies on quality assessment and improvement, playing a leading role in the adoption of patient reported outcome measures.

The SPHeRE programme is a partnership of all universities in the Republic of Ireland, with programme management situated in RCSI, University College Cork (UCC) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

Launched in 2014, the SPHeRE programme was awarded €6.3 million by the Health Research Board (HRB). The programme will provide education and training for five cohorts of PhD scholars annually (2013-2017) and aims to graduate 30-50 PhD scholars in total.