About IMSCaR

"Scientific Rigour, Practical Relevance, Collaboration between Institutions and Disciplines"

In 1997 Bangor University established the inter-departmental Institute of Medical and Social Care Research (IMSCaR) to provide a focus for the University's work in health and social care. In its second quinquennium beginning in 2002, IMSCaR aims to enhance the health and welfare of the people of Wales and the United Kingdom through research, dissemination and education. It seeks to do so through work characterised by scientific rigour, practical relevance, and collaboration between institutions and disciplines.

With the reorganisation of NHS Wales from April 2003 IMSCaR’s role will focus on providing evidence to guide health and social care across Wales. IMSCaR’s research comprises: primary research with the people who use health and social care services, their carers and health and social care professionals; and secondary research into the published literature. Both forms of research seek to evaluate which interventions are effective, efficient and equitable. Thus IMSCaR aims to give sound advice on best treatment and good practice to Local Health Boards (LHBs), NHS Trusts, Local Authorities and care organisations in the voluntary sector. This advice covers everything from caring for patients with cancer to treating back pain.

IMSCaR also contributes to the further development of the North Wales Clinical School (NWCS) with Bangor University's main contribution being the hosting of medical undergraduate students in their third and fifth years from the School of Medicine at Cardiff University. While the NWCS generally follows the existing Cardiff curriculum, it also seeks to make a distinctive contribution to medical education across North Wales, in particular by addressing the challenges to traditional health care presented by a rural and substantially bilingual population. To do so it contributes special study modules that exploit the resources of North Wales in general and Bangor University in particular, notably in cognitive neuroscience, exercise science, and health and social care research. In these ways NWCS aims to enhance not only medical education across North Wales but also the recruitment and retention of clinical staff across North Wales, and thus health and social care in general.

In 2007 IMSCaR became part of the College of Health and Behavioural Sciences (CoHaBS), one of several new colleges within Bangor University, and was invited to undertake a review of its functions to ensure best fit with the new configuration of academic schools within CoHaBS. Many of the existing teaching and training functions previously managed in IMSCaR are being aligned with the academic schools within CoHaBS thus allowing IMSCaR members to focus on their considerable methodological strengths and expertise in health and social care research. This rationalisation has led to some restructuring, with the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP) moving under the auspices of the School of Psychology on 1st August 2007 and the All Wales Alliance for Research and Development in Health and Social Care (AWARD) moving on 1st August 2008 to the School of Social Sciences. The North Wales Section of Psychological Medicine (NWSPM ), based in Wrexham, transferring on 1st June 2009 to Glyndŵr University as part of a collaboration with the North Wales NHS Trust (East) to form a new Wrexham School of Mental Health. The creation of the single Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has, more recently, resulted in a restructuring of the NHS in North Wales and seen members of Public Health Wales (the former National Public Health Service or NPHS) and Primary Care Support Service (PCSS) based with IMSCaR being relocated at the end of July 2020 to new NHS offices in Bangor.

IMSCaR now comprises three distinct but linked centres:

CHEME - Centre for Health Economics and Medicines Evaluation
DSDC - Dementia Services Development Centre
NWORTH - North Wales Organisation for Randomised Trials in Health

IMSCaR staff include health economists, psychologists and statisticians. Honorary staff include physicians and surgeons, clinical psychologists, oncologists, psychiatrists and rheumatologists.

IMSCaR is currently situated in several sites in Bangor and Wrexham. The medium term aim is to house all the Bangor-based centres in one building.

In summary, IMSCaR is committed to rigorous and practical research to support health and social care across Wales. Working with Local Health Boards, NHS Trusts and other care organisations, it aims to show that local decision-making can provide care that is both effective and responsive to peoples' needs.