Meet the ‘engine oil’ helping UHS work smarter

Dr Matt Stammers doesn’t just treat patients - he is also improving the systems around them.

He isn’t your typical consultant gastroenterologist. Thanks to his place on the Research Leaders Programme (RLP), Matt has been able to turn his ideas into real improvements for patient care.

“I’m not the fuel in the engine,” he says. “I’m the engine oil - I help everything run better.”

Matt’s work ensures that UHS is always improving. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he helped identify where infections were spreading inside the hospital.

He was part of a team that introduced rapid testing in a key ward, cutting waiting times from over 20 hours to just three. That change helped stop the spread of infection and saved lives.

He’s also tackled problems in how patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are treated. His research showed that some treatments, like steroids, were causing harm.

As a result, the team now uses them more carefully - especially in patients who need surgery.

Improving services

But Matt’s impact goes beyond clinical trials. He’s built new patient pathways that fast-tracks diagnosis, cutting wait times from over 200 days to just 30.

“We’re now running at half the average wait of many other trusts,” he says. “And we did it without extraresources - just smarter systems.”

His passion for informatics led him to build an open-source algorithm that uncovered thousands of “missing” patients in hospital records.

“We found 38% more IBD patients than we thought we had,” Matt says. “That means more people can be invited into trials and get better care. We’re probably the only hospital in the world with a full grip on this.”

Matt’s work has helped digitise outpatient services, reduce emergency admissions and improve how patients are followed up. He’s even helping develop tools to speed up hospital discharges and link genetic data with patient records.

Building a legacy

The RLP gave him the time, tools and support to make all this happen. But more than that, it changed how he thinks.

“I joined thinking I’d become a better programmer,” he says. “Instead, I became a better leader.”

Now, Matt focuses on building systems that help others succeed.

“I used to think legacy was about building things,” he reflects. “Now I know it lives on in people.”

Matt is quietly transforming how our hospital delivers care, using research as a tool for real-world change.

“This is just the start,” he says. “And thanks to the RLP, I’m better equipped to keep improving things - for our hospital, our patients and the NHS.”