---
title: Putting the person into improving quality and safety in healthcare
description: On 11 May 2023 THIS Institute director Mary Dixon-Woods gave the 2023 Centre for Personalised Medicine (CPM) Annual Lecture. This event took place at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
image: https://blog.thisinstitute.cam.ac.uk/hubfs/Mary%20CPM%20lecture.jpg
---

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- 23rd May 2023
- 1 min read

# Putting the person into improving quality and safety in healthcare

#### On 11 May 2023 THIS Institute director Mary Dixon-Woods gave the 2023 Centre for Personalised Medicine (CPM) Annual Lecture. This event took place at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.

[![Professor Mary Dixon-Woods](https://www.thisinstitute.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/mary-2-740x740.jpg)](https://www.thisinstitute.cam.ac.uk/about/people/professor-mary-dixon-woods)

[Professor Mary Dixon-Woods](https://www.thisinstitute.cam.ac.uk/about/people/professor-mary-dixon-woods)

 Mary Dixon-Woods delivering the CPM lecture

In her presentation, Mary Dixon-Woods described how, from “Tonsil-gate” to challenges around accessing remote care during and since the COVID-19 pandemic, variations in care have been a feature of medical treatment.

She argues that the future for personalised care, and for finding out what good looks like, is co-design on a large scale built on sound theories of change, informed by inclusive principles, and looks at ways this could be achieved.

The [full video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRcVNQ0FGxg) is available to watch (with subtitles available) via the CPM website.

“I’m going to start my talk where many talks on health services research start – which is with a brief history of variations in care. And I’m going to start particularly with “tonsil-gate” which is a controversy dating back over 2000 years \[…\] and a debate going back to the time of Galen.”

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