Tamsin MacBride

Tamsin MacBride serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Adult Nursing Community and Health Division within the School of Health and Life Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, where she has been employed since 2009. A registered nurse since 1998, she brings extensive clinical experience from critical care settings including roles as junior/senior staff nurse and practice educator. She completed her PhD in 2023 and actively accepts new PhD students, focusing on translating research into practical healthcare improvements.

Her educational background includes:

• Bachelor of Nursing degree (1998)
• PhD in Nursing/Healthcare (2023)

MacBride's research centers on participatory methodologies, particularly Appreciative Inquiry, within care home environments and dementia care contexts. She investigates organizational resilience, caring conversations, and learning culture development through mixed-methods and realist evaluation approaches. Her work consistently emphasizes strengths-based perspectives to enhance person-centered care, staff engagement, and resident well-being in aged care settings, directly contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being).

Analysis of her 27 publications (2010-2023) reveals a cohesive trajectory toward understanding care home ecosystems through appreciative frameworks. Recent work increasingly examines organizational resilience during crises and innovative methods like storytelling (LIFE sessions) for generative change. Her research demonstrates strong interdisciplinary collaboration with NHS Boards, care providers, and third-sector organizations, showing practical translation of academic findings into care home practice improvement initiatives.

She actively mentors doctoral students and has led significant funded initiatives including the My Home Life Scotland Leadership Support Programme (2015-2019), where she developed and evaluated community development strategies. Her collaborative network spans academic, clinical, and policy domains, evidenced by multi-institutional publications addressing complex challenges in social care systems.

MacBride co-developed the Caring Conversation Framework and LIFE methodology, both implemented nationally to transform care culture. Her current work focuses on disseminating PhD findings about positive learning environments while expanding partnerships with care home providers to scale evidence-based practices. She maintains active engagement with Scottish Government consultation processes on care standards and continues developing participatory research methods for complex healthcare settings.