Dr Mike Fray holds first degrees in Ergonomics (Loughborough University, 1987) and Physiotherapy (Leeds University, 1993). After a few years working in the transport field (Ford, ICE Ergonomics) for many years he specialised in the areas of occupational physiotherapy, rehabilitation and injury prevention for healthcare workers. During this time he was both employed within the NHS and in a consultancy role across many different organisations.
In 1996 Dr Fray, with the Centre for Hazard and Risk Management, created and developed the Back-Care Management programme at Loughborough University. Since 1997 he has been a Visiting Fellow and course tutor on the programme delivering a range of modules in the use of physical ergonomics methodologies applied to the complex areas of healthcare.
Since 2006, Dr Fray has been conducting research in HEPSU, now in Loughborough Design School. In 2010 he completed part-time a PhD study which developed an outcome measurement tool to compare all types of interventions for patient handling in healthcare (Arjo-Huntleigh ab).
Other funded research projects have included space evaluations for hospital designs (Department of Health) and product evaluations for healthcare products (Frontier Medical and Smartlift Engineering Ltd). In 2010-11 he was lead researcher on the CURE project (EPSRC) developing and evaluating modular treatment units for the ambulance service to assist with pre-hospital care and reduce the number of people being transported to hospital.
In summary his research interests are in the improvement of the delivery of healthcare activities with a special focus on the physical risks to staff and the delivery of the highest quality care for the patient.
Dr Fray’s research activity has concentrated on the staff and patient impacts of patient handling. This has developed to include the wider area of hospital and healthcare design and in particular the evaluation of healthcare environments and equipment. Since 2010 he has co-ordinated a research forum (LARF) to assist the development of multi-site, multi participant research projects across the UK in the areas of patient handling and staff well-being in health and social care.
Dr Fray is actively involved in a number of local and international research groups and programmes:
- Healthcare Ergonomics and Patient Safety Research Unit
- Environmental Ergonomics Research Centre
- Author group for ISO in Patient Handling (ISO TR12296)
- Member of European Panel of Patient Handling Ergonomics
- Co-ordinator of the Loughborough Alumni Patient Handling Research Forum (LARF)
Most recently he has been the lead researcher on the CURE project (EPSRC) developing pre-hospital technology to decrease the number of patients transported to hospital.
For the year of 2011-12 Dr Fray has been seconded to a teaching position and will continue to support the last of his Business School students and will take on a new teaching load specialising on the physiology, anatomy and biomechanical aspects of ergonomics and design. He currently covers aspects of:
- BSP 625 MSc Research Methods
- BSP 631 MSc Dissertation
- DSP 103 Introduction to Human Movement
- DSA 112 Human Function (1) Anatomy
- DSA 113 Human Function (2) Physiology
- DSP 851 Research Methods