About
Jon is an experienced Academic Consultant Neonatologist, with an international profile, at University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust. He is passionately committed to undertaking and facilitating patient-focused clinical research to improve health outcomes or improve the healthcare experience of children and their families. Jon has a current portfolio of approximately £12 million in grant funding for numerous multi-centre research studies in the UK, Canada and Australia. He has published over 170 peer reviewed papers, including a first author paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019 on the SIFT trial.
Specifically, Jon helps to answer important questions about care for newborn infants, usually via randomised controlled trials, but with significant experience of other research methodologies too. Jon enjoys mentoring and works in a collaborative way with multidisciplinary research teams. Areas of particular research interest are infant nutrition and feeding, placental transfusion, maternal and child health, preterm birth, very low birth weight infants, family integrated care, evidence based medicine and clinical trials.
Jon has delivered outreach activities, promoting neonatal research locally, nationally and internationally. He has been trained by the RCPCH to do media interviews and has appeared on BBC, ITV and Canadian national news programmes speaking about neonatal issues. He has presented evidence on research in neonatal care to a House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group and to the Preterm Births Committee in the House of Lords.
As well as being Honorary Professor at the University of Southampton, Jon is Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Research Lead on the Executive Committee of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, an Associate Editor for BMJ Paediatrics Open and Cochrane Neonatal, NIHR HTA funding committee member and a member of the Neonatal Society.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Maternal and child health
- Infant nutrition and feeding
- Placental transfusion
- Preterm birth
- Very low birth weight infants
Current research
COMET: Cooling in Mild Encephalopathy Trial. (NIHR, HTA, UK) £2,075,202
FEED1: Fluids Exclusively Enteral from Day 1. A randomised controlled trial of full milk feeds versus intravenous nutrition with graduual feeding for preterm infants (30-33 weeks gestational age). (NIHR, HTA, UK) £1,634,575
The neoGASTRIC trial: Avoiding routine gastric residual volume measurement in neonatal critical care, a multi-centre, randomised controlled trial. (NIHR, UK, Health Technology Assessment) £2,420,643
GBS3: The clinical and cost-effectiveness of testing for Group B Streptoccus: A cluster randomised trial with economic and acceptability evaluations. (NIHR, HTA, UK) £2,886,042
SAFE TRANSITION - Facilitating safe transition to home for preterm infants - a retrospective observational study. (NIHR, UK, RFPB) £153,851
The WHEAT International Trial - WithHolding Enteral feeds Around red cell Transfusion to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm neonates: an international multi-centre, randomized controlled trial. (Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant) $2,135,691 Canadian dollar.
The CONNECT study: Connecting families to improve parental self-efficacy and parent psychosocial and infant health outcomes in the NICU using an eHealth solution: a stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial. (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canada) $437,868 Canadian dollar.
The SMART PDA Trial: Selective Early Medical Treatment of the Patent Ductus Arteriosus in Extremely Low Gestational Age Infants: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canada) $104,500 Canadian dollar.
Relative effectiveness and safety of pharmacotherapeutic agents for treatment of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in preterm infants: A National Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) Project. (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canada) $165,004 Canadian dollar.
Does WithHolding Enteral feeds Around blood Transfusion reduce the incidence of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) in very preterm infants? The international WHEAT study. (Department of Health, Australia) $1,606,826 Australian dollar.
Publications
Teaching
Critical appraisal
Examining newborn infants
Contributing to academic half days, regional training days, advanced neonatal training days and induction programmes (including a session on safeguarding).
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Jon graduated from the University of Dundee Medical School with an MB ChB in 1995. He trained as a Paediatrician and Neonatologist in East Anglia and the East Midlands. He has been a Consultant Neonatologist since 2006, a Clinical Associate Professor in Nottingham from 2013-2018 and a Full Professor and Division Head in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from 2018-2021. In 2021, Jon joined Southampton as a Consultant Neonatologist and Honorary Professor. Jon is also Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
Jon was the Chief Investigator for SIFT (Speed of Increasing milk Feeds Trial) which recruited 2804 infants in 25 months.