Professor Katherine Woolf

Who Professor Katherine Woolf is

Professor Katherine Woolf is a Professor of Medical Education Research at UCL Medical School, where she has worked since 2004. Her research focuses on understanding and addressing inequity in medical education, particularly differential attainment by ethnicity among medical students and doctors. She leads the UK Medical Applicant Cohort Study (UKMACS), which aims to improve the selection of future doctors and help applicants from underrepresented backgrounds make informed choices. She co-leads the UK-REACH study, a nationwide prospective cohort study into ethnicity and COVID-19 outcomes in healthcare workers. Her findings have influenced the General Medical Council, Royal Colleges, and medical schools across the UK, contributing to policy shifts and sector-wide commitments to eliminate differential attainment. She completed her PhD in Medical Education and Psychology at UCL in 2009, supervised by Professor Dame Jane Dacre and Professor Chris McManus.

References for this biography

1. 1.A fairer healthcare system: Katherine Woolf, widening access to medical education | About UCL — Current role as Professor of Medical Education Research at UCL; research focus on inequity and differential attainment; influence on GMC and Royal Colleges policy
2. 2.Meet The Expert: Katherine Woolf | UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences — Research areas including BME attainment, UKMACS study, NIHR fellowship, educational advisor to Royal Colleges of Physicians, career background at UCL from 2004
3. 3.The UK-REACH study protocol, BMJ Open 2021 — Co-leadership of UK-REACH study on ethnicity and COVID-19 outcomes in healthcare workers, affiliated to UCL Medical School's Research Department of Medical Education
4. 4.The path to medical school: a profile of Dr Katherine Woolf's research | UCL News — UKMACS study scope, collaboration with GMC and Medical Schools Council to expand UK Medical Education database to include unsuccessful applicants
5. 5.In pursuit of fairness | The Doctor (BMA) — Press citation of Professor Woolf's research on differential attainment as an institutional problem, quoted in BMA publication
6. 6.Improving outcomes for minority ethnic and overseas-trained doctors | GMC blog — GMC-commissioned research by Woolf on differential attainment; GMC adoption of recommendations into its work programme

Notable achievements

• Led the UK Medical Applicant Cohort Study (UKMACS), an NIHR-funded study to improve selection into medical school and help applicants from underrepresented backgrounds, working with the GMC and Medical Schools Council to include data on unsuccessful applicants in the UK Medical Education database from 2007 onwards. Source ↗
• Co-led the UK-REACH prospective nationwide cohort study into ethnicity and COVID-19 outcomes in healthcare workers, published in BMJ Open (2021) and the International Journal of Epidemiology (2023), generating evidence on vaccine hesitancy and workforce attrition among ethnic minority NHS staff. Source ↗
• Research findings on differential attainment have influenced the General Medical Council, Royal Colleges, and medical schools across the UK, contributing to policy shifts and sector-wide commitments to eliminate differential attainment. Source ↗
• Conducted GMC-commissioned research into factors affecting the progress of doctors from minority ethnic and overseas backgrounds, whose recommendations the GMC adopted into its work programme on fair training pathways. Source ↗

What Professor Katherine Woolf has said

• “Without significant action to retain current staff from overseas and, increasingly, UK nationals from ethnic minority backgrounds, there is a real risk of a staffing collapse within the NHS. Experienced staff, including those from overseas who are already working in the NHS, cannot easily be replaced by newly qualified staff.”

  UCL Medical School · NHS & care workforce/staffing · 30 Sept 2026 · UCL researchers take part in parliamentary roundtable on NHS staff retention | UCL News ↗

• “Retention needs to be foregrounded in workforce planning, and that means designing the plan with the needs of diverse groups of staff already in mind. There shouldn't be a plan that talks about retaining diverse staff without addressing racism – these issues must be brought together and treated as integral rather than as an add-on. The idea that experienced staff can easily be replaced is unrealistic. When someone has 20 or 30 years of clinical experience, you can't simply substitute them with newly trained graduates. We really need people to stay, including international staff, because if they leave, the healthcare service risks falling over.”

  Professor at UCL Medical School · NHS & care workforce/staffing · 30 Sept 2026 · NHS ‘at risk of collapse’ without more focus on diversity ↗

• “This research highlights how much impact the COVID pandemic continues to have on healthcare workers, with up to one in four still experiencing symptoms following infection. Supporting those affected and preventing similar impacts on healthcare staff in future pandemics should remain a priority.”

  Professor at University College London Medical School · Long Covid · 30 Sept 2026 · 1 in 4 infected UK healthcare workers developed long COVID, report shows ↗

• “I'm proud that the NHS has one of the world's largest and most diverse workforces, providing care for all. But urgent reforms are needed to ensure the NHS can continue to recruit, train and retain staff, now and in the future.”

  Professor of Medical Education Research at UCL and Co-Principal Investigator of the I-CARE study · NHS & care workforce/staffing · 29 Sept 2026 · University of Leicester and UCL host Labour Party Conference discussion on future NHS workforce ↗

• “Supporting those affected and preventing similar impacts on healthcare staff in future pandemics should remain a priority.”

  University College London's medical school · Long Covid · 27 Aug 2026 · Covid turned into long Covid in more than a quarter of affected staff ↗

• “This research highlights how much impact the COVID pandemic continues to have on health care workers, with up to one in four still experiencing symptoms following infection. Supporting those affected and preventing similar impacts on health care staff in future pandemics should remain a priority.”

  UCL Medical School · Long Covid · 17 Aug 2026 · 27% of UK health care workers report long COVID symptoms ↗

Where Professor Katherine Woolf has been quoted

1. A fairer healthcare system: Katherine Woolf, widening access to medical education | About UCLucl.ac.uk · 4 Oct 2026
2. UCL researchers take part in parliamentary roundtable on NHS staff retention | UCL Newsucl.ac.uk · 30 Sept 2026
3. NHS ‘at risk of collapse’ without more focus on diversitypersonneltoday.com · 30 Sept 2026
4. 1 in 4 infected UK healthcare workers developed long COVID, report showscidrap.umn.edu · 30 Sept 2026
5. University of Leicester and UCL host Labour Party Conference discussion on future NHS workforcele.ac.uk · 29 Sept 2026
6. Covid turned into long Covid in more than a quarter of affected staffnursingtimes.net · 27 Aug 2026
7. 27% of UK health care workers report long COVID symptomsmedicalxpress.com · 17 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

• Stop, shift, supercharge: How to create capacity for the work that matters in the NHSMarsh
• NJ nursing shortage worsens as education bottleneck growsNJBIZ
• You can now donate to help Hunter Young (Moodring, PSYCHO-FRAME) fight his health issuesChaoszine

Contact & links

• Staff pagehttps://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/1410-katherine-woolf

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.