Ruth takes a regulation approach to healthcare law. She is interested in the way that issues at the margins of healthcare law are regulated. A regulation lens offers a different perspective on the best way for the law to work in the area of healthcare. Her research explores the gap between law as written and law on the ground. Her work has shown that we ignore the human element of law at our peril.

Ruth is currently working on NHS regulation, encompassing the duty of candour and hospital food standards. Her 2017 Modern Law Review article, "The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: A litany of fundamental flaws?" argued that the increasing role of criminal law in health services regulation was inevitable, but potentially harmful to the goal of improved patient safety. She argued that the process that led to the new regulations was to some extent deterministic of the nature of the new regulatory framework. Her current work in this area looks at the hospital food provisions in the Health and Care Act 2022.

The regulation approach continues through Ruth's work on infant feeding and breastfeeding policy. Ruth's project "My infant feeding journey: Women's experiences of infant feeding in the UK" asks women to write about their experiences of feeding their children. You can follow the Facebook page for updates on the project.

Ruth has recently completed a project with Jody Harris (IDS) exploring the right to nutrition in Zambia. The project looked at legal and policy frameworks from international treaties down to local provision, and included interviews and focus groups with stakeholders and members of the public in Zambia. The research showed that the right to nutrition could be a valuable tool to address issues around hunger. The findings from this project are published in the Journal of Human Rights Practice, and are open access: A ‘Right to Nutrition’ in its Social, Legal, and Political Context: How International Human Rights Translate to Zambian Realities (2022): https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huac043

Much of Ruth's previous work - including her doctoral thesis and several articles - explores the legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of genetic information for non-health purposes. Her 2015 Medical Law Review article with Mark Wilkinson, "In search of a father: Legal challenges surrounding posthumous paternity testing" considers the law relating to the use of retained tissue for posthumous paternity testing. The paper used real examples to show the deficiencies in the law. Her thesis, "Gene Rummy: Keeping control of your hand" explored the implications of using predictive genetic test information for insurance purposes. It used a wide range of theoretical approaches, including Kantian and Millian philopsophy, human rights law, insurance law, and the regulation perspective.

Ruth is an active member of the Health Law Research Group.

Ruth is happy to receive PhD applications relating to any of her research interests.