Dr Andrew Harding is a Senior Research Associate at the Division of Health Research, Lancaster University. His principal research interests concern ageing and decision-making relating to health, social care and wider welfare. His work in this area includes patient choice in primary care, and his doctoral research – a realist evaluation approach of a housing options service for older people. More recently Andrew has worked on the ESRC/NIHR Neighbourhoods & Dementia Programme. His primary role was on the core outcome set study. This study used rigorous and innovative methods (including working alongside people living with dementia as co-researchers) to attain consensus from key stakeholders on the outcomes that should be measured (and how to measure them) as a minimum across all non-pharmacological and community-based trials in order to better compare for effectiveness.