University of Bedfordshire

That was Professor Gurj Randhawa.

Professor Gurj Randhawa is Professor of Diversity in Public Health and Director, Institute of Health and Wellbeing Research, uh, at University of Bedfordshire, uh, Potters Bar campus.

Um, thank you very much for your time, and, uh, thank you very much for enlightening us.

Um, it's very important to understand here that what Gurj, Professor Randhawa mentioned was that organ donation should be encouraged amongst people.

I mean, this is a really

important question, one in which my academic colleagues from the University of Bedfordshire in the UK and I sort of deliberated over in a commentary that we wrote for the Journal of Foot and Ankle Research in 2023, in which we highlighted that social determinants of health, so it could be where people live or work and perhaps the level of health literacy that they have, can have an effect on the way in which they approach and access foot care.

But also things like getting our feet measured in a shoe shop is a simple and potentially free way to start the process.

And so affordability can be a barrier, yes.

So I arranged that.

But in the meantime, the lowest ranking university in the country at the time offered me a place, which was the University of Luton, now known as the University of Bedfordshire.

So suddenly I got offered this place to study English at a uni, which had been a polytechnic until, like, the previous year, I think, actually.

And in fact, when I went to uni, they'd just built the Hall of Residence and the paint was still wet, so we couldn't even move in.

Dr. Lisa McKenzie joins me now.

She is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Bedfordshire.

Lisa, very good evening to you.

Now, it says on my screen, well, it said I should call you working class academic.

No, I can well imagine.

Lisa, thank you very much for talking to us.

That's Dr Lisa McKenzie there from the University of Bedfordshire.

Right, we're going to come to your calls in a moment.