Axel was born in Berlin/Germany and educated at Free University and Humboldt University. He subsequently studied at Aberdeen University and the University of Wales. He settled in South Wales in 1996 and currently lives in Liverpool. Axel is Professor of Health Service Research at Edge Hill University Medical School, Director of the Evaluation and Policy Analysis unit (EPA) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrated Care  and the Journal of Health Organization and Management. Axel is also Visiting Professor at the Department of Health and Social Management at the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio. He is member of the Advisory Panel of the Leadership Observatory NHS England and appointed Governor of the Wrightingon, Wigan and Leigh NHS Hospital Foundation Trust. 

Axel has designed and delivered evaluations of health improvement programmes in England and Wales and has worked on projects commissioned by NHS England, the Health Research Authority (HRA) and regional health care providers.

Axel has an interest in programme evaluations, evaluation methodologies and quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Leading on from his work in intellectual disabilities, he has developed a research focus on multiagency work, service integration and partnerships in health services for patients with complex health care needs. More recently he has written on complexity and complex adaptive systems as evaluative frameworks to assess health service programmes and patient outcomes.

He is Director of the Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit at Edge Hill University.

Post-Graduate Supervision and Teaching

Axel is teaching Research Methodologies, Quantitative Approaches and Statistics/SPSS on the MCh and MRes course of the Medical School and supervises currently three PhD students and several Master’s students.
Axel is leading a module in Strategic Clinical Leadership and leads the dissertation module for more than 65 students per cohort in the Masters in Surgery/ Masters in Medicine degree.