Members

Matthew Baker (PIIG core representative)

Matthew is currently a self-employed education consultant with interests in diversity management and in widening participation. Following degrees in the social sciences he worked first as a social worker, then a social work educator, and finally an academic manager in further and higher education contexts. Following the death of his wife, a public health specialist, in 2009 he became involved in patient public involvement with reference to cancer research. He currently undertakes roles associated with membership of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Consumer Liaison Group, the NCRI Clinical Studies Group (Lung), and the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Research Network.

Jennifer Bostock (PIIG core representative)

Jennifer is a former service user involvement (SUI) manager in the NHS and is currently a SUI consultant working in mental health.  She has first class undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in psychology, philosophy and psychiatry.  She is a former Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Prize Scholar and has published in the academic, mainstream and specialist press. Jennifer currently works as a Mental Health Act commissioner for the Care Quality Commission and as a mental health and SUI trainer.  She is also employed as a General Practice Assessor examining the quality and performance of GPs across the UK for the Royal College of GPs and for an LLP.  Jennifer has served for the past 5 years as a lay member of an NHS Research Ethics Committee and is now a lead reviewer and trainer for NRES.  She is a peer reviewer for the National Institute of Health Research and a lay member of the i4i and Research for Patient Benefit programmes.  Jennifer is also an independent Mental Health Act manager hearing legal appeals from patients detained under the Mental Health Act.

Nadia Brookes (QORU public involvement lead)

Nadia Brookes is a researcher at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU), University of Kent. Prior to this she was a research manager at a London teaching hospital and at a not-for-profit centre specialising in health, social care and innovation in the public sector. She has also previously been employed in senior research roles within central and local government. Broadly, her research interests lie in the evaluation of health and social policy and innovation in service delivery.

Bob Erens (PIRU public involvement link)

Bob has extensive experience of applied social research and survey methodological research. Before joining the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LHSTM), he worked at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in the UK for 24 years, largely in the fields of health research and survey methods. He is also currently co-director with Peter Lynn of the Survey Resources Network (www.surveynet.ac.uk). With colleagues from LSHTM, University College London and NatCen, Bob is a co-applicant on the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), which is the largest survey of its kind on sexual health and sexual behaviour in the world. He also has extensive expertise designing national surveys of ethnic minority groups in England. Bob is currently senior lecturer and deputy director of the Department of Health-funded Policy Research Unit in Policy Innovation Research (PIRU). PIRU brings together experts in healthcare research and evaluation methodology to improve evidence-based policy-making and its implementation across the NHS, public health and social care.

Julie Nossiter (PIRU public involvement link)

Julie has a background in medical research science and medical communications. She is an honorary research fellow at the Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research interests include the evaluation of healthcare systems and the quality of healthcare provided, in addition to patient and public involvement in research. Current projects include evaluating National Clinical Audits in NHS Quality Accounts and the development of polyclinics/polysystems in London. In addition, Julie has developed a Process Development Tool that is currently being piloted in the Policy Innovation Research Unit (PIRU), with the aim of investigating how to set up patient/public involvement in the work of PIRU.

Margaret Perkins (researcher representative: PSSRU, the London School of Economics)

Margaret Perkins is a researcher based at PSSRU at the London School of Economics, having come to academic research after being a social worker and working in the voluntary sector. Most of her research has involved talking to professionals, service users and carers about their experience of commissioning, providing or using health and social care services. In recent years she has worked on projects with carers of people with terminal cancer, the discharge of older people from hospital, the implementation of direct payments, and as part of the local evaluation team for the Kent County Council Partnerships for Older People Pilot projects. She is currently working with colleagues on the barriers facing unpaid carers in employment, and developing economic models of community development projects. Margaret has a particular interest in policy in the field of dementia, especially the experiences of people with early-onset dementia (and their carers) who are trying to access services and support. She runs the Service User and Carer Group (SUCAG) for PSSRU at LSE with Derek King.

Maureen (Mo) Reece (PIIG core representative)

Mo is an accredited disability equality trainer. She has been a trustee for a charity providing information for disabled people and is at present a trustee of East Sussex Disability Association. Her involvement in the south east has encompassed working with Kent Adult Services and West Kent PCT. At present she is a member of: the Strategic Health Authority Public Engagement and Development Network, Southern Programme for IT Information Governance Group, Equality and Diversity Group at South East Coast Ambulance Trust (SECAMB) and has a place, with speaking rights, at the SECAMB public board meetings as a patient representative.

Sara Ryan (researcher representative: University of Oxford)

Sara Ryan is a senior researcher at the Health Experiences Research Group, University of Oxford.  Sara’s background is in sociology and anthropology, and her research interests include disability, difference, critical autism studies and qualitative research methods. She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick in 2006 and, before joining the University of Oxford, was a Lecturer in Sociology at Oxford Brookes University. She coordinated the qualitative research methods module on the MSc in Evidence Based Health Care.  Sara has published her research in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including ‘Emotions, Space and Society’, ‘Children’s Geographies’, ‘Health and Place’, ‘Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disability’ and ‘Disability and Society’, and disseminated her research findings at several international conferences.

Judith Williamson (PIIG core representative)

Judith is a business transformation consultant, delivering change programmes and restructuring organisations in the public, private and not-for-profit sector using strategic planning, process control and advising on the management of people through the change process.  She has worked over the last 20 years with senior teams in large organisational development projects focusing on improving performance through team and individual development, eliminating waste and streamlining functions. She had two strokes in 2005 and 2007, and following those became interested in patient involvement and engagement and stroke research.  She was appointed as a lay member for Patient, Carer and Public Involvement Clinical Studies Group for the Stroke Research Network in 2007, and acts as Chair for the Lay Members Forum.

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