- Dr Dickon Bevington
- Ms Erica B Chisanga
- Mr Mark Andrew Hall
- Richard Moore
- Dr Judy Rubinsztein
- Dr Rebecca Jacob
- Dr Pranathai Ramachandra
- Dr Sarah Maxwell
- Dr Uju Ugochukwu
- Anne Necus
- Dr Anna Maw
- Dr Jennifer Spencer
Dickon is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Cambridgeshire Child and Adolescent Substance Use Service (CASUS) and the Multisystemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN) teams. He is seconded part time to the Anna Freud Centre, from where he helps develop novel Mentalization-based therapeutic approaches, and delivers trainings nationally and internationally.
Supporting the development and sustainable implementation of evidence-based practice requires focus on the manualization of treatment. Dickon leads an ‘open source’ collaboration developing a radically different approach to treatment manualization, especially in relation to AMBIT (Adolescent Mentalization-Based Integrative Treatment.) Cutting-edge wiki technology allows for a blended “co-construction” of a multimedia treatment manual that marries “top-down” evidence-based material (content that is curated centrally), with “street-level” practice-based evidence (content that a local team is encouraged to add during team discussions about clinical practices.) Thus, iteratively, a team develops a manual specifically ‘attuned’ to its cultural and demographic milieu. This work (supported by a number of grants) is available as a non-commercial open source resource, via the signposting website www.tiddlymanuals.com. Following trainings, a number of teams around the UK have begun to use wiki manualization as a means of supporting treatment fidelity, developing their local team identity, and sharing best practice; the tiddlymanuals.com site allows access to the various iterations and local variations of the core AMBIT manual.
In his CLARHC Fellowship, Dickon plans to examine the acceptability and effectiveness of this technology in use within teams, and in particular to identify barriers to uptake, and potential strategies to overcome these.
Erica Chisanga completed the MSc Epileptology Course, awarded by Kings College Hospital, University of London, in 2004. She has worked in neurosciences for the last 17 years at centres including St George’s NHS Health Care Trust, London and The Regional Neuroscience Centre in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Her Career has been highlighted with prestigious awards including The Heath Award (1994) from Newcastle and Northumberland Schools of Nursing awarded to the student demonstrating Excellence in Practical and Theoretical Nursing and The Gowers Award (2006), a national award by the International League Against Epilepsy for Excellence in Nursing for Epilepsy Patients.
Her Nurse Consultant role involves
- Improving adolescent and adult patient pathways and service delivery through innovation and service re-design at strategic and local level as well as taking forward the Public Health agenda;
- Engaging in research, developing and implementing evidence to ensure best practice;
- Supporting practitioners in becoming active users of research to support decision making in practice.
Erica Chisanga promotes her services for epilepsy patients locally and nationally, contributing to education at Anglia Ruskin University and at national conferences such as the Neuroscience Nursing Conference and Epilepsy Specialist Nurses Conference.
She is a prolific writer, disseminating and publishing her work in professional journals for primary, secondary and specialist care. Erica has contributed to the Oxford Handbook for Neuroscience Nursing Publication (Last Edition 2009). She also contributes to the NHS East of England QIPP Web Site to share good practice, innovation and improvement in the management of Epilepsy.
Mark joined the NHS in 1984 as a direct entry graduate at St George’s Hospital, Northumberland and has held general and senior management posts in mental health, forensic and learning disabilities services in a number of healthcare settings in East Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, East London, and Leicestershire before joining Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust in 2007. Mark has a keen interest in quality, leadership and organizational culture particularly within changing organizations. Presently Service Development Manager within the Specialist Services Division, Mark is seconded on a part-time basis to the Adult Theme where he works closely with Professor Tony Holland and Dr Isabel Clare. Mark’s project relates to a QIPP mental health priority regarding Out of Area placements and the intent locally to bring back adults with intellectual disabilities and complex needs to good quality local services that afford value for money. Mark intends to capture the lived experiences of a range of stakeholders including returnees, their caregivers and those who commission services locally examining both the barriers and enablers to successful returns.
Richard Moore is a clinical psychologist working in adult mental health services for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. For many years he has been committed to the psychological treatment of depression, especially in people whose depression has not previously responded to treatment. He has recently been involved in setting up a specialist service for the treatment of chronic depression in Cambridge. A graduate of Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, he trained in Cognitive Therapy at the Center for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia. He was the therapist in two major outcome studies of Cognitive Therapy for depression, one on recurrent depression in Edinburgh and the other on residual depressive symptoms in Cambridge. He has since gained many years’ experience providing and supervising Cognitive Therapy in the NHS, specialising in the treatment of chronic depression. He is co-author with Anne Garland of Cognitive Therapy for Chronic and Persistent Depression (Wiley, 2003), has published a number of articles on research and therapy, and presented workshops at numerous conferences and meetings.
I am an old age psychiatrist at the West Suffolk Hospital. I have been a consultant for 7 years and I look after acute inpatients and I am the lead consultant for the memory clinic service in the West of Suffolk. I have been involved in the auditing of our service for MSNAP (for which we received a rating of “excellent”) and in helping to manage change in the memory service over the past 3 years. My CLAHRC fellowship will examine the costs and quality of our memory clinic compared with a traditional CMHT based service, also doing memory clinic work.
I have a PhD from Cambridge University in cognitive neuroscience and my research interest has been in understanding the neuropsychological and neuroimaging changes in bipolar disorder. I have been involved in a previous project on evaluating the service for older people after the start of the crisis resolution and home treatment team extended its remit to cover older people as well as those of working age.
I have a strong interest in education and training. I was previously the clinical tutor for the west of Suffolk and the co-ordinating tutor for Suffolk. I have also been the undergraduate tutor for Cambridge medical students in psychiatry whilst they are placed at the West Suffolk Hospital. I am currently the training programme director for old age psychiatry and sit on the operational board for the East of England Deanery.
Dr. Rebecca Jacob, MRCPsych DPM MPhil, is a Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist in Fulbourn Hospital. Her research interests include medico-legal aspects of psychiatry, an area in which she has published and lectured. She has obtained an MPhil in Medical Law in 2009 and is on the East of England Section 12 Approval Panel. She lectures on the regional Section 12 and Approved Clinician courses.
She has a special interest and Royal College of Psychiatrists accreditation in the field of Liaison Psychiatry and her CLAHRC Fellowship project relates to designing and evaluating a pathway of care for Medically Unexplained Symptoms, a clinical area which is still underdeveloped and of significant interest to service users, clinicians and commissioners alike.
Dr. Pranathi Ramachandra is a psychiatrist by training and has trained and worked in this capacity in the UK and in India. She holds higher specialist qualifications in old age and general adult psychiatry. She has been involved in clinical research across various areas in both countries. These include: carer burden in mental health, psychological interventions to improve well-being in cancer, duration of untreated psychosis as a predictor of outcomes, and the brain basis for symptoms of psychosis.
More recently she has become interested in the public health, commissioning and service innovation aspects of mental health services for older people. The current CLAHRC fellowship is an initial step in exploring this interest further.
Sarah is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist working inNorfolk. She has a degree in Psychology, Physiology and Philosophy fromOxfordUniversityand completed her medical training inLondon. She then trained to become a psychiatrist initially inLondonbefore moving toNorfolk. She is part of the child and adolescent research theme looking at provision of services within Norfolk for young people aged 14 to 25 years old.
Dr Uju Ugochukwu
Uju studied Medicine at University of Nigeria and did her postgraduate training in psychiatry in Norwich gaining her qualification in General Psychiatry and Substance Misuse. She also holds a diploma in Cognitive Analytic Therapy from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Since 2006, she has been a Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist in Early Intervention in Psychosis and Wellbeing Service (Primary Care Mental Health) at Northgate Hospital, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Foundation Trust.
Uju’s current project, which she is doing with Dr Sarah Maxwell, is within the Child and Adolescent Theme focusing on the development of a Youth Mental Health Service in Norfolk and Waveney for young people aged 14 to 25. The project involves mapping out existing mental health provision in Norfolk by the statutory and voluntary sector and a description of the characteristics of young people referred to/under the care of existing services. This will help inform development of the new service. A second project is a qualitative study to determine the key factors that made the Trust decide to make Youth Mental Health Service provision a priority. A different project evaluating the new service once it is established will be done in collaboration with others already involved in developing these services within Norfolk.
Anne is an experienced health practitioner commencing her professional training as a nurse (learning disability) in a long stay hospital in 1978. As a research assistant and psychology assistant Anne has worked on projects looking at the epidemiology of challenging behaviours and the functional analysis of severe self injury. Since attaining a postgraduate qualification as a clinical psychologist in 1991 Anne has continued to specialise in working with children and adults who have learning and developmental disabilities. She currently works in Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Partnership community teams’ for adults as a consultant clinical psychologist. Anne has joined CLAHRC’s second cohort of their fellowship programme within the Adult Theme. She plans to use this special opportunity to involve support staff, service users and unpaid carers in shaping her project. The project aims are to evaluate a clinic based approach that is already used in two of the community teams. This clinic responds to requests for help with challenging behaviors’.
Anna is a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist working jointly between Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and CPFT. She has a particular interest in acquired brain injury and in the management of complex epilepsy in childhood.
Anna has a strong background in basic science, having studied Biochemistry at the University of York and worked as a graduate research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. She went on to study medicine in London as a second degree and moved to Cambridge on 2001 to train in paediatric neurology. She now works within a team of 5 consultant paediatric neurologists providing tertiary services across the East of England and is chair of the Eastern Children’s Head Injury Network.
Anna has a particular interest in acquired brain injury in childhood, and the devastating impact that this can have across the life course. Anna’s project is based within the adult theme, exploring the epidemiology and causes of acquired brain injury in childhood.
This initial identification of need is an essential component of the design process if we are to provide high quality and responsive services to all people who have sustained an injury to their developing brain.
Jennifer Spencer is a dual specialty trainee in child and adolescent psychiatry and in adult and child learning disabilities psychiatry. She worked in quality assurance at a medical device development firm and in genetic research before becoming a doctor, and is published in scientific and medical journals on topics related to ocular and neurological diseases. Her goals for the future are to complete her psychiatric training and to participate in research that uses quality assurance techniques to improve the effectiveness of health care services.
Her CLAHRC project focusses on the design and application of Proactive Quality Assurance techniques within a mental health care organisation, while additionally bearing in mind that these techniques may have applicability within a wider variety of health care settings.
Quality Assurance (QA) itself is a discipline that arose from the need for organisations to ensure their products met certain standards. QA techniques are applied in organisations to ensure they produce appropriately high quality products and services. The field grew from combining knowledge from manufacturing industries and psychology. These techniques have been introduced to medicine in piecemeal form over the last 60 years. They are routinely used in drug manufacturing, medical device development, and health and safety in hospitals and other health care settings. Controlled trials and the evidence based medicine movement that grew from their introduction were also inspired by QA techniques used in industry.
The service delivery end of healthcare provision does not currently tend to use certain QA methods that are in common use within other industries. In general, most industries use prospective (or predictive) methods to increase quality and retrospective methods (e.g. failure reports) as a second line of defence. However, in service delivery quality improvement and monitoring tends to be based on failure reports and is reactive.
This particular project investigates two methods of data generation to prospectively increase quality of mental health services. One of the methods uses a top-down risk management approach while the other focusses on bottom-up data capture to inform and direct change.
The overall aim of the project is to improve the quality and efficiency of mental healthcare through the application of these methods.