Patient and Public Involvement Academic Lead
Professor Edward Harcourt
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, appointed a MBE for services to Interdisciplinary Research. His research focuses on ethics, in particular moral psychology. He has published on topics including the philosophy of mental health and mental illness. Professor Harcourt is a director of the biennial Oxford Summer Schools in Philosophy and Psychiatry and as of October 2022, Professor of Philosophy in the University’s Department of Psychiatry, where he leads on Patient and Public Involvement at the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre.
Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Participation Manager
Cora Reilly-McGeown
Cora has previously worked as the Patient, Carer and Public Involvement and Engagement Manager at the NIHR Clinical Research Network Thames Valley and South Midlands, and as an Events and Marketing manager at NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Cora has over ten years’ experience working in patient and public involvement in research. She is passionate about embedding patient and public involvement in research and supporting researchers to include the voice of people who are not traditionally involved, and often under-served in research, through community work. Involving people with lived experience of mental health difficulties (e.g., patients, service users and their carers), to develop better research in a meaningful way that serves the needs and interests of patients and carers.
Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Participation Administrator
Emily Tammam
Emily was previously Operations Lead for a small local charity, as well as having worked clinically as an IBCLC.
Emily is keen to support the OH BRC PPIEP team, to ensure that the voices of PPIEP contributors are heard within the mental health research field. She is particularly passionate about involving contributors very early in the research process, where their ideas and lived experience can have significant impact.
Patients and Research Group Co-Chair (Staff)
Dr Amy Gillespie
I have always been fascinated by how peoples’ minds work, and my own experiences with depression made me particularly interested in mental health. I originally wanted to be an NHS psychologist, but I love the day-to-day variety of research (thinking of experiments, analysing data, supervising students), and the idea of discovering something new.
Since 2017, I’ve been a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychiatry. Typically, my research involves asking people with depression to try new treatments, then do cognitive tasks on computers, to help understand how these treatments work.
I joined PAR in 2018, after doing a presentation on my research for the group and immediately feeling the benefit of PPI. I was then lucky enough to become Staff Co-Chair in 2020!
Patients and Research Group Co-Chair
Douglas Findlay
I came relatively late to Patient and Public Involvement, having worked on the industry side of health and care for most of my working life. Regarding my personal involvement in health and social care, I have been both a service user and a carer across the whole spectrum of services on offer. In my late teens I was treated and spent time in care for what was then called manic depressive illness. My ethnic roots meant that my mental health was rarely acknowledged, let alone discussed and this was due mainly to the culturally accepted belief that mental health issues hinder people from achieving expected aspirational life goals. I have been a peripheral member of the OH PAR for a number of years and it is its tireless work in integrating patients and the public into MH research that persuaded me to become more involved with the group. I volunteer locally, regionally, and nationally on two main themes, patient safety and mental health.
Q & A with Co-Chairs of PAR Group (pdf viewer)
Register for updates on our involvement opportunities
We want to make it easier for interested people to find out about opportunities we have for people to get involved in our research.
Join our Patient and Public Involvement Contributor group and we will keep you up to date with any involvement opportunities we have available, along with information about PPI training and related information.
Visit this web page for more details or email PPI.OHBRC@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk for more information.
Information on how Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust manage data in general, including your data subject rights, can be found on the Trust Privacy Notice section of our website.
