How can we ensure the NHS has the workforce it needs?  

Anita Charlesworth is the Director of Research and Economics at the Health Foundation, and Honorary Professor in the College of Social Sciences at the Health Services Management Centre (HSMC) at the University of Birmingham.

Before joining the Health Foundation in May 2014, Anita was Chief Economist at the Nuffield Trust (2010-14) where she led the Trust’s work on health care financing and market mechanisms. Prior to that she had roles as Chief Analyst and Chief Scientific Advisor at DCMS (2007-10), Director of Public Spending at the Treasury (1998-2007), where she led the team working with Sir Derek Wanless on his 2002 reform of NHS funding and worked as an Economic Advisor at DH and for SmithKline Beecham pharmaceuticals.  She has worked as a non-executive director in the NHS – for Islington PCT (2007-2011) and The Whittington Hospital (2011-2016). She was specialist advisor to the House of Lords' select committee on the long-term sustainability of the NHS.  

Anita has an MSc in Health Economics from the University of York and is a Trustee of Tommy’s, the baby charity. She was awarded a CBE in The Queen's 2017 Birthday Honours List for Services to Economics and Health Policy.

The Inner Level: the psychological costs of inequality

Kate Pickett - Professor of Epidemiology & Deputy Director of the Centre for Future Health at the University of York

Professor Kate Pickett

Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York, and the University’s Champion for Research on Justice and Equality; she is a Fellow of the RSA and of the UK Faculty of Public Health.  Kate’s research focuses on the social determinants of health and health inequalities, with a particular interest in child development.  Kate is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the bestselling books, The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2018). Kate is also a co-founder and trustee of The Equality Trust and a global Ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

Equality and recovery: policies and practices to enable people with mental distress to have a life

Liz Sayce was Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK (and its legacy charity Radar) from 2007-2017, where she led work for equal participation for all, through programmes on independent living, career opportunities and shifts in cultural attitudes and behaviour.

Liz is now Chair of the Commission for Equality in Mental Health, hosted by the Centre for Mental Health. She has just completed a report at the London School of Economics on policy levers to influence employers to improve disabled people’s employment and pay. She is a Non Executive Director of the Care Quality Commission and a member of the Disability Advisory Committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Committee of Healthwatch England and the Social Security Advisory Committee.

With a background in mental health and disability policy, previous roles include Director of Policy and Communications at the Disability Rights Commission, where she led formal investigations and a new ‘Disability Agenda’; and Policy Director of Mind. She led an Independent Review into disability employment programmes for Government in 2011 and has published widely on mental health, disability and social participation. She undertook a Harkness Fellowship in the USA resulting in a book (From Psychiatric Patient to Citizen, 2000 – updated in 2016), was awarded an OBE in 2009 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent in 2014.

Read more about Liz's keynote presentation. 

Psychology and Policy in Contexts of Scarcity

Eldar Shafir is Class of 1987 Professor of Behavioral Science and Public Policy at Princeton University, Director of Princeton’s Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy, scientific director at ideas42, a social science R&D lab, and Visiting Faculty at Oxford University.

His research focuses on cognitive science and behavioral economics, with particular interest in the application of behavioral research to policy. He is Past President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. S

Shafir served as a member of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, and was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2013. He edited “The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy (2012),” and co-authored, “Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (2013).”  He received a BA from Brown University and a PhD from MIT.

Read more about Eldar's keynote presentation. 

UK Research and Innovation, Psychology and Society

Sir Mark is Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation, which brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England. UKRI became an official public body on 1 April 2018 and operates across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6 billion.

As former Director of the Wellcome Trust, Sir Mark has experience running a large scale research organisation and global charitable foundation. A distinguished scientist in his own right, Sir Mark was also Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at Imperial College London. 

He received a knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours List for services to medical research and was elected as Fellow of The Royal Society in 2011. 

Read more about Sir Mark's presentation. 

Dr Oliver Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, President of the European Society for Research in Adult Development, and author of Development through Adulthood: An integrative sourcebook. His research focuses on the nature and effects of major life transitions and crises in adult life, and the development of identity, authenticity, resilience and wellbeing over time. His website is www.oliverrobinson.info

Professor Graham Towl was peer nominated as the most influential forensic psychologist in the UK and uniquely he is the recipient of the BPS Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Professional Practice and academic contributions to Forensic Psychology. He was formerly Chief Psychologist at the Ministry of Justice, and prior to that Head of Psychological Services for prisons in England and Wales. More recently he was the Pro Vice Chancellor Chair of the ground breaking Sexual Violence Task Force at Durham University in 2015-2016 which received a commendation at the Times Higher annual Higher Education awards in 2017. He, along with Dr Tammi Walker (2019) is the co- author of ‘Tackling Sexual Violence at Universities; International Perspectives, Routledge. Currently he is Professor of Forensic Psychology at Durham University.

Deanne Bell is a critical community and liberation psychologist whose primary concern is the liberation of being. She attempts to understand the psychosocial effects of coloniality through engagement with collective trauma and social suffering in Jamaica, the US and the UK. Seized by the possibility of decoloniality she engages in praxes that that support this potential. These include participatory research on indifference to social suffering and structural violence. She is a co producer and director of Four Days in May, a filmic interpretation of the effects of state violence. She teaches at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.

Diana is Professor of Appearance & Health Psychology and Director of the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR www.uwe.ac.uk/car) at the University of the West of England, Bristol where she leads a group of 30 psychologists with a passion for research into psychosocial aspects of appearance and body image.  Her own research interests focus on people’s experiences of an altered appearance, particularly those associated with cancer treatment or burn injuries, factors that influence adjustment to visible difference, and the development and evaluation of interventions and support for people whose lives are affected by appearance-related issues.  She is a registered Health Psychologist, past Chair of the BPS Division of Health Psychology, sits on the Scar Free Foundation Research Council, and  the editorial boards of the journals Scars, Burns and Healing, and Body Image.  

Dave Harper is Reader in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London (UEL).  In the first decade of his professional career, Dave worked as a clinician in NHS mental health services.  For the last 20 years he has been involved in the training of clinical psychologists and is the Programme Director (Academic) of the UEL DClinPsych programme.  He has been involved in a number of professional, research and campaigning initiatives aimed at addressing the links between social inequality and mental health.  His co-authored book Psychology, Mental Health and Distress (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013) won a 2014 BPS Book Award.  He was a co-author of the Power-Threat-Meaning framework (BPS, 2018) and a contributor to Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia (BPS, 2017).

Dr Hamish McAlpine is Head of KE data and evidence at Research England, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Hamish looks after data and evidence for knowledge exchange, including the HE-BCI survey and forthcoming KEF metrics exercise. He has extensive experience of the HE sector, most recently at the University of Bristol where he managed large, industrially engaged research projects.

Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk is a research scientist fascinated by babies’ inborn capacity to communicate.   Since 1993, she has been based at the University of Dundee, within the School of Psychology.  In 2011, she set up her own independent training enterprise to disseminate more widely the science of the early years.  She now spends much of her time speaking to the public about our human need for emotional and physiological connection.  She is able to bring to this her research expertise on topics including parent-infant relationships, family support, communicative disorders, and the socio-political contexts that frame our responses to scientific information.  She works closely with organisations throughout the world to increase awareness of the decisions we take about caring for children, illuminating the way in which those decisions are integrally connected to our vision for the kind of society we wish to build. 

Professor Dr Christina Richards MSc, DCPsych, CPsychol, EuroPsy, FBPsS is an HCPC Registered Doctor of Applied Psychology and a full Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS) where she is the current Chair of the Division of Counselling Psychology; Committee member for Psychologist Prescribing; Lead National Assessor for Counselling Psychology; and Chair of the revision committee of the BPS Guidelines for working therapeutically with sexual, gender, and relationship diverse clients of which she was a co-author.

Professor Richards is Visiting Professor of Gender and Mental Health at Regent’s University London School of Psychotherapy and Psychology.

Prof. Richards is Lead Consultant Psychologist/Head of Psychology at the London Gender Identity Clinic (Charing Cross) within the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Prof. Richards is the Editor-in-Chief of the Counselling Psychology Review. Her own publications consist of numerous papers, reports, and book chapters predominantly focusing on sexuality, gender and relationships.