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The Steering Group

The Bipolar PSP was managed by a Steering Group and was chaired by an independent advisor from the James Lind Alliance. The Steering Group included individual patient/carer representatives as well as representatives from advocacy groups, research funders and clinicians.

The role of the Steering Group was to develop and implement a Project Protocol that sets out the plans for the Bipolar PSP. The Steering Group was responsible for establishing a timeline and budget for the project and is committed to producing a prioritised list of unanswered questions about bipolar.

Patient and family or carer representatives

Edmund Brooks

Carer representative

Edmund is a carer of a family member who has been diagnosed with a bipolar condition. He is an advisor to two university healthcare research projects funded by the NIHR. He peer-reviewed a research proposal on the study of Bipolar Disorders which was approved by NIHR, and is presently on the Evaluation Team for modernising mental health services commissioned by Bristol CCG as well as a lay member of a national clinical reference group for Acute Adult Care. He was elected as a Patient Governor to an acute hospital Trust in May 2014.

Bev Thornton

Service user representative and Recovery and Social Inclusion Worker, Leeds and York NHS Partnership Foundation Trust

Rachel Marshall

Family representative

Rachel is a family representative for the Priority Setting Partnership. Her father has lived with severe bipolar disorder since the late 1970s. She is also an editor for the Cochrane Collaboration, a not-for-profit organisation producing systematic reviews of healthcare interventions, and she has worked in medical publishing since 2003.

Suzanne Hudson

Chief Executive, Bipolar UK

Suzanne is the Chief Executive of Bipolar UK. Suzanne has more than 20 years' experience within the voluntary sector. In addition to her professional career, she is an active service volunteer and has served on a number of trustee boards.

Suzanne joined Bipolar UK in July 2010. She is passionate about raising standards of support and treatment for individuals affected by bipolar, while also raising awareness and understanding within society at large.

Margaret Edwards

Chief Executive, SANE

Diana Rose

Head of Section, Service User Research Enterprise (SURE)

Patient representative

(unnamed)

Clinical representatives

Tom Hughes

Psychiatrist, Leeds and York NHS Partnership Foundation Trust

Tom was appointed Consultant Psychiatrist in Leeds and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Leeds in 1998. He is involved in research in bipolar disorder and depression and is also Associate Medical Director for Research at Leeds and York NHS PFT.

Mary Jane Attenburrow

Psychiatrist, Oxford Health NHS FT

Mary Jane is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at Oxford University Department of Psychiatry, Clinical Lead for the NIHR Oxford cognitive health Clinical Research Facility and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist with Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. She has a longstanding interest in bipolar mood and is a member of the Collaborative Oxford Network for Bipolar Research to Improve Outcomes (Conbrio) research group. She considers the PSP very relevant especially as there are clearly a number of unanswered questions in the management of bipolar. She is also interested in supporting well thought out methodologies that are part of PPI, the JL Alliance has a good track record in this area.

Amanda Hawkins

Chair British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

Ian Hulatt

Royal College of Nursing Mental Health Adviser

Scientific expertise

Jennifer Rendell

Research Fellow, University of Oxford

Jennifer is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry. She has experience of developing and managing international randomised clinical trials of medicines and of psychotherapies for bipolar disorder. She has conducted systematic reviews and Delphi studies and been a facilitator for a brief psychoeducational program to help people understand and manage their mood changes using electronic mood monitoring (using True Colours).

Rachel Churchill

Cochrane Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Group

Rachel is a Reader in Psychiatric Epidemiology at the University of Bristol. Since 2001, she has been the Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Review Group, the scope of which includes bipolar disorder. Over the last five years she has been working on different approaches to ensure that evidence about treatments reflects the needs of users. She has a long-standing interest in bipolar disorder and is also involved in a Depression PSP.

Sophie Petit-Zeman

Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)

Sophie has been Director of Patient Involvement at Oxford BRC since 2012 and is also a Director of SPZ Associates specialising in medicine and social care communications and strategy. She has been involved in the JLA since it began in 2004 and is passionate about the importance of this way of setting research priorities.

Partner representatives

Cynthia Joyce

Chief Executive MQ

Cynthia represents MQ: transforming mental health, a charity working to promote research toward better treatments for mental health problems and is a big fan of using JLA methodology to inform research. MQ supports the Depression: Asking the Right Questions PSP survey now in progress and works to coordinate with the bipolar project.

Support

The Partnership and the priority setting process is supported and guided by:

David Crowe

The James Lind Alliance, as Chair of the PSP

David is a James Lind Alliance (JLA) Adviser working with bipolar disorder and Mid- to Moderate Hearing Loss Priority Setting Partnerships. He is an experienced Facilitator and Coach and Project Manager. He has a background in operations and HR in the NHS and public sector, and has run a business for the last 15 years. He loves the work he is involved in.