Our Partners
National Advisory Group (NAG)
Professor David Croisdale-Appleby OBE
Chair of Health Watch England and Dementia UK
Professor Croisdale-Appleby will chair the National Advisory Group. In addition to the wealth of clinical and applied health research experience David will bring to IDEAS, he will also provide advice to the executive group regarding policy impact.
Professor Rachel Baker
Director of The Yunus Centre Glasgow Caledonian University
Professor Baker will ensure any national evaluation reflects the health and social care context in Scotland (where applicable), broker additional links to relevant stakeholders within Scotland, and will facilitate any additional methodological input through the Yunus Centre (if required).
Edward Dallas
Chief Economist at Simetrica Jacobs
Mr Dallas provides additional methodological input (as required) to complement the wider team’s expertise in outcome assessment in the evaluation process. They facilitate access to Simetrica-Jacobs’s Social Value Bank tools and extensive contacts on evaluation and social value measurement.
Professor Christine Brown Wilson
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast
Professor Brown ensures any national evaluation reflects the health and social care context in Northen Ireland (where applicable), and brokers additional links to relevant stakeholders within Northern Ireland.
Dr Shona Haining
Strategic Head of Research and Evidence at the North East & North Cumbria Intergrated Care Board
Shona has an academic background in Biochemistry gaining a PhD from University of Sheffield as well as business management post graduate qualifications . She has worked in various R&D roles operationally and strategically in the North East for many years, mainly in Primary Care and commissioning organisations but also secondment or joint posts into secondary care, mental health, and NHS England.
Professor Mark Llewellyn
Director, Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care (WIHSC), University of South Wales
Professor Llewellyn ensures any national evaluation reflects the health and social care context in Wales, brokers additional links to relevant stakeholders within Wales, and facilitates additional methodological input through WIHSC (if required).
Dr Emily Rainsford
Principal Research Associate (Action Learning Lead) at Insights North East (INE)
Dr Rainsford is a social researcher with extensive experience working in and with the public, private and higher education sectors. She has experience in collecting and analysing qualitative and quantitative data, working with harder to reach groups. Dr Rainsford will support the development of strategies to build relationships and share knowledge produced in evaluations, that can ultimately support policy changes. INE will be involved in evaluation design from the outset and will work with evaluation teams to grow relationships with targeted and relevant decision makers, generating roots to impact from evaluation conception.
Rachel Morris
Associate Director and Secure Data Environment (SDE) commercial lead. Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria.
Rachel represents the North East North Cumbria SDE. She provides key insights into existing routine data availability for evaluations, supports speed of access to data and facilitates links to the other SDEs.
Dr Jonathan Wistow
Co-Director of the Durham Research Methods Centre, Qualitative Complexity Science Theme
Dr Wistow facilitates additional methodological input and guidance through the Durham Research Methods Centre, specifically around complex systems methods.
Chris Speed
Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Local Clinical Research Network (LCRN) NENC Core Team, Research Delivery Network (RDN)
Mr Speed provides data and information on portfolio research and brokers introductions to study delivery teams, as well as user experience fora, as necessary within the evaluations. In addition, working as a single RDN, Chris and colleagues facilitate access throughout England.
Dr Felicity Shenton
Public Involvement and Community Engagement (PICE) Manager
Dr Felicity Shenton is the Public Involvement and Community Engagement Manager for our NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC) and has been in post since May 2020. She has a background in children’s human rights, participatory research, peer research, co-production and service user involvement in education, research and service improvement.
Professor Justin Waring
Dean School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University.
Professor Waring is the former Director of the NIHR Birmingham, RAND and Cambridge Evaluation Centre (BRACE). He will provide expertise and experience on rapid evaluation.
Independent Steering Group
Professor Mike Kelly
Honorary Visiting Professor School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge
Professor Mike Kelly is Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge. Between 2005 and 2014 he was the Director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE, where he led the teams producing public health guidelines. He has advised the House of Commons Health Select Committee and been a witness before parliamentary committees on a number of occasions. He has chaired committees for MRC, ESRC, the Foods Standards Agency, PHE and OHID. From 2005 to 2007 he directed the methodology work stream for the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. He has a continuing interest in health inequalities and is pursuing a programme of research in Cambridge on this topic. His other research interests include the methods and philosophy of evidence-based medicine, prevention of heart disease, health related behaviour change, the causes of non-communicable disease, end of life care, dental public health, transport and health, and the sociology of chronic illness.
Paul Court
CEO of Healthworks NE
Paul supported the development and formation of Healthworks 30 years ago and, since then, has worked at a senior level across the NHS and Newcastle City Council, shaping policy and practice to improve outcomes for disadvantaged communities, including children and young people. Previously, Paul has developed and led Sure Start Services, been a researcher influencing national policy, an NHS board member, and a long-serving Grant Committee member for BBC Children in Need. Paul is a current volunteer Director for Swim England North East. Paul is also a Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University.
Professor Yvonne Birks
National Director of NIHR School for Social Care Research
Yvonne is an experienced mixed methods health and social care researcher with a professional background in nursing. She manages a dynamic and growing group of researchers and research support staff who deliver a large portfolio of practice facing research to support the delivery of social care, focused specifically on older people. Areas of expertise include finding and funding social care, dementia, workforce and aids and adaptations.
Professor Andrew Carson-Stevens
General Practitioner, Clinical Professor of Patient Safety and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Learning and Improvement at the Division of Population Medicine, School of Medicine, Cardiff University.
Andrew is a Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leader. Across Wales, he is Director of the Primary and Emergency Care Research Centre (PRIME), a Health and Care Research Wales funded collaboration between four Welsh universities, focused on research to generate evidence to improve the quality and safety of primary and emergency care, and to sustain growth of capacity and capability for world-class research leadership in Wales.
Dr Andrew Kingston
Senior Lecturer in the Epidemiology of Ageing at Newcastle University
As a Chartered Statistician with a PhD in statistical epidemiology, Dr Kingston specialises in using complex longitudinal data and advanced statistical techniques to gain a deeper understanding of how health outcomes evolve over time, particularly with respect to the development of specific diseases and the occurrence of multimorbidity.
Dr Shona Haining
Strategic Head of Research and Evidence at the North East & North Cumbria Intergrated Care Board Shona has an academic background in Biochemistry gaining a PhD from University of Sheffield as well as business management post graduate qualifications . She has worked in various R&D roles operationally and strategically in the North East for many years, mainly in Primary Care and commissioning organisations but also secondment or joint posts into secondary care, mental health, and NHS England.
