I am based at the Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research within the Division of Population Health, Health Services Research and Primary Care.

My academic career centres on designing and implementing co-created research to improve quality of care and patient safety for people with mental health challenges in primary care, spanning interfaces with secondary and social care across high and low-resource settings. I am also committed to optimising the sustainability and efficiency of healthcare organisations through evidence-based workforce planning and wellbeing initiatives.

With a track record of 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including in world-leading medical journals like BMJ and JAMA, I lead impactful research which has been translated into health care policies (WHO, NICE) and improved health care services based on the perspectives of patient and health and care workers.

I have developed a dynamic group of 5 postdocs and 5 PhD students in the UK, while concurrently leading ambitious (£3 to £5 million) global health research programmes in low and middle-income countries. I have contributed to £25m of research funding collectively as PI (£5m) and co-I (£20m).

I serve in leadership roles within the University of Manchester, such as Divisional Lead Mental Health Research Theme/Strategy, Divisional Lead for Social Responsibility and member of the Divisional Leadership Team.

My Research Leadership responsibilities encompass being the UK Principal Investigator for the £3.3m NIHR RIGHT 4 award to co-adapt an evaluate a rehabilitation intervention for burns survivors in Pakistan (2022-2026). I have also been the Lead of the Safer Care Systems & Transitions Theme within the £7.2m NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre between 2019-2023 and I am currently actively involved in the Mental Health and Safer Care Systems Themes of the NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaborations.  Furthermore, I contribute as a WHO Expert Advisor on Patient Safety.

I am leading quarterly 2-day RSS-approved workshops and 2-h masterclasses on Systematic-Reviews&Meta-Analysis'. I contribute to the development of the ‘Stress and Mental Health' module, and deliver targeted lectures and supervise dissertations within the Masters Occupational Medicine.

Summary of key research interests

• Innovative service delivery, or best practice interventions to improve the quality and safety of mental health care with a specific focus on primary care and interfaces with social care and secondary care.
• Understanding and improving the wellbeing of health care workforce, assessing its impacts on health care quality and workforce recruitment and retention.
• Global mental health research and suicide prevention particularly in primary care and the critical periods of transition between care settings.
• Self-management and low-intensity interventions to improve mental, physical and social care outcomes for people living with mental and physical multimorbidity.

Summary of methodological skills

• Methodological advanced systematic reviews and meta-analysis including individual participant data meta-analysis (IPD), network meta-analysis (NMA), meta-synthesis with meta-ethnography, mixed-method reviews, meta-reviews.
• Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) including cluster RCTs and novel trial designs (e.g. cmRCTs) as well as pilot and feasibility trials.
• Quantitative analysis of large health datasets including novel linkages of bespoke healthcare workforce surveys with health datasets such as the RCGP Research and Surveillance Centre
• Development of complex interventions using co-design, and novel refined consensus approaches such as the RAND/UCLA methods.

Education and Professional Qualifications

• PhD in Psychology (led to 12 first-authored papers), University of Manchester, UK; 2008-2011
• MSc in Health Psychology (Distinction), Leiden University, the Netherlands: 2006-2007
• BSc in Psychology (1^st class), University of Crete, Greece: 2002-2006

Appointment & Key Leadership Roles

• Divisional Lead of Social Responsibility and member of Divisional Leadership Team: 2020–present.
• Divisional Lead of the Mental Health Research Strategy: 2023–present.
• UK Principal Investigator of £3.3m NIHR RIGHT 4 award: Burns Rehabilitation in LMICs, 2022- present..
• WHO Expert Advisor Patient Safety: 2022– present.
• Lead of the Safer Care Systems &Transitions Theme: £7.2m NIHR GMPSTC: Sept 2019-March 2023.