MHRN regional office (hub) managers
MHRN East Anglia Hub: Angela Browne
MHRN East Midlands Hub plus South Yorkshire: Ann Priddey
MHRN Heart of England Hub: Carly Cooper
MHRN North East Hub: Saffra Knox
MHRN North London Hub: Sandra O’Sullivan
MHRN North West Hub: Moira Winters
MHRN South London and South East Hub: Elizabeth Hutt
MHRN West Hub: Chantal Sunter
MHRN East Anglia Hub: Angela Browne
Angela joined the MHRN in April 2006 and has been managing the East Anglia Hub since January 2008. Her background is in social care, where she worked as a care manager, and as a team leader for home care in community-based services for older people, run by Huntingdonshire Primary Care Trust. She also managed Warboys and District Day Care Centre for older people on behalf of a local charity. Before that, she had worked for seven years at a local water company within the Facilities and Company Secretariat departments. She gained a first degree in Psychology from the University of York, has an MSc in Psychology, and has just finished a Professional Diploma in Management with the Open University. She has previously been involved in research, looking at social group formations within an older people’s day care setting, and young children’s predictive reading abilities. Angela is also a practising qualified hypno-psychotherapist.
angela.browne@cpft.nhs.uk
MHRN East Midlands Hub plus South Yorkshire: Ann Priddey
Ann has worked in the NHS for nearly 15 years, first as a psychiatric nurse (RMN), then undertaking a two-year audit of discharge planning in primary care for Nottingham Health Authority. This was followed by a year as a research assistant at Rampton High Secure Hospital, working on a national study looking at the Needs of Patients in High Secure Hospitals and led by former mental health tsar Professor Louis Appelby. Other posts have included working for three years in a primary care trust in clinical governance. Before joining the MHRN in 2005, Ann worked as the patient and public involvement and governance lead at the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health. Ann has a BSc in Psychology (OU) and an MA in Health Communication from the University of Nottingham.
ann.priddey@nottingham.ac.uk
MHRN Heart of England Hub: Carly Cooper
Carly Cooper has worked within mental health since graduating with a BSc in Applied Psychology in 2001. She initially worked in a number of inpatient psychiatric units before taking up a research post at the University of Birmingham, working with Professor Nick Craddock in the field of mood disorders, particularly recurrent depressive disorder and depression during and post pregnancy. In 2005, Carly became a research fellow at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, assisting staff and researchers in devising research through to data collection and analysis, as well as facilitating access to the trust for external researchers. Carly became manager of the Heart of England Hub in 2007. While working, she has also completed an MSc in Occupational Psychology, with a particular interest in change management, and recently obtained a Diploma in Management, which focuses on managing people and performance.
carly.cooper@bsmhft.nhs.uk
MHRN North East Hub: Saffra Knox
Saffra joined the MHRN North East Hub in June 2008, initially as a clinical studies officer, and then in December 2009 became senior clinical studies officer. She is now acting hub manager while Simon Douglas is on secondment to West Yorkshire Comprehensive Local Research Network. Saffra qualified as a registered nurse in mental health (RNMH) in 2005, and prior to this worked for more than eight years as a support worker/nursing assistant in a variety of services, including those run by MIND, social services, supported housing and NHS inpatient older people’s services. As a qualified nurse, she worked on an adult acute admissions ward, also providing emergency short stay inpatient facilities for child and adolescent mental health services, and then as a substance misuse nurse in a supervised injecting clinic on RIOTT (Randomised Injectable Opioid Treatment Trial), a research study that was subsequently supported by the MHRN. Since becoming a senior clinical studies officer, she has completed a BSc in Promoting Practice Effectiveness and is now studying for an MSc in Transformational Leadership in Health and Social Care.
saffra.knox@durham.ac.uk
MHRN North London Hub: Sandra O’Sullivan
Sandra has worked in mental health research alongside Professor Peter Tyrer (who is the hub lead) for more than 10 years. Her first involvement in research was in the evaluation of the Department of Health’s DSPD (Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder) Programme. She joined North London Hub when it was first set up in 2004, and is also a trustee for a mental health charity, Hamlet GIP Trust, which focuses on supporting community mental health programmes in developing countries.
s.osullivan@imperial.ac.uk
MHRN North West Hub: Moira Winters
Moira Winters joined the MHRN as manager of the North West Hub in 2005. Prior to this, she held a number of research posts in both academia and the voluntary sector, after an earlier career in administrative management.
moira.winters@lancashirecare.nhs.uk
MHRN South London and South East Hub: Elizabeth Hutt
Elizabeth Hutt joined the MHRN South London and South East Hub as manager in October 2006. Her career in mental health research developed from an administrative start. After graduating in History in 2000, she worked on projects lead by Professor Til Wykes, director of the MHRN.
elizabeth.hutt@kcl.ac.uk
MHRN West Hub: Chantal Sunter
Chantal Sunter graduated with a degree in Applied Microbiology in 2001. She first developed an interest in clinical research while working on a screening study of glaucoma as a placement student. Following graduation and another stint in clinical research, she moved to the voluntary sector, and worked in the research and medical information department of the Meningitis Research Foundation, a medical research charity. Here she was responsible for setting up and running the ‘Members Survey’ that surveyed survivors of meningitis and septicaemia in depth about their experience of the disease, their treatment and after-effects. Chantal also developed resources for health professionals to help them identify and treat meningitis and septicaemia, and delivered training sessions and awareness events. She then joined MHRN West Hub in 2005 as manager, shortly after it was set up. Since then, she has completed the Chartered Institute of Management Certificate and Diploma.
chantal.sunter@bristol.ac.uk
page last updated 29 June 2011