I’m the co-chief Investigator for the TYPPEX programme. I’m a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and honorary consultant psychiatrist with CPFT, the trust that hosts TYPPEX. I see the work of our fantastic TYPPEX team both as a way to develop and test a new treatment pathway for a group of IAPT service users whose needs are currently not met by a service that doesn’t hear their voice, and an experiment to test whether psychotic (or anomalous) experiences tell us more about the severity of depression and anxiety than they do about the likelihood of someone developing a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. When I’m not working on TYPPEX I might be walking and fishing in the South Cumbria where we have family, growing veg and cooking it in Cambridge, or stuck in a traffic jam or on a train somewhere in between.

I am the training development lead for the TYPPEX programme, I have worked in IAPT primary care services for over 14 years as a Psychotherapist, Supervisor and Clinical-Operational Manager. My contributions to the research team are centred around knowledge on mental health, clinical practice, CBT, IAPT services and primary care. My role is to develop and lead on the training for psychotic experiences including the content and resources that supplement the training. I train the qualified CBT therapists and meet with them regularly to offer support and supervision for their clinical practice. For patients, therapists and IAPT services, the TYPPEX research programme is trailblazing; improving recovery for those with severe Depression and Anxiety can be life changing for patients, their friends and family.

I am co-chief investigator for the TYPPEX programme. I have worked in the NHS for more than 17 years. I was trained in psychiatry in Spain and then joined the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust to work as a Consultant Psychiatrist in the award-winning CAMEO Early Intervention in Psychosis Service. Working for that service I began to learn that psychotic experiences were not exclusive to people with psychotic disorders; in fact, people with a wider range of mental health difficulties, including common mental disorders, could also suffer from them and affect their lives significantly. Professor Jones and I, along with the invaluable help from other experts, including collaborators with lived experience, designed the TYPPEX programme. Currently, as co-chief investigator I supervise the running of the programme. I see TYPPEX as a groundbreaking programme of applied research that looks beyond conventional thinking about the meaning of psychotic experiences and aims to treat them in the primary care IAPT services effectively. This programme should contribute to a better understanding of these experiences in the context of a common mental disorder, such as depression and anxiety, and, subsequently, increase the likelihood to recover from it.

I have worked in mental health for 20 years, originally training as an Occupational Therapist before joining IAPT services to train as a cognitive behavioural therapist (CBT) in 2009.  After 12 years working, managing, and supervising in IAPT, I joined the TYPPEX team to offer specialist clinical supervision to the therapists participating in the study. I coordinate the supervision component of the trial, and my main role is to provide clinical support to all trained therapist so they can deliver the TYPPEX intervention with confidence and fidelity.

I am a qualitative researcher and part of the THIS Institute process evaluation team evaluating the TYPPEX Programme. Over the last fifteen years and working both with THIS Institute and Leicester University, I have conducted an extensive number of in-depth semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observations and focus groups with patients, the public, professionals, practitioners, and managers, most recently focusing on the evaluation of patient safety initiatives in mental health, acute adult care and maternity services plus evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health services.

I am the programme manager for TYPPEX. I also work as a research lead at Norwich Clinical Trials Unit. I joined the team in 2019 to run the feasibility study, and now leads the management of the randomised controlled trial and oversees the overall running of the programme. I have a particular interest in the use of routinely-collected electronic health record data in clinical trials, and I am responsible for collating and processing the IAPT data needed for the monitoring and analysis of the TYPPEX trial.

I joined the team as a Clinical Trial Assistant at the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit in January 2022! My role on the TYPPEX project involves central monitoring of recruitment and follow up, writing SOPs for monitoring and recruitment, and assisting with administrative tasks and the day to day running of the trial.

I joined the TYPPEX study team in September 2021 via the McPin Foundation, a mental health research charity centring lived experience in research. My primary role is to facilitate Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) within the TYPPEX Study. This means ensuring the study works alongside those with lived experience of mental health issues to contribute in a range of ways; including illuminating how the study can have an impact on the public in practice, and helping to ground academic or clinical concepts in a person-centred way. Please refer to the PPI Page for more information about this. I am also using my background in qualitative research and evaluation to assist with the Process Evaluation