On 31st March 2021, we recorded a live event to launch a new and unique MSc in Mental Health Economics delivered jointly between the School of Economics and Finance and the Centre for Psychiatry at the Wolfson Institute (part of the School of Medicine and Dentistry).
This unique MSc programme offers students a combined training in the central principles of the economic analysis of mental health data, together with the key evidence bases for current mental health treatments and their clinical applications across contexts and cultures.
Dr Mark Freestone (Reader in Mental Health, Centre for Psychiatry)Dr Mark Freestone is Reader in Mental Health and Director of Postgraduate Taught Programmes in the Wolfson Institute. Following a background in social science, he has since come to work mainly in the field of forensic mental health, conducting both epidemiological and health services research into the efficacy of treatments for offenders. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at East London NHS Foundation Trust and a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. He has also consulted on forensic mental health issues for NHS England and recently the BBC America drama series Killing Eve.
Dr Freestone’s current work includes: the epidemiology of violence; outcomes research in forensic mental health services; causal inference networks for violence risk management; clinical sub-types of personality disorder and psychopathy; substance misuse as a risk factor for violence; and patterns of service use by young men in the UK. His current research is into the understanding of causal mechanisms in risk assessment using advanced statistical modelling, and the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for offenders with personality disorder.
Dr Freestone has previously held grants from both the NIHR and ESRC. In 2015 he received funding from the UK Ministry of Justice to conduct a mixed-method evaluation of the combined Ministry of Justice/NHS England initiative to develop Psychologically Informed Planned Environments (PIPEs) within HM Prison Service and the Probation service across England and Wales.
Dr Francesca Cornaglia (Reader)
Dr Francesca Cornaglia is an Associate Professor at Queen Mary University of London and an IZA Research Fellow. Before joining Queen Mary she held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at University College London. Following a background in engineering, she received a PhD in Economics from the University of Turin in 2005. Her main research interest is in health economics. Some of her main contributions to the literature are on smoking behaviour, wellbeing and mental health. More recently her research focus has been on socioeconomic inequalities in health and mental health. She is currently in conjunction with researchers from the Barts Health NHS Trust working on a project funded by the NIHR to understand and improve decision making by individuals about to undergo major surgery.
Keith Leslie
Keith is Chair of Samaritans in the UK & Ireland and Chair of Mental Health at Work CIC.
Keith Leslie is a leadership mentor, speaker and writer, living and working in London and Bristol. Keith has devoted extensive time to the voluntary sector. He is now Chair of Mental Health At Work CIC; from 2014 to 2020 he was Chair of the board at the Mental Health Foundation, the UK’s oldest mental health charity now focused on prevention of mental ill health. He also served as Chair of the board of Build Africa 2010–14 and as a non-executive director of The Tablet Publishing Company Ltd 2006–14.
He has been committed to the cause of good mental health over decades, was one of the first mental health champions in Deloitte and joined the Board of the Mental Health Foundation in 2011.
Keith began his career with Shell, working in New Zealand, Sweden, Cyprus and the UK in a series of front-line and general management roles. He joined McKinsey in 1993, becoming a partner in 1998, and served clients in a wide range of industrial sectors and government. He moved to Deloitte as a partner in 2006 and retired in 2017, having focused on organization and leadership challenges at senior levels in industry and government. He acts as independent reviewer of public bodies – during 2020 he led reviews of Big Society Capital and currently of the House of Lords.
Based on his experience working with senior management teams, Keith has published more than 50 articles on organisational change in European Management Journal, McKinsey Quarterly, The Times, Wall Street Journal, The Tablet and many other professional journals. He also speaks regularly at conferences and development programmes for senior leaders. His book A Question of Leadership – leading organisational change in times of crisis is being published by Bloomsbury in spring 2021.
Dr Anita Patel
Anita is an independent health economics consultant & Honorary Professor at Queen Mary University. A former academic health economist, now working independently in research/oversight/advisory roles. Clinical areas of expertise include stroke rehabilitation, mental health and public health.
Vijaya Nath
Vijaya Nath was previously the director of leadership development at Advance HE (formerly Leadership Foundation for Higher Education)
She brings over 26 years of experience in developing leaders in the private, not-for-profit and public sectors. Vijaya has significant experience in the design and development of innovative leadership programmes and senior organisational development consultancy gained in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Internationally. In her last substantive role in health she was Director of Leadership Development at The King's Fund, London where she worked with colleagues to establish a portfolio of interventions including networks, open programmes, bespoke organisation consultancy and thought leadership in medical leadership. She has designed and led a number of international study tours that feature learning from health and non-health organisations that are leading edge in quality, innovation and leadership.
An EMCC accredited executive coach with over 10,000 coaching hours and an established executive coaching portfolio. Vijaya holds Masters Qualifications in Museums and Anthropology. She founded Contemplative Spaces in April 2018 an initiative which works on developing leaders and teams’ effectiveness through experiential learning - including foregrounding visual culture, objects and artefacts. She is an experienced Appreciative Inquiry and Personal Impact facilitator.
Vijaya has published and written a number of papers on Leadership Development and has influenced thought leadership in the areas of Medical/Clinical Engagement, Quality Improvement in Health , Equality & Diversity and Advancing Women in Leadership. She is a visiting professor at Milan's SDA Bocconi School of Management.
Dr Maria Grazia Turri
Dr Maria Grazia Turri is Lecturer and Co-director of the MSc Creative Arts and Mental Health, a collaboration between the Centre for Psychiatry and the Department of Drama. She is a psychiatrist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, theatre scholar and practitioner.
Following completion of medical school in Padova (Italy), she obtained her DPhil (Oxford) in psychiatry in 2002. She subsequently trained in psychiatry and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Oxford, qualifying in Medical Psychotherapy in 2011. She worked in psychiatry in the NHS for 15 years, including as Consultant Psychiatrist in Medical Psychotherapy. She is committed to promoting the contribution of the creative arts to research, education and practice in mental health.
She has a PhD in Drama from Exeter University (2015) and her research focuses on understanding processes of identification in theatre through psychoanalytic theory. Her current project is a study of the power dynamics underpinning laughter, with a particular focus on comic processes in Commedia dell’Arte, a theatre form which flourished in the early modern period across Europe. As theatre practitioner, she worked as deviser with theatre company Gaia Drama Group. She has directed children and young people devised projects.
She teaches on psychoanalysis, theatre history and theories, and the intersection between psychiatry and the arts. She has also taught in theatre-practice modules.