Meet the team

Dr Catherine Evans, King’s College London

Dr Evans is the MORECare Capacity lead investigator leading the programme, the final evidence synthesis and day-to-day organisation of the project. Dr Evans qualified as a registered nurse in London, practicing in oncology and haematology, and then moved into primary health care completing a BSc Community nursing (1994), and practiced as a health visitor and district nurse. She undertook an MSc Gerontology (2001) and PhD Nursing (2007) at King’s College London. Her PhD examined experiences and representations of older people’s health living in a care home to enlighten district nursing practice. Her research interests focus on methods of evaluating complex interventions in health care, promoting the health of the very old, end of life care for non-cancer groups, and the development of primary health care nursing practice. 

Professor Irene Higginson, King’s College London

Professor Higginson is the MORECare Capacity joint lead investigator leading the programme and the final evidence synthesis. Professor Higginson qualified in medicine from Nottingham University and has worked in wide ranging medical and university positions, including radiotherapy and oncology, in-patient and home hospice care, the Department of Health (England), and various universities. She has been at King's as Professor and Head of Department since October 1996. In 2002 she was appointed Scientific Director of Cicely Saunders International, a new charity seeking to develop a centre of research in palliative care to improve care for patients and families. She has research interests and publications in the following areas:

• quality of life and outcome measurements
• evaluation of palliative care services and interventions
• epidemiology
• clinical audit and effectiveness
• psychosocial factors and care
• symptom assessment
• cachexia/anorexia
• elderly care

 

Professor Matthew Hotopf, King’s College London

Professor Hotopf provides expertise in mental capacity, the development of trial methods and the measurement of mental health outcomes. Professor Hotopf trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, and in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Research interests are in the grey area between medicine and psychiatry, including medically unexplained symptoms; mechanisms of fatigue; depression and anxiety in the context of physical disease; military health; and the assessment of mental capacity. He has an interest in research methodology and evidence based medicine. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator. He works clinically within King’s College Hospital and is visiting psychiatrist to St Christopher’s Hospice.

Dr Jonathan Koffman, King’s College London

Dr Jonathan Koffman provides expertise on EoLC, vulnerability and capacity. Dr Koffman has a BSc in Social Administration, and an MSc in Sociology with Special Reference to Medicine from Royal Holloway and Bedford New College. His previous work experience involved health services research and commissioning for a number of health authorities within the NHS. He joined the Department of Palliative Care, Policy & Rehabilitation at King’s College London in 1998 and is now a Lecturer in Palliative Care, MSc Co-ordinator for the inter-professional MSc in Palliative Care, and Sub Dean of Taught Postgraduate Studies in the School of Medicine. He has research interests and publications in the following areas:

• end of life care experiences of black and minority ethnic groups
• social exclusion
• culture and ethnicity
• older people
• mental health
• palliative care education

 

Professor Penney Lewis, King’s College London

Professor Lewis provides expertise on legal and ethical aspects, and identifies and links to relevant ethical and legal bodies and expertise. Professor Lewis teaches Medical Law and Law at the End of Life in the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics and the School of Law.  In the area of medical law, her research focuses on end of life issues including advance decision-making and refusal of treatment. She is the author of a number of articles on assisted dying and her monograph Assisted Dying and Legal Change was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. Her work has examined assisted dying law and practice and the process of legal change in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and England and Wales. In 2005, she testified before the House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, and in 2010 she briefed and will also testify before the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill Committee of the Scottish Parliament. She has also published articles and chapters dealing with a wide range of medical law topics, including wrongful life, medical treatment of children and medical procedures which are against the interests of incompetent adults, such as non-therapeutic research. She is a member of the UK Donation Ethics Committee, Vice-Chair of the King’s College London Research Ethics Committee and a member of the Clinical Ethics Committee of St Christopher’s Hospice.

Dr Bee Wee, University of Oxford

Dr Bee Wee provides expertise on palliative and end-of-life care, consent and research methods in the last days of life. Dr Bee Wee is the Head of Palliative Care Research and Development at Sir Michael Sobell House and Official Fellow at Harris Manchester College. She is also Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Palliative Care and President of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland.  Dr Bee Wee has published on symptom control, specifically death rattle, and both medical and interprofessional education.

 Dr William Bernal, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Dr William Bernal provides expertise on end-of-life care in an Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) setting, providing the panel with a clinical perspective. He is a Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Liver Intensive Care Medicine in the Livery Intensive Therapy Unit at the Institute of Liver Studies at Kings College Hospital in London. He trained in General Medicine at the Royal London and St Bartholomew’s Hospital and in Hepatology and Intensive Care Medicine at St Thomas and King’s College Hospital. He first worked on Liver Intensive Therapy Unit at King’s in 1995 and was appointed as a Consultant in 2002. Annually, more than 900 patients with liver disease are admitted to this specialist critical care unit which also supports one of Europe’s largest liver transplantation programs. The unit has a special interest in acute liver failure and has for many years led in the development and application of innovative therapies for this condition. Dr Bernals’ research interests include the pathogenesis of encephalopathy and multiple organ failure in acute and acute-on-chronic liver failure and the use of outcome of emergency liver transplantation. He has published widely in this field and his current research projects include the application of novel techniques to prognostic assessment and the nature of the coagulation disturbance seen in liver disease, and in viral discovery in unexplained hepatitic illness.

Deborah Tanner, Senior User Representative

Deborah Tanner provides expertise from the patient perspective as one of the projects senior user representatives. For the last 18 years Deborah has been a communications consultant specialising in healthcare, in both the private and public sectors. She has worked at BUPA, the Department of Health, on both biological counter-terrorism and the musculoskeletal framework, City & Hackney Primary Care Trust, the provider arm of Hounslow Primary Care Trust and, most recently, at the Health Protection Agency. She has also cared for her husband, who died of a brain tumour in 2006. She is a member of the Dying Matters Coalition, under the aegis of the National Council for Palliative Care, has contributed to research into the support needs of older carers of people with advanced cancer, funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and volunteers as a ‘story gatherer’ for Macmillan, collecting case studies of patients’ cancer journeys, and is a peer review user representative.

Katie Stone, King’s College London

Katie Stone is the project research assistant bringing with her expertise in systematic reviews. Katie completed a BA joint honours in Anthropology and Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London in 2006 and an MSc in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) the following year. Katie’s interests over the course of her MSc became focused on healthcare, particularly the ways in which western medicine can shape and define peoples’ perceptions of identity, a theme which she explored in her dissertation on biological citizenship.

In 2009 Katie began work as a research assistant in the School of Health and Social Sciences at Middlesex University. During her time there Katie gained experience of systematic reviews, writing a number of papers for publication the most recent concerning hospice care for the prison population. In 2012 Katie began work at the Cicely Saunders Institute on the MORECare Capacity project.

 

Members of the MORECare Capacity Project Advisory Group

The MORECare Capacity Project Advisory Group advises and guides the study. The group comprises representatives with expertise in research methods and/or developing services in palliative and EoL care from voluntary and statutory organisations in health and social care, academics, practitioners and lay participants.

• Professor Gunn Grande, Professor of Palliative Care, University of Manchester
• Dr Steve Dewar, Interim Director of Research Management, Alzheimer's Society
• Dr Gareth Owen, Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellow, Honorary Consultant, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Institute of Psychiatry King's College London
• Ms Claire Henry, Director of the NHS National End of Life Care Programme
• Dr Rachel Burman, Consultant in Palliative Care, King's College London
• Dr Dimitrios Adamis, Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry, King's College London/Research and Academic Institute of Athens
• Dr Michael Dunn, Lecturer in Health and Social Care Ethics, University of Oxford
• Dr Scott Kim, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Michigan
• Dr Simon Woods, Co-Director of Policy Ethics and Life Sciences Research centre (PEALS), Newcastle University