About the PMHIC
The College established a Public Mental Health Implementation Centre (PMHIC) with an aim to support improved implementation of evidence-based interventions to treat mental disorders, prevent associated impacts, prevent mental disorders and promote mental wellbeing and resilience.
The work of the PMHIC will lead to the sustainable and equitable reduction of the impacts of mental disorders and the promotion of population mental wellbeing locally, nationally and internationally.
The Centre was launched officially in March 2022 at the Houses of Parliament and is being hosted by RCPsych's National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.
The work of the PMHIC is guided by a range of experts from across public health and mental health including clinicians, academics, researchers and experts by experience.
PMHIC team
Clinical and Strategic Director of the PMHIC, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist, East London NHS Foundation Trust
Peter is consultant liaison psychiatrist at the Royal London Hospital, and lead consultant for general hospital psychiatry across four east London general hospitals. He graduated from University College Dublin in 1988 and completed all his medical and psychiatric training in Ireland before his first NHS consultant appointment in 1999.
He has worked directly with the Gastroenterology Department of Barts Health since 2016: he provides three outpatient clinics each week, ward consultations as well as collaborative teaching and research activities. A former Director of Public Education for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, RCPsych, he was awarded the Public Educator of the Year Award by the College in 2012; he was Associate Registrar for public mental health 2014-21, when he became co-director of the RCPsych Public Mental Health Implementation Centre. He has written two textbooks Clinical Cases Uncovered (2009) and with Alan Rosen, Early Intervention in Psychiatry in 2016.
Director, National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH)
Director at the NCCMH, providing operational leadership. Tom previously set up and managed mental health services at Sheffield Health and Social Care Foundation Trust and continues to lead the development of complex mental health and wellbeing projects, including the mental health care pathways for NHS England and the Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme for NHS Improvement.
He provides operational and strategic support in the running of all the NCCMH’s commissioned projects and works closely with funding organisations to establish and maintain excellent relationships.
Hebah joined the College in April 2025 as a research assistant at the NCCMH and the Public Mental Health Implementation Centre (PMHIC).
Hebah’s background is in applied psychology. She completed her MSc in Applied Clinical psychology at the University of Bath in 2024 and holds a BA in Applied Psychology (Hons) from the University of Delhi.
Prior to this role, Hebah worked as a research assistant at the Department of Psychology, University of Bath. There, she worked on projects focused on child and adolescent mental health, supporting parents of children and young people with mental ill-health, co-produced interventions and improving access to mental health help and support.
Academic Lead, PMHIC
Professor Kam Bhui CBE MD FRCPsych FRCP(E) FRSA PFHEA
Kam is Professor of Psychiatry at Dept of Psychiatry and Nuffield Dept of Primary Health Care Sciences at University of Oxford, Senior Research Fellow at Wadham College, Hon. Consultant Psychiatrist at East London and Oxford Health Foundation Trusts, and Honorary Professor Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, at Queen Mary University of London.
Kam studied Pharmacology (BSc, 1985) at UCL and Medicine (MBBS, 1982-1988) at United Medical and Dental Schools of Guys and St Thomas’ (now King's College).
Kam is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist and epidemiologist. He has worked in mental health services, bringing a particular focus on social and cultural psychiatry to improve practice and policy. Much of his work is on prevention of poor mental health and learning from lived experience when designing new interventions.
His particular interest is on understanding the causes of and preventing inequalities in experiences and outcomes of poor mental health. He works with multiple disciplines including sociology, anthropology, arts, ethics, philosophy, and psychology, and digital design.
Senior Editor, NCCMH
Nuala works closely with researchers and authors, overseeing the NCCMH's editorial processes from draft to publication, and editing documents and web pages. She has been with the NCCMH since 2009, working on the editorial development of NICE clinical guidelines on mental health up to 2016. She was Chair of the RCPsych Staff Representative Committee from 2018–20.
Nuala specialises in medical, social science and academic editing, having worked for Routledge, Pluto Press, Harcourt Brace, the British Institute of Radiology and Raw Vision art magazine. She is a contributor to Raw Vision and brutjournal. art magazines.
Research Fellow
Blossom joined NCCMH and the Public Mental Health Implementation Centre (PMHIC) as a Research Fellow in 2025 to collaborate with the team on evaluating evidence-based mental health interventions and lead on implementation research.
Before joining NCCMH, Blossom was a researcher on the NIHR’s Mental Health Implementation Network (MHIN) programme which supports the delivery of evidence based mental health interventions in England in high priority areas of mental health. As part of this project, Blossom evaluated MHIN’s implementation approach focusing on teams, prioritisation and sustainability using implementation science frameworks.
Blossom completed her PhD at Roehampton University investigating social and cognitive factors affecting development and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) based intervention outcomes. Blossom has extensively taught on clinical and developmental psychology at Durham University, and researched factors that affect children and young people’s mental health in the UK and, low- and middle-income countries at the University of Oxford.
Blossom is a mixed method researcher with a wide background in quantitative and qualitative research skills. She is interested in working on projects that focus on improving mental health intervention outcomes using implementation science and coproduction.
Academic and Strategic Director, NCCMH
Academic Director of the NCCMH, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Clinical Effectiveness at University College London, and a psychologist and academic with an international reputation in the practical application of research to clinical practice, Steve is ideally placed to ensure that this research is methodologically rigorous.
Steve has expertise in the development and evaluation of psychological interventions and has led high-profile evaluations of mental health services and complex interventions (street triage, IAPT services for long-term conditions). In addition, he has co-authored competence frameworks and curricula that underpin most training programmes for IAPT, and overseen work commissioned by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
Project Manager, NCCMH
Joanna is a qualified Project Manager at the NCCMH with an MSc in Comparative European Social Policy. She is responsible for coordinating the development of a wide range of mental health initiatives, including competence frameworks, research-based evidence reviews, and mental health education and training programme evaluations.
Joanna has many years of experience working as part of project and policy development teams within central government departments and agencies, including the Ministry of Justice, Department for Environment and Rural Affairs and Ofsted.
Most recently, Joanna project-managed numerous initiatives commissioned by organisations including Health Education England, the Social Mobility Commission, UCL Partners and The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Her work involves working collaboratively with stakeholders including clinicians, researchers and people with lived experience, to advance patient outcomes through the implementation of service improvements and coordination of evaluation and assessment activities.
Head of Quality and Research Development, NCCMH
Head of Director for Quality and Research Development. Clare oversees and contributes to the quality of all NCCMH's outputs, including implementation guidance, competence frameworks, manuals and systematic reviews.
As an editor and writer in the field of mental health for 15 years and senior editor for the NCCMH's clinical guidelines programme for NICE, Clare’s responsibility will be to lead the team drafting the final product for this project.
Head of the Public Mental Health Implementation Centre
Megan is the Head of the Public Mental Health Implementation Centre and is responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of research plans, leading proposals and funding bids, team development and methodological support.
She joined the NCCMH in 2023 as a Senior Researcher and served as Principal Investigator for ‘prejudice, discrimination and personality disorders’ research, promoting compassionate care. Megan instigated the researchers’ reflective practice initiative and is a College Health and Safety Committee Member.
Megan is a Chartered Psychologist, Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Liverpool. Following doctoral research, Megan worked in Health Services Research, the Arts and Public Health. She was the nominated research staff member on the academic board at LSBU. Megan is an experienced mentor and has taught advanced qualitative methods.
Megan has 12 years of experience in leading mental health research and evaluations. She has collaborated with a range of funders and contributed to evidence-based recommendations in community, high secure, and intensive care settings. Megan has an interest in innovative applications of discourse analysis.
PMHIC Advisory Board
The work of the PMHIC is overseen by an advisory board, who meet quarterly. The Board is chaired by Dr Trudi Seneviratne, the Registrar of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The membership of the advisory board includes:
- Dr Ed Beveridge, Consultant Psychiatrist, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
- Professor Kamaldeep Bhui CBE MD FRCPsych FRCP(E) FRSA PFHEA, Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford
- Dr Jed Boardman PhD FRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist/Senior Lecturer in Social Psychiatry, Senior Policy Advisor, Centre for Mental Health, London
- Dr Jim Crabb, Policy Lead for RCPsych Scotland, Consultant in General Adult Psychiatry, NHS Forth Valley, Scotland
- Professor Jayati Das-Munshi, Professor in Social and Psychiatric Epidemiology at Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London
- Professor Kevin Fenton, President of the Faculty of Public Health
- Professor Dame Clare Gerada, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners
- Professor Zafar Iqbal, Associate Medical Director in Public Health, Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Professor Ann John, Population Data Science, Medical School, Swansea University
- Abiola Johnson, Expert by Experience
- Professor Peter Jones FRCPsych FMedSci, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Director, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, East of England, Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, CPFT
- Professor James Kirkbride, Professor of Psychiatric and Social Epidemiology, Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London
- Dr Elaine Lockhart, Chair of the Child and Adolescent Faculty, Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Professor Sir Michael Marmot FBA, FMedSci, FRCP, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London
- Professor Jim McManus, National Director of Health and Wellbeing, Public Health Wales
- Dr Ciaran Mulholland, Consultant Psychiatrist with the Northern Health and Social Care Trust and a Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
- Dr Colm Owens, Medical Director, NHS Devon Mental Health, Learning Disability and Neurodiversity Collaborative
- Sarah Price, Director of Public Health, NHS England
- Professor Maggie Rae, former President of the Faculty of Public Health
- Mark Rowland, Chief Executive, Mental Health Foundation
- George Roycroft, Head of Policy and Campaigns, Strategic Communications, Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Janet Seale, Expert by Experience
- Catherine Shuttleworth, Co-Chair of Public Mental Health Special Interest Group, Faculty of Public Health
- Dr Michael Smith, Associate Medical Director for Mental Health & Addiction Services in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
- Dr Jude Stansfield, Principal Research Fellow, Leeds Beckett University | Co-Chair of Public Mental Health Special Interest Group, Faculty of Public Health
- Dr Peter Trimble, Psychiatrist, Belfast City University, Chair of the Neuropsychiatry Special Interest Group, Royal College of Psychiatrists Northern Ireland
- Karen Turner, Lay Trustee, Royal College of Psychiatrists
