Our Advisors
Professor Brendan Delaney
Professor Brendan Delaney is a leading exponent internationally of the “Learning Health System’ (LHS) concept. His initial training in research was in health technology assessment, real-world (pragmatic) clinical trials and clinical research in Family Medicine. Since 2003 he has worked in the area of Clinical Informatics, being appointed to a Chair in Medical Informatics at Imperial in 2015 and elected one of the first 100 founding fellows of the new UK Faculty of Clinical Informatics in 2017. Prior to moving to Imperial, he was Wolfson Professor of General Practice at King’s College London. At Imperial, Brendan works in the Institute of Global Health Innovation, with research in Artificial Intelligence, cancer diagnosis and learning systems, eSource for clinical trials and global eHealth. He is a member of the Medical Research Council Data Science Strategic Advisory Group. Brendan’s interests lie at the intersection of health services research (how to deal with patient problems equitably and efficiently), the use of data in research and service development and ‘pressing’ clinical problems.
Dr Nisreen Alwan
Dr Nisreen Alwan MBE is Professor of Public Health at the University of Southampton and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. She leads research in maternal and child health towards optimising the wellbeing of families, preventing future chronic disease and reducing health inequalities. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she focused on the quantification and recognition of Long Covid. She was awarded an MBE for services to Medicine and Public Health during the pandemic in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2021, and named among women leading change from across the world in the BBC 100 Women 2020 list. Nisreen delivered a TEDx talk describing public health communication, power, objectivity and vulnerability themes around the topic of Long Covid.
Helen Hughes
Helen Hughes is the Chief Executive of Patient Safety Learning, a charity and independent voice for improving patient safety. The charity seeks to support safety improvement through policy, influencing and the development of ‘how to’ resources such as the hub, a free platform to share learning for patient safety. Helen’s passion to improve patient safety is informed by personal family insight into the impact of unsafe care and the ineffectiveness of organisational responses to learn from error. She has been a Director and CEO at several healthcare, social justice and equality organisations, including the National Patient Safety Agency and the WHO.
Dr Caroline Dalton
Dr Caroline Dalton is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Genetics. She leads the Living Well with Chronic Disease theme at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, and the Health and Disease group at the Biomolecular Sciences Research Centre, both at Sheffield Hallam University. Dr Dalton has a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Immunology. Her research interests include the investigation of the molecular mechanisms underlying responses to interventions to treat complex conditions such as schizophrenia, depression and obesity. She has been working with Long Covid Support since summer 2020 and has contributed to resources supporting people with Long Covid including a booklet on management of fatigue symptoms that is used in Long Covid clinics. She is currently carrying out studies on symptom and activity tracking in Long Covid, alongside mechanistic studies that investigate the underlying biological causes of Long Covid symptoms.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is a cis-gendered (pronouns he/him/his), gay, white man, of English and Irish heritage, living in London, UK. He is a clinical academic Physiotherapist specialising in HIV, disability and rehabilitation. Darren leads the HIV rehabilitation service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Europe’s Largest HIV centre. He is the Vice-Chair of Rehabilitation in HIV Association (RHIVA [1]), HIV/AIDS special interest group coordinator of World Physiotherapy subgroup IPT-HOPE [2], and steering committee member of Canada International HIV Rehabilitation Research Collaborative (CIHRRC [3]). Darren was awarded an NIHR funded Masters of Clinical Research (MRes) in 2019 and conducts both quantitative and qualitative research about disability and rehabilitation. Darren contributes to national and international programmes focusing on disability inclusion across all responses. Darren contracted COVID-19 in March 2020, reinfected April 2022, and has experience of living with Long COVID and episodic disability. He is an advocate for safe Long COVID rehabilitation practice and research, and calls for the greater involvement and meaningful engagement of people living with Long COVID in all responses to COVID-19. Darren is co-founder and inaugural Chair of Long COVID Physio [4], an international peer support, education and advocacy patient-led association of physiotherapists living with Long COVID and allies. Darren has contributed to national and international responses to Long COVID, conducts research on Long COVID and episodic disability, and is an invited expert contributing to World Health Organization Guideline Development Groups on Post COVID-19 Condition (Long COVID) rehabilitation.
Carolyn Chew-Graham
Carolyn A. Chew-Graham, GP Principal in Central Manchester, Professor of General Practice Research at Keele University. Carolyn’s main areas of interest and expertise include the primary care management of people with mental health problems, multiple health conditions and unexplained symptoms; and the mental health and wellbeing of clinicians. She has qualitative research methods expertise, drawing on theories from social sciences and psychology, but always with a focus on clinical practice – trying to answer questions that are important to patients, their families, health care professionals and the NHS. Carolyn is a member of the NHS England Long Covid Taskforce and has published articles and research on Long Covid. Her 2020 paper Finding the ‘right’ GP was the first qualitative study describing the experiences of people with Long Covid in navigating healthcare. She has co-written an e-learning module for GPs on Long Covid. Carolyn chairs the RCGP ‘Research Paper of the Year’ panel. She was Chair of the Society of Academic Primary Care 2019-2022. Carolyn was a member of the NICE Clinical Guideline Development Group Depression (update) - work which directly impacts on commissioning decisions and patient care. She is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Health Expectations. Carolyn was awarded the President’s Medal by RCPsych in 2021.
Dr Graham Lloyd-Jones
Dr Graham Lloyd-Jones is a Consultant Radiologist at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. He is an educator in the field of medical imaging and the founder/director of Radiology Masterclass, a leading UK-based online educational resource for medical students and junior doctors.
During the COVID-19 pandemic Graham has worked on gaining a collaborative and interdisciplinary understanding of disease mechanisms. His work highlights the vascular nature of the acute lung disease in COVID-19 and how this differs from conventional viral pneumonias. He takes the view that similar disease processes are implicated in those with symptoms of long COVID.
His work on disease mechanism also highlights the importance of poor oral health, especially gum disease, in contributing to disease severity in acute COVID-19. He is leading a local project to optimise the oral healthcare of inpatients with COVID-19 and is sharing this work widely with infection prevention and control teams across the UK.
Graham is a member of the FDI World Dental Federation whole body task group which acts to highlight the connections between oral health and body health. He continues to work with multiple research teams to further understand disease mechanisms as they relate to the radiology and oral health aspects of acute COVID-19 and long COVID.