Alan Simpson is Professor of Mental Health Nursing. He works across the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, the Health Service and Population Research Department in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

He is Co-Director of the UCL-KCL Mental Health Policy Research Unit (MHPRU), Co-Director of the King’s PhD Programme in Mental Health Research for Health Professionals and Deputy Director of the KCL Qualitative Applied Health Research Centre (QUAHRC).

Alan is leading a programme of high-quality research with the aim of improving the delivery and experience of mental healthcare and mental health nursing across a range of service settings. His research is collaboratively developed and conducted with service users, carers, clinicians, service managers and policy makers.

Alan is a Registered Nurse (Mental Health) and Teacher with the NMC and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has a rich and varied clinical background, a PhD, BA(Hons) in Social Psychiatry and a Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling. Awards include the Mental Health Nurse Academics UK Lecture in 2018 and the Eileen Skellern Lecture in 2013. He is an active member and previous Chair of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK, with representatives from over 70 Higher Education Institutions in the UK. He is also an Editor of the Journal of Mental Health.

Research interests

• Surveillance and Body-Worn Cameras
• Activities on inpatient wards
• Safewards
• Case management, care planning and coordination
• Community and inpatient mental health services
• Peer support and service user and carer involvement
• Integration of mental and physical healthcare

Teaching

• Surveillance and Body-Worn Cameras
• Case management, care planning and coordination
• Community and inpatient mental health services
• Peer support, recovery and service user and carer involvement
• Mixed methods research
• Co-production and service user/carer involvement in research
• Research informing mental health policy

Expertise and public engagement

Alan is developing working relationships with staff, and services users and carers across South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, aimed at improving the quality of services.

He is active on Twitter @cityalan, frequently presents at conferences, and has taken part in podcasts with NHS England/Improvement and the National Elf Service, a website that highlights evidence-based publications relevant to mental health practice.

PhD supervision

Alan offers PhD supervision for Mental Health research topics in the following areas:

• Inpatient and community mental healthcare
• Peer support
• Mental health recovery
• Case management
• Integration of mental and physical healthcare

Enquiring about potential PhD supervision

If you’re thinking of applying for one of our PhD programmes and are looking for potential supervisors, please email: nmpc_pgr_enquiries@kcl.ac.uk listing the names of the supervisors you’ve identified as having expertise in your chosen area, along with your CV and a short research proposal. Our Postgraduate Research Team will contact supervisors on your behalf and get back to you.

If you have any queries in the meantime, please use the email address above, rather than contacting potential PhD supervisors directly, because they are unable to respond to initial enquiries.