Short Lists & Panel 2023

The panel is made up of previous lecturers and award recipients, sponsor representatives, organisers and student representatives.  The panel vote using a matrix ranking short listed candidate.  

PANEL MEMBERS 2023: Dr Russell Ashmore (Past lecturer), Dr Miriam Barrett (West London NHS Trust), Professor Len Bowers (past lecturer),  Dr Joy Bray (past co-ordinator), Geoff Brennan (past lecturer), Professor Neil Brimblecombe (past lecturer), Professor Phil Burnard (past recipient), Professor Tony Butterworth (past lecturer), Professor Patrick Callaghan (past lecturer/Lifetime), Professor Mary Chambers (Past lecturer),  Dr John Crowley (University of Greenwich), Professor Bryn Davis (past recipient - JPMHN former editor), Professor Joy Duxbury (past lecturer), Professor Cheryl Forchuk (past lecturer), Catherine Gamble (past lecturer), Professor Kevin Gourney (past recipient), Dr Julie Hall (Notts Health Care Trust), Professor Ben Hannigan (Cardiff University, Event host), Professor Sally Hardy (Panel Chair,UEA), Marion Janner (past recipient), Professor Karina Lovell (past lecturer), Amanda Mackenzie (Lead Nurse Cassel/West London NHS Trust) Professor Hugh Mckenna (past recipient), Professor Mick Mckeown (UCLan), Beverley Murphy (SLAM), Professor Fiona Nolan (MHNA), Professor Peter Nolan (past recipient), Professor Ian Norman (past lecturer), Malcolm Rae (past recipient), Dr Julie Repper (past lecturer), Professor Alan Simpson (past lecturer), Professor David Sines (past lecturer), Professor Shirley Smoyak (past recipient), Sharon Spain (SWLSTG-Tr), Dr Ben Thomas (past lecturer), Jane Wells (Director, Oxleas), Dr Gary Winship (past recipient).

Short list for the 2023 Skellern Lecture


Dr Anne Aiyegbusi, Registered Mental Health Nurse, Group Analyst and Forensic Psychotherapist.

Mental Health Care and the Enduring Challenge of Racial Trauma

Many advances in mental health care have occurred over the past 60 years with mental health nurses often at the forefront of developments. Sadly, the picture of progress remains blighted by long-standing examples of racial inequity. These patterns are well recognized and when described, a sense of regret is often conveyed. Acknowledgement about their persistence may be accompanied by recommendations aiming to address them. This happened with the 2018 review of the Mental Health Act, highlighting how well-meaning efforts have produced painfully little difference. The following circumstances are as evident for Black people today as when formal monitoring began.

Disproportionately high:

- Criminalization

- Diagnoses of schizophrenia and other psychoses

- Treatment involving high-dose psychotropic medication

- Compulsory treatment and secure detention

- Restraint and use of force

- Deaths in custody when mentally distressed

Less access to psychological therapies is part of the picture. Witnessing the human experience behind this narrative can be distressing, for example in the recent strip-searching of Child Q. Thus, I suggest the list of surface criteria might offer a preferred professional method of representing ‘the problem’, inadvertently functioning to keep emotional distance from the reality of transgenerational racial trauma. I offer a manageable way of capturing the enormity while doing justice to underlying human experience. This involves employing a trauma informed approach which includes psychosocial conceptualizations, recognizing how systemic factors can and do impact health. Notions of individual illness may be reframed as expressions of disturbance which is rooted in social context. Racial trauma being a case in point. I will consider how this is masked and perpetuated within the aforementioned persisting picture. Importantly, I will explain the benefits of integrating models of racial trauma into the theory and practice of mental health nursing via effective training and reflective practice.


Dr Elizabeth Hughes RN PhD, Professor of Nursing, Edinburgh Napier University

Co-occurring substance use and mental ill health: where we went wrong and how do we fix it?

In this lecture, Liz will describe how a single elective placement as a student nurse at a drug service changed the trajectory of her career (and future academic career) to become a passionate advocate for the rights of those with drug and alcohol issues to access compassionate and appropriate care. In a career spanning almost 30 years, gaining over £10million grant income generation as Chief Investigator and co-investigator, and over 60 peer reviewed publications, Liz is a role model for mental health nursing in terms of research leadership. Her research interests have always followed her clinical passions and works closely with mental health nurses and other members of multi-disciplinary mental health practitioners, as well as with people with lived experience. She is also passionate about building clinical academic research capacity in mental health nursing and AHPs; she is a member of the funding panel for the NIHR Advanced Clinical and Practitioner Fellowship Awards, and is lead for clinical academic careers in the School of Health and Social Care at Edinburgh Napier. Liz’s work has been ground-breaking; in the late 1990s, she became one of the first UK lead clinicians for what was then referred to as “dual diagnosis” (mental health and co-occurring alcohol/drug conditions), then moving to the Institute of Psychiatry (Section of Psychiatric Nursing) working on the first RCT of dual diagnosis interventions for community mental health teams (developed the intervention and delivered the training and supervision), and undertaking a PhD on the same topic. She subsequently played a key role in the NIMHE National Dual Diagnosis Programme at DHSC and developed numerous workforce development tools for mental health staff including the “Closing the Gap” Capability Framework in 2006 which is still being used in updated form to inform practice development. She was a member of the Public Health England Steering Group for the development of refreshed guidance “Better Care for People with Co-Occurring Mental Health ad alcohol/drug conditions. She was editor of Advances in Dual Diagnosis journal from its inception in 2008 until 2020.  She is chief investigator of a NIHR funded study undertaking a Realist Evaluation of Models of Care for people with co-occurring severe mental illness and alcohol/drug conditions (RECO study) which will be completed in Autumn 2022.  




Short List for the Lifetime Achievement Award 2023


Professor Mary Chambers

Professor Mental Health Nursing/Director Centre for Public Engagement.  Registered mental health nurse (RMN) and general nurse (RGN), a registered nurse tutor and behaviour therapist. (JBCN 650). I hold a B.Ed. (Hons) degree and PhD. Formerly, worked at University of Ulster, Royal College of Nursing, Research Institute, Oxford; South West London and St. George's Mental Health NHS Trust and Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals. Throughout her career she has held a number of clinical, managerial and academic positions including coordinator of the Northern Ireland Centre for Health Informatics. She is involved in a number of research projects locally and internationally. She is a fellow of both the Royal Society of Medicine and the European Academy of Nurse Scientists, and an expert panel member of HORATIO, the European Association for Psychiatric Nurses, and a member of the Institute of Leadership and Management. Mary has a well-established record of patient and public involvement (PPI) in education and research dating back to the 1980s. Outcomes of her work with respect to PPI in both these areas have had impact nationally and internationally. Integral to this work has been the co-production and delivery of education programmes, as well as PPI at all stages of the research process. PPI is one of her key research interests.


Professor Brenda Happell

Professor Brenda Happell is a registered nurse with specialist qualifications in mental health nursing. She has 28+ years’ experience in academia in Victoria, Queensland and the ACT. She has published more than 400 papers in the peer reviewed literature, three books and nine book chapters. Brenda has attracted approximately $14million in competitive research funding. She is an active researcher with a strong track record supervising higher degree students to successful and timely completion. Brenda was the inaugural Director of the Centre for Psychiatric Nursing at the University of Melbourne, former Director of the Institute for Health and Social Science Research at Central Queensland University and Professor of Nursing and Executive Director of SYNERGY, Nursing and Midwifery Research Centre at University of Canberra and ACT Health. She is a Fellow and Board Director of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses, and former Editor of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. Brenda was also an inaugural member of the Queensland Mental Health and Drug Advisory Council. Her research interests include: consumer participation in mental health services, and physical health of people experiencing mental illness. Brenda is the CIA of a NHMRC grant: Improving the cardiometabolic health of people with psychosis: The Physical Health Nurse Consultant service, a nurse-led initiative. The research will be undertaken in the ACT under the auspice of University of Newcastle. Brenda lives in Merrijig in country Victoria, near Mt Buller.