Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) steering group

The purpose of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) is to provide detailed information and analyses on the prevalence of both treated and untreated psychiatric disorders in the adult population (aged 16 and over) in England. It will also provide trend data through comparisons with earlier surveys in the APMS series and enable the circumstances of people with different disorders to be compared with those of people without a disorder.

The 2022 survey content will be broadly similar to the previous 2014 survey. It will continue to cover the main topics to enable analysis of trends over time, however there will be scope for new questions or changes to reflect current needs. It may not repeat all the questions and topics which were in the 2014 and earlier surveys. It may also cover the impact of the COVID -19 pandemic on mental health, for example, if this has triggered problems for individuals which last into the year 2022.

The results will be used to inform the design and improvement of mental health services and improve understanding of the state of adult’s mental health and wellbeing.

The role of the Steering Group is advisory, and the aim is to guide the delivery of the surveys and help ensure they meet the needs of those involved in commissioning, providing or using mental health services. 

As part of this role members will be asked to:

• provide direction and recommendations on priorities relating to the survey
• receive regular progress reports on milestones, risk and quality issues, including response rates and offer guidance where necessary
• provide advice and guidance on changes in data to be collected, methodology, questionnaires, sample design, processing and presentation of results
• provide advice and guidance on statistical issues relating to the survey
• resolve conflict and escalate concerns where necessary through NHS England governance paths

Members of the Steering Group do not need to be experts in survey design or statistics.

There will be approximately 8 meetings during the lifetime of the project and these will be timed to reflect the Group’s interest in advising on survey content and design in the early stages of the project and on reporting findings in the later stages.

The meetings will be held by Microsoft Teams Video Conference. Papers will be distributed via email to members. Discussions in interim periods will also take place via email correspondence. Members are asked to attend all meetings where possible (deputising substitutes are allowed).

Papers produced for the APMS Steering Group should not be circulated outside the group membership, without the permission of the Chair. Membership of the group does not give an entitlement to pre-release access to Official Statistics.

Information will be issued in response to Freedom of Information requests in line with general FOI procedures in NHS England.  

Membership will be reviewed regularly and updated as required.

Dr Cher Cartwright (Chair) - NHSE

I completed my undergraduate degree in Genetic Biology before undertaking a research career investigating chemotherapy treatment in children with leukaemia as part of UK wide clinical trials. During this time I completed my PhD investigating genetic and environmental factors in the response to chemotherapy drug treatment. My research studies allowed me to develop a wide range of techniques including designing, implementing and managing studies, ethical considerations, data analysis, report writing and communication styles. During this time I won the GlaxoSmithKline award for best oral communication at the British Pharmacological Society Meeting.

In 2013 I joined NHS England, formally known as NHS Digital. I have gained a wide range of experiences, working as part of the social care team, and also managing the National Diabetes Audit. For the past 3 years I have worked in the Population Health team. I head up the team responsible for the delivery of the national surveys programme making sure all of our surveys meet customer expectations, deliver to time and maintain the high quality expected of a national programme.

Fiona Daley – Section Head for Surveys team

Fiona joined NHS England, formally known as NHS Digital in 2017 following previous roles within the Civil Service. For just over 5 years Fiona worked in the Data Access Request Service within NHS England and held roles such as enabling data delivery, creating and implementing an internal recruitment and training programme and business management.

In 2022, Fiona moved roles to the Survey team within the Population Health area of Open Data as the Section Head, overlooking the delivery of several surveys, of which APMS is included.

Sean Ryan - Population Health Surveys team

Sean joined the Population Health Surveys team in July 2023 as the Data Operations manager for the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys (APMS).  Sean has worked with various NHS Trusts as Data Liaison Manager for the Surgical Device and Implants Database. Prior to joining NHS England, Sean has worked in the Fertility and Pharmaceutical sectors.

NatCen

Sally McManus

Sally McManus is the deputy director of the Violence and Society Centre at City University and of a UKPRP-funded consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION). She is based in City’s School of Health and Psychological Sciences. Sally also works with the National Centre for Social Research, where she managed the 2007 and 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys and is currently an advisor with the survey team on APMS 2023.

Sally specialises in quantitative research methods and the measurement of mental health and wellbeing. She is interested in population trends in health and health behaviours and the social determinants of mental health, including the role played by violence, abuse and socioeconomic adversity.

Mari Toomse-Smith

Mari is the Director of Health and Biomedical Surveys at NatCen Social Research.

She leads a team of 18 social researchers working on a variety of health-related topics, ranging from mental health to nutrition, health behaviours and gambling. Her team is responsible for delivering such high-profile surveys as the Health Survey for England, the National Diet and Nutrition Survey and the Mental Health of Children and Young People. She is proud that this now includes the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

Mari has extensive experience of successfully delivering large scale surveys and has a special interest in survey methodology, particularly in relation to health surveys and biomarker collection.

Sarah Morris

Sarah is a Research Director at NatCen Social Research. She is an experienced health researcher specialising in delivering large-scale social surveys with particular expertise in bio-social data, including the Health Survey for England and the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Sarah has also delivered the gambling prevalence survey.

Sarah has worked on a range of other large national surveys, including the National Travel Survey and Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers. She has experience working across a range of data collection approaches including face-to-face, telephone, online, diaries and bio-data. She has delivered a number of education based evaluations focused on improving attainment within the early years, in particular those facing disadvantage. 

Katherine (Katie) Ridout

Katie is a senior researcher in the Health & Biomedical Surveys team at NatCen Social Research and currently works on the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

Katie has experience of working on a number of survey projects with a range of data collection methods, including face-to-face, telephone and biodata. She has previously worked on other health surveys, including the Health Survey for England and the Whitehall II study.

University of Leicester

Professor Terry Brugha

Professor Terry Brugha MD (NUI), FRCPsych, SFHEA  has worked as an Adult General Psychiatrist since 1977 and is now working as a clinical specialist in autism in adult general psychiatry.

He is presently the lead investigator on the first ever large scale epidemiological survey of autism spectrum disorders in adults, the Chair of the WHO Advisory Committee of SCAN, and lead a programme of observational and experimental research into the prevention of depression in women in the context of childbirth. 

He is associate editor of Psychological Medicine. Previous positions have included joint co-ordinator of the WHO World Mental Health Survey initiative in Europe (ESEMED) and Secretary General of the International Federation for Psychiatric Epidemiology. 

Zoe Morgan

Zoe is an experienced medical statistician, neurodevelopmental psychologist and epidemiology field work manager, with experience in clinical trials, study design, reporting and statistical analyses, some specialized to survey methods. 

Relevant roles include fieldwork manager for the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) 2014, carry out semi-structured clinical psychiatric interviews and managing fieldwork and additionally, the fieldwork project manager and interviewer for APMS Phase III study, carrying out Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) assessments. 

Jeremy Clark

Jeremy Clark is a Mental Health Policy Manager in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). He recently administered the Beyond Places of Safety grant scheme for innovation in mental health crisis provision. He manages several Mental Health programme budgets, including the finances for the APMS.  

Jeremy is a trustee for Bipolar UK, a charity providing peer support to help people with Bipolar Disorder live well and fulfil their potential. 

Catherine Davies

Catherine's current role is Head of Mental Health Essential Ops at the Department of Health and Social Care. The team is responsible for ensuring business as usual (non-COVID) mental health commitments are delivered, working with Arm's Length Bodies (ALBs) and other delivery partners, underpinned by robust monitoring arrangements and data.

Catherine has held a wide range of roles within the Department of Health and Social Care, including homelessness and rough sleeping, child protection/safeguarding, serious and sexual violence, domestic violence, child sexual abuse and exploitation, equality lead, demand-side reform, and primary care access.

Alison Tingle

Alison is currently employed part-time at the Department of Health and Social Care as a senior research liaison officer. She is responsible for commissioning and managing research in mental health and maternal health to meet the research needs of policy makers and analysts in DHSC (and its ALBs). 

She also works part-time as a researcher for the University of West London where she is currently involved in a number of research projects spanning from investigating hospital acquired pneumonia to improving care of residents in care home settings. She has a clinical background as a general and mental health nurse and is currently supporting the NHS as a Covid-19 vaccinator. 

Nadia Yegorova-Johnstone

Nadia Yegorova-Johnstone is a senior policy adviser working in the Mental Health Delivery Team in DHSC. Her role involves leading and working collaboratively with partners across the health and care system on areas including mental health data improvement, digital mental health policy and the transformation of NHS Talking Therapies.

Prior to this role, Nadia had seven years’ experience working across different policy areas across health and social care, including: economic advisory roles in social care, integration of health and social care, and health improvement; policy advice in NHS efficiency; and a programme management role in NHS England Children and Young People’s Mental Health Team.

Mihiri Seneviratne

Mihiri is an economist with over 10 years of experience across central government and the third sector. She leads the Mental Health Strategy and Delivery Analysis Team at the Department for Health and Social Care.

Mark Cook

Mark is a principal analyst in PHE responsible for delivering the intelligence work programme for tobacco, alcohol and gambling. Mark enjoys managing the operational aspects of the team as well as the strategical side when planning outputs in the wider policy and departmental context. His current role requires a high level of understanding of population health analysis techniques, statistical methods, public health practice and health promotion as well as ability to respond to complex problems confidently and pragmatically within a changing environment. Mark frequently collaborates with policy teams for his topic areas as well as managing the production and quality assurance of official statistic publications.

Before joining PHE in 2018, Mark has worked in health research and intelligence for a Primary Care Trust, Local Authority, and a Clinical Commissioning Group covering a broad range of public health topics and data sources.

Lily Makurah

Lily Makurah is Head of Public Mental Health Programmes in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities within Department of Health and Social Care. A public health specialist, she has extensive experience of developing sustainable and high profile improvements to the quality and equity of health systems. Her work within local and national government, the NHS and the VCSE sector has shaped the design of interventions and investigations that have effectively increased impact on reducing discrimination and strengthening preventative approaches.

Professor Tim Kendall

Tim Kendall was appointed as National Clinical Director for Mental Health for the NHS in England in April 2016, providing clinical advice and strategy in mental health across government and the NHS and chairs a number of national committees to implement national mental health strategy and leads programmes around, impact of COVID, suicide reduction, talking therapies and digitalisation. He also represents NHSE and I at a number of parliamentary select committees. He chaired the steering group and hosted the first Global Ministerial Summit on Mental Health, including hosting the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, in London in October 2018. He is helping to deliver the 3rd summit in late 2021.  

Tim is also Director of National Collaborating Centre at Royal College of Psychiatrists and UCL since 2001, where he chaired the first ever NICE guideline - on schizophrenia. He has facilitated the production of 30 or more NICE guidelines since. Tim has published widely, awarded the 2004 Lancet Paper of the Year and is visiting Professor at UCL since 2009. He has been invited to consult to a diverse range of foreign governments.

Tim continues work as consultant psychiatrist for the homeless in Sheffield. He is a strong advocate for inclusion of people with lived experience and convened the first ever Expert Reference Group for NICE which included lived experience members. Tim has been conferred with 2 honorary doctorates for his contribution to mental health at the Open University (2019) and at the University of Sheffield (2020).

Professor Stephani Hatch

Stephani Hatch is a Professor of Sociology and Epidemiology leading the Health Inequalities Research Group at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. She has over 25 years of experience delivering interdisciplinary health inequalities research. She has published extensively on inequalities in mental health and health services; discrimination and other forms of social adversity; community mental health; and multimorbidity.

Professor Hatch co-led the South East London Community Health (SELCoH) study from 2008 to 2015 which was modelled on APMS and allowed for local comparisons. In addition to several publications on 2007 APMS, her group is currently analysing 2014 APMS data.  

Additionally, Professor Hatch received a Wellcome Trust Investigator’s Award to lead the Tackling Inequalities and Discrimination Experiences in Health Services (TIDES) study, a mixed methods programme of work focused on service users and healthcare practitioners that expanded in 2020 with ESRC funding to utilise a participatory framework to identify processes through which racial and ethnic inequalities in mental health and occupational outcomes are produced, maintained and resisted in the context of COVID-19.

Professor Hatch also currently co-leads the Marginalised Communities and Mental Health programme within the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, focused on advancing research with communities that have often been ignored, to examine and disrupt structures maintaining social inequities in mental health within an intersectionality framework.

Professor Hatch integrates collaborative approaches to knowledge production and dissemination, action and outreach in training and research through the Health Inequalities Research Network (HERON),which she founded in 2010.  She also leads equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives and has national and international advisory roles in health and volunteer and community sectors. 

Dr Jayati Das-Munshi

Dr Das-Munshi is a senior lecturer in Social Epidemiology with King's College London and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist with South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.

She has led work which use large-scale routine data sources informed by qualitative methodologies, to understand physical health inequalities in people with mental disorders, with a focus on ethnic minority health. 

She also leads a linkage of UK census data to electronic health records from South London and Maudsley Trust, to enable an assessment of the social determinants of mental health both in terms of onset and in outcomes (mortality, admissions, employment).

With colleagues in the NIHR SLaM BRC, she has also developed text mining applications to derive information on employment/occupation from the free text of health records. With Professor George Ploubidis (Director of CLS, UCL) she co-leads a platform on maximising datasets/analytic methods, for the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, at King's College London. 

Jayati's research interests are:

• data science methods: Data linkage, Natural Language Processing (NLP) of free text to understand inequalities
• applied statistical methods for epidemiology: multi-level modelling, analysis of cohorts/ prospective data
• mental health inequalities: mortality and physical health in people with severe mental illness
• ethnic minority mental health inequalities: pathways into care, access to treatments, physical health/mental health/multimorbidities, impact of neighbourhoods
• social psychiatry/social epidemiology 

Alex Viccars

Alex is the Research Lead at National Mind, where she leads on the design and delivery of Mind's proactive mental health research agenda. Most recently she led on conducting lived experience engagement research to inform the government's upcoming Mental Health and Wellbeing plan. She is a mixed methods researcher who has been working in the charitable research sector for over six years, specialising in mental health and substance misuse research, and has a passion for lived experience engagement and amplifying the voices of the most marginalised in society. Alex previously worked for The Forward Trust, and currently fulfils an advisory role on a number of sector wide groups alongside the AMPS including The Mental Health Innovation Network, the UKRI Mental Health Research Network, The Alliance of Mental Health Research Funders and The Charities Research Involvement Group. Alex is based in Brighton and has a degree in Psychology from the University of Southampton.

Heather Wardle

Heather is Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Reader in Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow. She is an expert in gambling policy, research and practice. She is leading the Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling, is part of the WHO panel on gambling and served for 5 years as Deputy Chair of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling, providing independent advice to government on gambling policy.

She is an expert in survey design and analysis, having previously worked as a Research Director at NatCen Social Research, leading the British Gambling Prevalence Survey and working on previous iterations of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

She is currently funded by Wellcome to look at the relationship between changing technology and young gambling behaviour and by the ESRC to look at the impact of COVID-19 on gambling. Her first book, 'Games Without Frontiers? Socio-historical Perspectives at the Gaming/Gambling Intersection' was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Laura Balla

Laura is Head of Research at the Gambling Commission, which licenses and regulates individuals and businesses that provide gambling in Great Britain and ensures that gambling is conducted fairly and safely.

She has worked at the Commission for 7 years, leading and advising on the delivery of a range of research projects including the collection of official statistics on gambling participation and the prevalence of problem gambling, as well as the Commission’s wider research programme to build a better understanding of gambling consumers and gambling-related harm. 

Laura also sits on several steering groups for external research projects being conducted in support of the National Strategy for Reducing Gambling Harms and has previously advised on studies exploring suicidality and problem gambling using the APMS 2007.

Jonathan Kelly

Jonathan Kelly is Policy Advisor at Beat, the national eating disorder charity. Beat’s national Helpline and online services provide crucial support to people with eating disorders and their families and friends. Beat campaigns to increase knowledge among healthcare and other relevant professionals and for funding to ensure people can quickly access high-quality treatment.

Jonathan advises Beat on the design of its campaigns and often leads Beat’s response to Government and NHS consultations, including through membership of steering groups. Additionally, he reviewed international evidence around the prevalence of eating disorders to create Beat’s latest estimate for the UK.

In Beat’s experience, campaigning for greater understanding and funding is currently compromised by the lack of a reliable estimate of the number of people affected by eating disorders in the UK.

Agnes Ayton

Dr. Agnes Ayton is an Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust consultant eating disorder psychiatrist, an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Oxford, and the current Chair of the Faculty of Eating Disorders at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, having previously served as Vice Chair from 2015 to 2019.

Dr. Ayton is an international medical graduate from Hungary who is registered with the General Medical Council as a specialist in psychiatry, neurology, and child and adolescent psychiatry. She has specialised in eating disorders since 2003, gaining extensive experience working in a variety of settings with children, adolescents, and adults of all ages.

Dr. Ayton has a long history of working to improve patient safety and care quality, and she has written numerous publications on the subject. She led the RCPsych's response to the draught NICE Eating Disorder Guidelines and Quality Standards. She has been at the forefront of the campaign to improve medical education in eating disorders, resulting in the recent pilot credentialing training programme supported by the RCPsych and HEE. She was instrumental in revising the AOMRC-approved Medical Emergencies in Eating Disorder Guidelines.

She is an advocate for improving services and research for people suffering from eating disorders. She has been collaborating with experts by experience, such as Hope Virgo, and the RCPsych media and policy departments and politicians to raise awareness and funding for eating disorder prevention, training, and treatment.