Professor David A Richards

Expertise

Mental Health, Psychological Therapies, Nursing, Health Services Research, Complex Interventions

Biography

I am a Professor of Mental Health Services Research at the University of Exeter. I am a Senior Investigator in the NIHR Faculty and also at the forefront of national and international efforts to improve access to treatment for those suffering from high prevalence mental health problems such as depression. This work involves developing and testing evidence based treatments, and then translating alternative models of treatment delivery into routine clinical environments. I led the development of the low-intensity treatment methods at the heart of the UK Department of Health‘s ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies‘ (IAPT) programme from its inception in 2005 and was Clinical Informatics Advisor to the IAPT programme from 2008-2011. I am also the President of the European Academy of Nursing Science and chair of the REFLECTION Research Network Programme funded by the European Science Foundation. REFLECTION is an interdisciplinary European Faculty of researchers in nursing who design, plan and implement programmatic, mixed methods and complex interventions research in nursing. It runs Europe-wide masterclasses and summer schools for early stage and experienced researchers. I am the editor of a new book ‘Complex Interventions in Health‘ published in April 2015.