Howard Ryland

I am currently an Oxford Policy Engagement Network fellow at the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) where I am researching a briefing for parliamentarians on approaches to improving patient choice in the proposed reforms of the Mental Health Act.

I completed a Development and Skills Enhancement award from the National Institute of Health Research, gaining skills in clinical trials. I also work as an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist for Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, where I have previously provided input in to the Treatment Resistant Depression clinic at the Warneford Hospital and the PAX-D trial and as a visiting prison psychiatrist to HMP Huntercombe.

I completed my DPhil in the Department of Psychiatry in 2021, supervised by Professor Seena Fazel. I was also supervised by Professor Raymond Fitzpatrick, from the Nuffield Department of Population Health and Associate Professor Jonathan Cook from the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences.

My DPhil project focused on understanding which outcomes are important for patients and clinicians in forensic mental health services, which was used to develop a new outcome measure for forensic mental health services called the FORensic oUtcome Measure (FORUM). This has complementary patient and clinician scales. Visit www.forensicoutcomemeasure.com for more information.

Previous roles include National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (2012-2013), Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ (RCPsych) Trainees’ Committee (2013-2014), Darzi Fellow in Medical Education (2014-2015) and President of the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (2017-2018).