Meet our Experts

Associate Professor Philip Evans MPhil FRCGP 

Deputy Medical Director, NIHR CRN Coordinating Centre

Associate Professor Evans is a GP at St Leonard’s Practice in Exeter, Devon. He is the NIHR Clinical Research Network Deputy Medical Director overseeing a number of CRN Specialties including Primary Care, Social Care and Public Health.

He trained in Guy’s Hospital and then did GP training in Plymouth before moving to Exeter as a GP in 1987 and he has been in the same practice ever since. Professor Evans was an RCGP Research Training Fellow from 1988-1990 and then Lecturer in the University of Exeter. He is now an Associate Professor in the University of Exeter Medical School. He has a research interest in the management of pre-diabetes and also the prevention and diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in primary care.

He has been Director of three Primary Care Research Networks, most recently the Primary Care Research Network South West. He is married with three grown-up children. 

Dr Lisa Gibbons 

Local Primary Care Specialty Lead, NIHR CRN South West Peninsula

Lisa trained in Cambridge, Edinburgh and Glasgow before moving to Devon with her family. She has worked as a GP partner and research lead in Devon for ten years. She is the Research Lead at Claremont Medical Practice in Exmouth and was delighted to have won the RCGP /CRN Research Practice of the Year Award 2018. Lisa is an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.  Lisa has been the Clinical Research Specialty Lead SW Peninsula Primary Care for five years. For the last three years Lisa had been leading the Primary Care IT Specialty Group which has developed and roll-out the sharing of IT solutions to support primary care research. The group also addresses IT and digital issues relevant to research in primary care.

Lisa considers herself a home grown researcher having spent ten years working to deliver CRN research from within general practice. She brings hands-on experience of the challenges of delivering research in primary care.  She is keen to develop GP based solutions to help increase research activity such as IT solutions to help facilitate research delivery.  Lisa has also led a national and regional initiative to promote and support research for primary care trainees and early career clinicians.

Lisa aims to bring a solution focused, pragmatic approach to research to support increased primary care research in this changing Primary care climate.  Lisa has been the Clinical Research Specialty Lead SW Peninsula Primary Care for five years. For the last three years Lisa had been leading the Primary Care IT Specialty Group which has developed and roll-out the sharing of IT solutions to support primary care research. The group also addresses IT and digital issues relevant to research in primary care.

Dr Nick Thomas

Local Primary Care Specialty Lead, NIHR CRN Thames Valley and South Midlands and Clinical Research Lead at Clinical Innovation and Research, RCGP

Dr Thomas oversees expansion within the network with more practices and CCG's doing research than ever before, establishing links with research units all over the country. The NIHR CRN TVSM is established as one of the top clinical research networks in England. Healthcare delivery and patient representation is extremely important to Dr Thomas, who is also a committee member on the Individual Funding Request (IFR) Panel at OCCG and am the Clinical Lead of WestMed (West Oxfordshire GP Federation). 

Mark Stone

Local Primary Care Specialty Lead, NIHR CRN West Midlands

Toby Helliwell 

Local Primary Care Specialty Lead, NIHR CRN West Midlands

Senior Lecturer in General Practice and Global Health with a role in Primary Care Lead - Global Health. Although born in England, Dr Toby Helliwell lived most of his Childhood in Zambia where he developed a keen desire to become a doctor. This was realised after completing his undergraduate medical degree at Birmingham University. Subsequently he worked in various areas of the UK and also in Australia and completed his GP vocational training I was after being accepted onto the North Staffordshire academic vocational training scheme for general practitioners. He now works as a GP partner in North Staffordshire where he also teaches and mentors undergraduate students in a general practice setting. During his academic career he has completed a Masters degree in medicine and a PhD in musculoskeletal general practice. He is now a senior lecturer at Keele University, a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and works as a research scholar for the clinical research network as well as being part of the global health team at Keele University having been part of the team since its inception. He has helped develop formal partnerships with institutions in Eastern and Southern Africa and South and East Asia.

Mark Evans

Transformation of Research and Data Manager (ROST Team Leader), NIHR CRN West Midlands

Following qualifying as a Greenkeeper, but subsequently failing to deal with the early morning starts (having children changed that!), Mark completed his degree studies in Business and Leisure in Staffordshire back in 2002. Ten years working in Management Information Systems in Further Education followed before he began working within the CRN in the West Midlands in April 2015, initially as a Research Facilitator in Primary Care. He then moved to more specialist roles around Health Informatics, including the management of the West Midlands ROST team responsible for Primary Care clinical system developments to aid patient identification for research studies.  His current role as of October 2021 includes the task of exploring how data and digital can be used to aid research delivery in settings outside of healthcare, whilst continuing to have the overview of Primary Care Informatics locally and contributing to national group discussions where appropriate.  He spends his weekends coaching his daughter's football team (badly), getting disproportionality angry at the failings of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC and spoiling many a good walk hitting and chasing a golf ball with little or no success!

James Bennett 

GP IT Lead, NIHR CRN South West Peninsula

Gareth Forbes

GP Partner, NIHR CRN North East & North Cumbria

Gareth Forbes is a GP Partner in County Durham. He is the Primary Care Research IT lead for the North East and North Cumbria. He has extensive knowledge of creating IT resources for primary and community care systems, especially SystmOne. He is a clinical lead for the Clinical Digital Resources Collaborative (CDRC) which produces a wide range of quality improvement IT resources.

Dr Jo Mearhart 

Head of Health & Care Engagement, NIHR CRN Coordinating Centre

Jo Mearhart is a mental health researcher by background. She has a degree in Psychology and completed her Masters in Applied Social Research at the University of Manchester in 2002. Dr Mearhart spent several years as a researcher in the area of comorbid mental health and substance misuse before completing a doctorate in Social Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London. Jo has worked in the Clinical Research Network since 2006 and currently heads the CRNCC Health and Care Engagement Team. She supports CRNs efforts to integrate care and research and has a special interest in digital transformation and research delivery in community based settings including, mental health, primary care, public health, health services research and social care.