Mr Phil Ruthen

About me:

Having spent nearly eighteen years as a mental health service user, I ‘left’ the system in circa 2004, returning to post-graduate study at Birkbeck College, University of London (MRes Law). I then worked in a number of mental health organisations as a project peer coordinator/manager e.g. MIND, Together-UK, National Survivor User Network (NSUN), locally, regionally and nationally, alongside being a Non-Executive Director of the South East London Doctors Cooperative (SELDOC) - which provides out of hours and unscheduled primary care to patients across south east London, and inspection team engagements as a CQC Specialist Advisor (SpA).

I have been the Coordinator of a peer-designed award-winning Self-Advocacy Skills Training programme. Participants were people with direct experience of disabling mental distress, the project receiving the national award for “Best practice in peer support development”, National Association of Mental Health Providers (AMHP)(2013). 

I joined the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a Lay member - ‘Guideline Committee: Decision-making and mental capacity’ [NG108] hosted by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), in Autumn 2016; and a further appointment to this Guideline’s Quality Standard committee [QS194], alongside lay peers, ensuring a public voice and perspective was present.

I have various roles as a public contributor with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) both regionally and nationally. Until recently I was one of the NIHR public contributors to the 'UK Shared Commitment to Public Involvement in Research'.

Interests:

As a poet, short fiction writer, editor and book designer, I continue my literary involvements when and where possible. A fourth poetry collection is due for publication toward the end of 2025, again from Waterloo Press. I'm a former Chair of the Board of Directors and Trustees of the national mental health and literary development charity Survivor’s Poetry (SP); whilst Chair, Arts Council England funded SP as a ‘National Portfolio Organisation.’

REVIEW ARTICLE

Emotion in public involvement: A conceptual review

Liabo K, Asare L, Ruthen P, Burton J, Staunton P, Day J.

Emotion in public involvement: a conceptual review. Health Expect. 2024; 27:e14020. doi:10.1111/hex.14020 First Published 19 March 2024

SCRIPTed - A Journal of Law, Technology & Society
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - The imposition of ‘truth’?
Philip Ruthen

December 2006 SCRIPT-ed 3(4): pp 412-436

DOI:10.2966/scrip.030406.412

Qualifications:

Master of Research in Law (MRes) - with Merit

Birkbeck College, University of London 2006

Research areas: medical law, particularly mental health law, civil right, and ethics.

Published peer reviewed feature article sole authored as a ‘survivor researcher’ on Electroconvulsive Therapy from dissertation work.

MA English Literature

University of Warwick 2009

Study areas: American modernist literature particularly the American Long Poem; literary theory, critical theory.

Dissertation: Cultural theory and Ford Madox Ford's First World War tetralogy Parade's End.

BA (Aegrotat) Modern English Studies

University of Wales, Cardiff 1987

External responsibilities
External positions -

Person with Lived Experience (PLE) Steering Group Member (since 2015) - BA & MSW degree courses - Kingston University, London, Department of Social Work and Social Care.

Self-employed writer, poet, editor and design consultant, with poetry and short fiction published by Waterloo Press: https://waterloopress.co.uk/

A public member of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Group at the School of Primary Care [APEx] based at the University of Exeter.

Former Public Member of the NIHR Research for Public Benefit (RfPB) South West Regional Panel; current NIHR Public Reviewer and national funding committee member for other NIHR funding streams.

A recent NIHR representative to the pan-sector 'UK Shared Commitment to Public Involvement in Research'.

Current member of NICE Patient Expert Group.