Staff profile: Chris Hart

Position: Principal Lecturer and Nurse Consultant
School: Nursing
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8725 0488
Email: c.hart@sgul.kingston.ac.uk

• Biography
• Interests
• Publications

Biography

Chris is a principal lecturer and nurse consultant in liaison psychiatry. His time is split between clinical practice and service development for the South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust; and combining teaching and research at Kingston University and St George’s, University London. He leads a number of modules, including Risk Assessment, Developing Skills in Management and Leadership, Mental Health Priorities for Non-Mental Health Staff, and the Faculty’s innovative Clinical Simulations and Mental Health Skills Development Programme. However, he teaches both pre-registration and post graduate groups on a variety of topics.

Chris has been involved in a number of national projects related to liaison psychiatry, including developing an innovative mental health risk assessment screening tool for use by nurses in A&E departments. He was a member of the reference group for the CNO Review of Mental Health Nursing; has acted as advisor to the British Army about mental health service provision; presented academic papers in several countries; and taught in the United States.

Having begun his nursing career in the 1970s, Chris has a wealth of clinical experience and has worked at the Maudsley Hospital as a senior charge nurse and St Luke’s Hospital as a service manager. He has also served as nurse board member for a PCT and was team leader for an award winning CMHT in south London. He is the author of Nurses and Politics (Palgrave 2005) and Behind the Mask (Bailliere Tindall 1994), as well as numerous articles and essays and is active on a number of research projects.

Having been mental heath editor at the Nursing Times, he is now a member of the magazine’s advisory board. His most recent book, co-edited with fellow nurse consultant, Anthony Harrison, is Mental Health Care for Nurses: Applying Mental Health Skills in the General Hospital (Blackwell 2006). He is currently preparing a second edition of Nurses and Politics, due for publication in 2009. 

Chris is the chair of the Association of Nurse Consultants and President of the International Chapter of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association.

Interests

The education of non mental health service staff in mental health issues; risk assessment; management and leadership.

Publications