Board and Associates - Design In Mental Health

About Us

Charlotte Burrows
CEO
Phillip Ross
Chair (Trustee)
Cath Lake
Vice Chair (Trustee)
Alex Mathieson
Treasurer (Trustee)
Beatrice Fraenkel
Director (Trustee)
Professor Steve Brown
Director (Trustee)
Professor Paula Reavey
Director (Trustee)
Lianne Knotts
Director (Trustee)
Katharine Lazenby
Director (Trustee)
Phil Barsby
Associate
Richard Brown
Associate
Jennifer Aspinall
Associate
Kevin Gorman
Associate
Stephen Parker
Associate
William Wang
Associate
Francis Pitts
Associate
Victoria Jordan
Asscociate
Mark Childs
Associate
Paul Hanna
Associate
Neil Orpwood
Associate
Paul Yeomans
Associate
Caroline Mulholland
Associate
Alan Newman
Associate
Susan Grant
Associate
Karen Flatt
Associate
Jenny Gill
Chair Emeritus
Joe Forster
Chair Emeritus

Charlotte Burrows

CEO

Charlotte Burrows is a purpose-driven leader with a passion for transforming mental health outcomes through design, innovation, and collaboration. With a background spanning health, housing, social enterprise, and service design, she has dedicated her career to building partnerships that challenge the status quo and champion more equitable, compassionate systems.

Charlotte brings extensive experience in shaping and delivering cross-sector strategies — from system-wide health equity programmes to innovation ecosystems that secure investment for underrepresented regions. Her work is united by a deep belief in the power of co-production, the value of lived experience, and the impact of human-centred design.

As Chief Executive of the Design in Mental Health Network, Charlotte leads an organisation committed to improving mental health environments through evidence, insight, and inclusive collaboration. Whether influencing policy, designing care spaces, or co-creating new solutions, she strives to drive lasting change that supports resilience, dignity, and wellbeing for all.

Phillip Ross

Chair (Trustee)

Philip Ross joined the DIMHN board in 2013, and was elected as Chair in 2020. He supports DIMHN’s international workstream and was instrumental in the development of the new testing standard, INFORMED CHOICES. Phil’s drive to bring the testing standard to launch was a frustration shared across the industry, of the lack of repeatable and replicable product testing, leading to a scarcity of reliable information as to product performance.

Phil is Co-Founder and Director of Safehinge Primera, a doorset and hardware manufacturer helping architects, estates and clinical staff improve mental health environments by resolving some of the biggest safety issues and barriers to empowering patients. He shares Safehinge Primera’s purpose – to design for good and help protect people through vulnerable times.

Cath Lake

Vice Chair (Trustee)

Cath is an Architect and mental health lead for P+HS Architects, with over 20 years’ practical experience in the design and delivery of in-patient and community mental health facilities.

She has a hands-on approach focused on collaborative co-production, ensuring all stakeholder voices are heard equally.

Cath has delivered a wide range of projects, all of which share a determined ambition to create safe environments that support people through challenging times in their lives. Her expertise includes detailed design and construction knowledge relating to Dementia, Acute, Learning Disability, CAMHS, Secure and Specialist services.

Alex Mathieson

Treasurer (Trustee)

Alex Mathieson brings over twelve years of experience as a CPA in Canada, working with charitable organisations to support fiscal sustainability, strengthen internal controls, and mitigate financial risk. With an additional six years in the complex care and palliative sectors — most recently as Director of Finance at St. Michael’s Centre, a hospice and care facility in British Columbia — Alex has a proven track record of aligning financial stewardship with compassionate care.

In his most recent role, Alex played a key part in submitting a Request for Qualifications for a major care home and hospice redevelopment. The proposal, now under consideration by the Health Authority, outlines a visionary redesign of the facility. It includes upward rezoning to maximise natural views, the introduction of smaller “pod-style” living units for more personalised care, and the integration of a daycare programme aimed at reducing social isolation by encouraging community interaction.

Alex’s work is grounded in a commitment to people-centred care and long-term organisational resilience, helping healthcare and non-profit teams plan confidently for the future while delivering high-quality, inclusive services today.

Beatrice Fraenkel

Director (Trustee)

Beatrice is a Trustee of the Design Council, member of the Government High Street Task force, non exec director at Stockport NHS FT and member of the Department for Levelling up Housing and Communities expert panel. She is a NHS Design champion and as Chair of MerseyCare FT oversaw the building of five new hospitals, based on an innovative user centred approach. Beatrice has an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects (Hon.FRIBA) awarded for her work in Design and regeneration.

Professor Steve Brown

Director (Trustee)

Steve is Professor of Health and Organizational Psychology at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University. His research interests are around service user experiences of secure mental health care and social remembering within marginalised and excluded groups. He is author of Vital Memory and Affect: Living with a difficult past (with Paula Reavey, 2015, Routledge), Psychology without Foundations: History, philosophy and psychosocial theory (with Paul Stenner, 2009, Sage) and The Social Psychology of Experience: Studies in remembering and forgetting (with David Middleton, 2005, Sage).

Professor Paula Reavey

Director (Trustee)

Paula Reavey is Professor of Psychology at London South Bank University, research lead and consultant on projects at the Maudsley and Royal Bethlem hospitals and honorary research consultant at St. Andrew’s Healthcare. She has co-edited two volumes, New Feminist Stories of Child Sexual Abuse: Sexual Scripts and Dangerous Dialogues (with Sam Warner, Routledge, 2003) and Memory Matters: Contexts for Understanding Sexual Abuse Recollections (with Janice Haaken, Psychology Press, 2009), and a sole edited volume, Visual Methods in Psychology: Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative Research (Routledge, 2011 – now in its second edition).

Lianne Knotts

Director (Trustee)

Lianne is a Director of Medical Architecture and a highly skilled and experienced architect with over 17 years’ specialised experience in the design and planning of healthcare buildings. A particular interest in design for mental health has led Lianne to work on a wide range of acute and forensic mental health projects across the UK and in Canada. Lianne believes strongly in the importance of user-consultation in the design process and close collaboration with client and consultant teams, to improve outcomes and the patient experience. Lianne has led the design of multiple award-winning mental health buildings, including Ferndene, Children and Young People’s Centre in Northumberland, and Hopewood Park Hospital in Sunderland.

Katharine Lazenby

Director (Trustee)

Katharine Lazenby is a Project Manager at East London NHS Foundation Trust and an expert by experience. She delivers mental health training to health and social care staff in North East London and is a visiting scholar at London Southbank University, lecturing on subjects including psychologically informed environments. She has spoken at a number of national conferences about her lived experience of mental health treatment and recovery and advocates for coproduction to create excellence in mental healthcare design.

Phil Barsby

Associate

Phil is Director of Business Development for Intastop Ltd, having been part of the company for over 20 years. Phil’s vision for the future encompasses a drive to ensure regulations around mental health products continues to be at the forefront of legislation. For Intastop, his aim continues to be delivering exceptional customer service whilst addressing the needs of changing industry and environmental demands through a programme of product enhancement and development.

Richard Brown

Associate

Richard is Director of Estates and Facilities at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. He is an experienced, collaborative Estates professional, with a strong commercial and strategic approach to managing teams, projects, and master planning. Richard has a Chartered Engineer, Project Management, Design, Construction, FM, and Accountancy background across a number of sectors including Healthcare, and owner of a consultancy business.

Jennifer Aspinall

Associate

Jen is an experienced Design Manager with Integrated Health Products (IHP), working predominately in the mental health sector. Over the last number of years, Jen has worked closely with Trusts and suppliers to specifically develop existing mental health products and methods of construction in order to mitigate historical issues. This has led to numerous product enhancements, ultimately leading to a safer environment.

Kevin Gorman

Associate

Kevin is the Chairman and owner of Britplas. He is the multi-award-winning inventor of products that have had a positive effect on patient safety and wellbeing. He has worked on countless mental health projects worldwide, both new build and refurbishments, and has garnered a great deal of experience and a large network of knowledgeable friends along the way.

He is one of the founder members of DIMHN and has been right at the heart of the Network’s formative years. Heavily involved in the original Better Bedroom Initiative, Kevin conceived the testing standards initiative. He stepped down from the board in 2016 and received the first ‘Outstanding Contribution Award’ from his fellow board members.

Stephen Parker

Associate

Stephen Parker is a licensed architect in the United States and dedicated Behavioral Health Planner at Stantec, serving as mental health design subject matter expert for North America and beyond. His projects range from community-scale recovery centres to expansive mental health campuses, with work ranging from China, India, Kenya and across the US & Canada.

As the former Co-Chair of the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Strategic Council’s Mental Health+Architecture Incubator and co-author of the US Department of Veterans Affairs new Inpatient Mental Health Design Guide, Stephen is a firm believer in “architect as advocate”, service leadership and dignity-driven design research for communities in crisis.

William Wang

Associate

William is an architect and a healthcare researcher. He has developed mental health patient facilities in the NHS and contributed to the development of new CQC guidelines. He was shortlisted for the Design in Mental Health Network award and his work has been exhibited at the European Healthcare Design Conference.

He spent ten years of his architectural career in the cultural and commercial sectors, before completing a Masters of Research degree in Healthcare and Design in 2019, focusing on mental health care. For him, the most rewarding aspects of research are the personal and in-depth engagements with patients. As a design professional, researcher and service user, William has a grasp of the challenges in healthcare from a range of perspectives and is keen to see improvements in the industry which are patient centred.

Francis Pitts

Associate

Francis Murdock Pitts is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading planners and designers of psychiatric facilities and as a leader in the development of an evidence-based design practice culture in North America.

He has consulted on more than 150 projects involving well over 20,000 mental health beds in clinical settings located in in all parts of the United States and Canada. He has served as National Vice President of the American Institute of Architects and as President of both the AIA’s Academy of Architecture for Health and the American College of Healthcare Architects. In his leadership positions in these institutions he has advocated the development of practice cultures that evince evidence-based design.

He speaks widely and publishes articles on the lessons that can be learned from exemplary hospitals and the application of research evidence to hospital design.

Victoria Jordan

Asscociate

Victoria is a Project Manager who has a passion for delivering Projects within the Mental Health Sector and has experience both client side, spending many years in the NHS, and consultancy side. Victoria understands the complexities and challenges involved in working within these environments and has conducted research as part of her on-going Professional Doctorate which focuses on how to achieve a balance between safe, secure and therapeutic design, which she has then gone on to implement in her projects. Victoria has contributed to new innovations and product design within the sector by providing feedback on existing products and sharing new ideas which may overcome some of the challenges faced within Mental Health settings.

Mark Childs

Associate

Mark Childs is Global Head of Marketing for Kingsway Group, a leading door and technology provider for Mental & Behavioral Health providers. Experienced in developing partnerships and collaborations to achieve customer centric outcomes, Mark has a particular interest in CAMHS provision and helping create healing and therapeutic environments which promote better outcomes for all.

Having hosted design review events in the UK, USA and Australia, it has given Mark a good understanding of the different challenges facing Mental Health provision and in his work for Design in Mental Health he hopes to be able to help promote the good practice going on across the industry, projecting the importance of good design to create appropriate spaces for individuals to receive appropriate support regardless of their background.

Paul Hanna

Associate

Dr Paul Hanna is a chartered psychologist with over 16 years’ experience working in academia and industry. Paul has expertise in mental health, community psychology, innovative and participatory methodologies, and community engagement. He has worked with a variety of people with mental health diagnoses in a variety of settings and has led projects such as ‘Blackout’ which offered an immersive experience to understand what it is like to live with a diagnosis of Bipolar. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, two books and several book chapters, alongside the supervision of over 50 doctoral (including clinical doctoral) students. At Hoare Lea, Paul leads the Psychological Insights unit and consults in a range of sectors including Masterplanning, science and research, education, and healthcare.

Neil Orpwood

Associate

Neil joined HLM in March 1994, becoming a fully qualified architect in the November of 1995. Working almost exclusively on health projects since then, he was appointed Associate Director in July 2011 in recognition of 15 years in the healthcare sector. He has led on all types of specialism, from inception to completion, across Acute, Primary Care and Mental Health, most notably for the Queen’s Centre for Oncology and Haematology, Hull (RIBA 2009 White Rose Gold Award for Architecture).

Passionate about the NHS and what it can achieve, a key driving factor in delivery of projects is the need to look at the bigger picture; reviewing every scheme holistically, focusing on the wider determinants of health, wellbeing and working environments, as well as the importance the impact the build environment has on healing in acute treatment care.

Paul Yeomans

Associate

Paul is a Director of Medical Architecture, and a highly skilled and experienced healthcare designer with over 17 years’ specialised experience. He brings an approach to design that values improved clinical outcomes and enhances the human experience of treatment and care. In 2022, he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts for his leadership in healthcare design. With extensive expertise in mental health, he has led the design of multiple award-winning buildings, including, Hopewood Park Hospital in Sunderland, and Mitford Adult Autism Unit in Northumberland. Paul’s project portfolio has received awards from RIBA, Building Better Healthcare, and the International Academy for Design & Health.

Caroline Mulholland

Associate

I have 20 years’ experience delivering capital projects in healthcare; working closely with staff, patients, and design teams to create facilities that enhance the healing environment. Whilst I am not an Architect I understand and appreciate the role of design in healthcare facilities, having seen first-hand the impact that a well-designed space can have on staff, patients, and family.

In my role as Client Engagement Lead I work with NHS trust staff on a day-to-day basis and understand the tests that they face in terms of increased expectations on service delivery, increased patient numbers and an increasingly challenged estate. This ‘coal-face’ experience, along with a wider understanding of the political healthcare arena, enables me to both spread the knowledge and experience of Design in Mental Health Network, as well as feeding back some of the working challenges that could potentially be resolved through design solutions.

Alan Newman

Associate

Alan joined TB+A as an apprentice at 16 and is now a business owner and currently involved in more than £500m of healthcare developments.

A fellow of IHEEM and member of CIBSE, and IET, Alan gained Chartered Engineer status in 2013 and has spent his entire career within the healthcare sector. As well as being an Associate for the Design in Mental Health Network, Alan is also an Ambassador for engineering services and part of the conference committee.

Alan is an authoring member of DoH guidance including HTM 06-01, HBN 03-04, HBN 06-01, HBN 10-01 and HBN 15-03.

Susan Grant

Associate

A chartered architect, with over 30 years of experience in design and delivery of healthcare facilities. Susan supports Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate, NHS Scotland Boards and their partners by providing professional leadership and technical advice in all aspects of healthcare built environment, property development, planning and design. As Principal Architect she is the custodian of our property and design related NHSScotland facility Guidance publications, such as SHPNs, HBNs, SHTMs.

In addition, Susan supports the NHS Scotland Design Assessment Process (NDAP) on behalf of Scottish Government. NDAP provides all major investment in NHS Scotland infrastructure projects with an independent review and joint support from both NHS Scotland Assure and Architecture & Design Scotland. Thereby ensuring local decision making, but with national oversight, plus expertise where required. This process ensures that each project has smart, bespoke quality and sustainability metrics embedded at briefing stage; allowing these metrics to be regularly assessed locally and independently monitored nationally, at each key design, construction and handover stage.

To support sustainable healthcare delivery and outcomes Susan is a regular conference speaker and member of various Scottish and UK-wide working groups e.g. UK NHS Standards Group. She is also a board member of European Health Property Network (EuHPN).

Karen Flatt

Associate

Karen is an Architect, Studio Director and the Mental Health Lead at Arcadis who specialises in mental health design. With over 20 years of experience in designing for mental health and wellbeing she has developed a profound knowledge of both service-users‘ and healthcare professionals’ unique requirements. She has successfully designed and delivered numerous award-wining mental health schemes across different age groups, and security levels.

Karen believes that building environments play a significant role in the behaviour of their users and good design can deliver real and measurable benefits. Her aim at Arcadis is to involve users in all aspects of the design process to create sustainable, uplifting and therapeutic buildings that improve mental and physical wellbeing.

Jenny Gill

Chair Emeritus

Jenny became Chair Emeritus after 7 years as Chairman of DiMHN. She has an NHS management background followed by 20+ years as a healthcare planner, specialising in mental health.

Jenny was the Department of Health’s technical author for Health Building Note (HBN) 03-01 – Adult acute mental health units and 03-02 – Facilities for child and adolescent mental health services. She was also co-author alongside the National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (NAPICU), for ‘Design Guidance for Psychiatric Intensive Care Units 2017’.

Joe Forster

Chair Emeritus

Co-founder, past chair and former president of DIMHN, Joe now has the honorary title of chair emeritus. As with DIMHN’s own board, experts by experience are central to the leadership and running of all aspects of our mental health care provision. Throughout his whole clinical and research career, and now in consultancy and education, Joe has been guided, challenged and inspired by some of the most thoughtful, outspoken and innovative of them.