About Us

Alan is a GMC-registered medical practitioner, with nearly 25 years of  clinical, research, management  and medico-legal case investigation experience. He is a  Member of the Faculty of Expert Witnesses

Clinical experience

Alan was a GP partner and principal for nearly 15 years, but now is Powys Teaching Health Board (PTHB) clinical GP lead in integrated care - providing GP care to patients with serious mental illness/substance misuse who rarely attend primary care, expert opinion on physical health problems for patients in our psychiatric and community hospital wards,  and is lead Section 12(2) Mental Health Act approved clinician for PTHB, undertaking emergency psychiatric assessments under the MHA. He continues to work as an Out-of-Hours GP, as a locum (sessional) GP in understaffed practices across the UK, and provides expert input on complex cases with multimorbidity and polypharmacy.  He has also worked as a remote/rural GP with pre-hospital emergency care roles across the UK and in the Middle East, as a GP alongside H.M. Armed Forces, and volunteers as a disaster relief doctor in refugee areas - previous deployments to Greece and Bangladesh. 

Research experience

Alan is Honorary (visiting) Professor at the University of South Wales and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in Primary Care and Mental Health at the University of Liverpool. He holds a PhD and has extensive postdoctoral experience, including working for 2 years as a medical research scientist at the University of California Berkeley. He has published over 40 papers of international impact that have led to government policy change within the UK.  He iss the Clinical Lead for Research for Powys Teaching Health board, advising on study design, ethics and management issues for new research studies, as well as conducting his own research, holding as a principal and co-investigator over £3million in current grants with collaborators at the University of Liverpool. Research funding has been obtained from the Wellcome Trust, National Institute of Health Research (UK) , National Institutes of Health (USA) and Health Care Research Wales during his career. His research focus is on physical health outcomes for patients with serious mental illness (15 years early mortality due to cardiometabolic disease) , and on the growing problem of multimorbidity (e.g. patents having multiple illnesses such as heart disease, kidney disease, depression, and diabetes) and polypharmacy (taking large numbers of medicines to treat illnesses which interact to  cause medication-related harm). Nearly 17% of all hospital admissions (and many adverse patient outcomes) are due to medicines-related harm and inadequate clinical understanding across the entire patient morbidity - an area where GPs are the 'specialists' rather than hospital consultants (ref). See here for his research publications and current grants. 

Medico-legal and regulatory experience

Alan is a leading case investigator and a GP practice inspector for Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (the Welsh version of the CQC), undertaking regular GP inspections to ensure compliance with current good medical practice in primary care. He is also one of their senior case investigators for all deaths in custody (prisons or police custody suites) in Wales, providing detailed investigatory reports for the Prisons and Probations Ombudsman and to inform His Majesty's Coroner Inquests on any issues regarding quality of care the deceased may have experienced. He has been requested to inquests as a witness in this role. Alan has undertaken Bond Solon expert witness training, is familiar with CPR 35 and Practice Directions, and Guidance for the Instruction of Experts in Civil Claims 2014. He understands the specific needs of legal teams who are seeking an objective, evidence-based assessment for the purposes of litigation.  Reports are prepared on the basis of an hourly fee. Alternatively, a fixed-fee option is offered for CPR-compliant reports, and informal, not-for-disclosure screening opinions (see Terms and Fees). 

Management experience

In addition to his clinical lead roles above, Alan is also executive officer for Dyfed Powys Local Medical Committee, and has previously served as a representative on the BMA General Practitioners Committee for Wales, both requiring considerable knowledge of general practice contractual, regulatory and good medical practice standards, and is involved in supporting services where underperformance may occur. He also serves on the Medicines Management committee of PTHB as a clinical advisor. 

Alan is very happy to provide free initial advice by telephone or email, and welcomes informal enquiries. He aims to provide reports within 2 weeks, but these can be expedited on request within 1 week on occasions. 

Joanne is a company director of Orgwood Limited and works mainly on work scheduling , company accounts, supplies,  invoice and IT management, and handling initial queries via the website for new potential clients if Alan is not immediately available. She is a former primary school teacher, but now runs her own successful business , Beyond Breakout, which delivers both team-building training for organisations and educational support activities for schools.