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 has been a GP principal  (as a locum, salaried and GP partner) -  in and out-of-hours front-line clinical practice - for nearly 18 years, and  has with special expertise in diabetes, minor surgery and prescribing in complex situations including in mental health cases. He is lead Section 12(2) Mental Health Act approved clinician for his Welsh Health Board,  undertaking emergency psychiatric assessments under the Mental Health Act, approved by the Home Office as having specialist expertise in psychiatry to be able to do this. He provides expert input on complex cases with multimorbidity and polypharmacy to health board inpatients on their wards.  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 Universities  of Liverpool and Glasgow. 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 nearly 50  papers of international impact that have led to government policy change within the UK - his research was instrumental in helping achieve a smoking ban.  He is 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 expert witness and regulatory experience

Alan is an experienced expert witness for clinical negligence cases (current ratio: 40% claimant/regulator/coroner, 60% defendant), 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 while in prison. He has been requested to attend inquests as a witness in this role, but has yet to do so. He is also an expert witness for a healthcare professional regulator.  Alan has produced expert witness opinions for clinical negligence cases, has undertaken Bond Solon expert witness training in report writing, 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). 

Healthcare and Research management consultancy 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. He has extensive successful healthcare and research consultancy experience, with many 'repeat customers' demonstrating his added value  - see here

Alan is very happy to provide free initial advice by telephone or email, and welcomes informal enquiries.

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.