Professor Charles Vincent Professorial fellow (patient safety)

Charles Vincent trained as a clinical psychologist and worked in the UK NHS for several years. Since 1985, he has carried out research on the causes of harm to patients, the consequences for patients and staff and methods of improving the safety of healthcare.

He established the Clinical Risk Unit at University College in 1995 where he was Professor of Psychology before moving to the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College in 2002. He is the editor of Clinical Risk Management (BMJ Publications, 2nd edition, 2001), author of Patient Safety (2nd edition, 2010) and author of many papers on medical error, risk and patient safety. From 1999 to 2003, he was a Commissioner on the UK Commission for Health Improvement and has advised on patient safety in many inquiries and committees including the recent Berwick Review.

In 2007, he was appointed Director of the National Institute of Health Research Centre for Patient Safety & Service Quality at Imperial College Healthcare Trust. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and was recently reappointed as a National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator. In 2014, he has taken up a new post as Health Foundation professorial fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford where he will continue his work on safety in healthcare.