Our team

John Ford, Director

John is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Health Equity at Queen Mary University of London, an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and an Honorary Public Health Consultant at NHS England. John’s main research interest is interventions and policies that seek to promote health equity and reduce health inequalities. He has range of interests relating to equitable health, including so called “intervention-generated inequalities” in health care settings, local system-level interventions to address inequalities, health care workforce inequalities, national policies and strategies to address inequalities and how primary care can address health and health care inequalities. More details can be found here.

Amy Dehn Lunn, Associate Director for Clinical Practice

Amy is a GP working in North East London, a senior clinical fellow at Kent and Medway ICS, and a clinical research fellow at Queen Mary University of London. Amy combines her clinical practice with work on a wider footprint to improve the health of communities with a health equity focus. She is interested in how evidence can shape primary care policy at different levels of the system to reduce disparities in patient access, experience and outcomes.

Helen Pearce, Researcher

Helen is a Researcher in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the interventions and aspects of primary care which can affect health inequalities. In particular, Helen is interested in using AI-assisted technology to increase the efficiency of evidence synthesis from literature, to better and more rapidly inform researchers and policymakers on what works to address health inequalities in primary care, and where gaps in the evidence lie.

Declan Dudley, Honorary Clinical Research Fellow

Declan is a Honorary Clinical Research Fellow working in the Health Equity Evidence Centre at QMUL, with a research interest in Work and Health – specifically around the evidence base for interventions delivered by the health services targeting those at risk of health driven economic inactivity. Declan is also a GP partner in a deep-end practice. He completed the FMLM National Medical Director Clinical Fellow scheme working with the National Director of Public Health, NHS England and remain an honorary senior clinical fellow in the National team. Declan completed an academic GP training programme at Cardiff University. Prior to General Practice, he was a trainee in Anaesthesia across South East London and South Wales, witnessing first-hand the impact of socio-economic deprivation on health outcomes through the COVID pandemic. This experience continues to motivate his drive to work at the intersection between medicine in deprived areas and health policy to ensure provision of equitable health services and improve health outcomes.

Lucy Johnson, Research Associate in Health Equity

Lucy is a research fellow in health equity at QMUL. She completed a PhD in medical anthropology at Durham University in 2023. She also holds an MSc in Global Mental Health from Glasgow University. Lucy’s research interests involve using qualitative methods to understand how health inequalities manifest and are experienced. She is especially interested in geographical health inequalities and socioeconomic deprivation. Currently, she is using realist methods to understand how quality improvement (QI) can be used to improve health equity and ensure high-quality care for all.

Sherald Sanchez, Postdoctoral Research Associate

Sherald Sanchez is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Health Equity Evidence Centre. With a background in behavioural science, her research has focused on developing and co-designing health interventions with communities experiencing social and economic disadvantage, including migrants, people who use drugs, and LGBTQ+ young people.

Sherald’s doctoral research explored epistemic justice in health research, asking what counts as evidence, how evidence is produced and used, and whose knowledge informs efforts to address health inequalities. Her work brings together different forms of expertise – including research, clinical, policy, community, and lived experience – to develop shared understandings of complex health problems.

Helena Painter, Clinical academic researcher

Helena is a GP registrar working in a practice in Tower Hamlets and an academic clinical fellow in primary care at Queen Mary University of London. She believes in the importance of equitable healthcare with communities at the centre and she is motivated to work towards addressing existing health inequalities. She is currently interested in the role of general practice in addressing inequalities in social determinants of health, and how primary care delivery and workforce impacts equitable care.

Aamena Bharmal, Honorary Clinical Fellow

Dr Aamena Bharmal is an academic GP, who is passionate about improving community and primary care. 

Aamena combines her clinical, policy and research experience to explore how health systems and service design can provide equitable care for all. Her main research interest is on workforce and team-working in primary care. 

Prior to this she was a National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow, Researcher at The King’s Fund and was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to explore palliative care services for people experiencing homelessness. 

Ian Holdroyd, Clinical Researcher

Ian is a Foundation Doctor working in South West London. His research interests are focused on nationwide public policy interventions that directly or indirectly affect population health, health inequalities, and the social determinants underpinning both.

Fred Barker, Academic Clinical Fellow

Dr Fred Barker is a General Practitioner working at Queen Mary through its Academic GP Advanced Fellowship. Fred’s primary academic interests are in health inequalities and big data research.

His most recent publication is an editorial in the British Journal of General Practice, where he has outlined policy changes that could finally address ongoing discrimination against patients without a permanent home address or ID. These patient groups (including people who are homeless or seeking asylum) are some of the most socioeconomically vulnerable in our society and appear to be unlawfully refused GP registration in a majority of cases.

Fred has a number of ongoing projects as part of the Health Equity Evidence Centre. This includes a quantitative evaluation of GP healthcare access for Roma and Irish Traveller groups, and a systematic review on evidence use in UK healthcare commissioning.

Liam Loftus, Senior Advisor

Liam has a strong interest in the future of primary care, both in terms of policy and practice. From a policy perspective, he has experience of this formally through previous roles at NHS England, and more informally through working with Government. In practice, he brings his experience as a former GP.

More broadly, he is interested in how neighbourhood health, in its widest sense, can improve health and tackle inequalities. He brings this to life in a number of ways, including through his role as Development Director at Cambridge City Foodbank, where he leads on an innovative model to improve the health and wellbeing of those facing the deepest poverty in his community.

Liam was formerly Associate Director for Policy and Practice Engagement here at the Health Equity Evidence Centre. He remains part of the team in his Senior Advisor role.