The Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Standing Group provides direction and guidance to ensure that Health Technology Wales establishes and maintains effective PPI throughout its work. Current members are listed below.

A portrait of staff and/or a member

Alice Evans
PPI Group Chair

Health Technology Wales, Patient and Public Involvement Manager

Biography >
X Before joining Health Technology Wales, Alice designed a curriculum of skills training for paediatric clients of the Posture and Mobility All Wales Service in partnership with patients and families. Afterwards, Alice worked in continuing healthcare (CHC) with south and east localities to develop training to improve understanding of CHC and dementia care across South Wales in partnership with care home networks and NHS. Now at Health Technology Wales, Alice is responsible for providing information support to patients, patient organisations, carers and members of the public.
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Alan Meudell

Public Partner

Biography >
X Over the past 19 years, Alan has worked with a variety of organisations and has built up an extensive knowledge and experience of how public and patient involvement can benefit policy, practice and service design across all sectors. He is currently co-investigator on a research study at Cardiff University and is advising on developing public and patient involvement for a research initiative in India and Pakistan.
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Catherine Evans O’Brien

Public Partner

Biography >
X Catherine has been Health, Housing and Social Care Lead at the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales since 2013. She is passionate about using the voices and experiences of older people to drive policy development. Catherine has led a number of high profile projects for the Commissioner, including undertaking large scale engagement with older people in Wales to gather their experiences of accessing primary care to inform a national report and legal Guidance.
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Emma Hughes

PPI Advisor

Biography >
X Emma is a dynamic policy strategist with a successful background in driving forward change at local and national level. She has experience working with the private, public and third sector and is actively engaged in the public affairs agenda of government and shaping health and social care policy. Emma is the Policy and Engagement Manager for the charity, Genetic Alliance UK. She has worked for the past six years to help improve systems and processes for rare disease patients in accessing orphan and ultra-orphan medicines, technologies and specialised services.
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Karen Facey

PPI Advisor

Biography >
X Karen worked as a senior statistician in pharma and medicines regulation before going to Scotland to setup the first national health technology assessment (HTA) Agency. Since 2003 she has been an independent consultant and has a part-time post at the University of Edinburgh researching HTA of rare disease treatments. In 2005, she founded the HTA International Interest Group for Patient/Citizen Involvement and is lead editor on the definitive book on patient involvement in HTA.
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Kiana Collins

Public Partner

Biography >
X Kiana works as the Knowledge Officer (Research and Evidence) at Prostate Cancer UK. She is responsible for delivering analyses and assisting projects to ensure that the organisation’s strategy is underpinned by a scientific and clinical evidence base. Kiana has a BSc (hons) in Molecular Biology and Economics and recently completed her MSc in Global Population Health at the London School of Economics where she was awarded Titmuss Prize for best overall performance.
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Sarah Peddle

Public Partner

Biography >
X Sarah joined the Involving People Network (IPN) – now public involvement community – in May 2017. She is also a member of the Public Involvement Delivery Board, a PRIME SUPER group and Consumer Panel for Data Linkage (SAIL) member. More recently, Sarah was appointed as a Theme Research Partner with the Wales Cancer Research Centre. Sarah is fully committed to supporting public involvement in research looks forward to contributing to HTW’s work.
A portrait of staff and/or a member

Siân Jones

PPI Advisor

Biography >
X Siân joined the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research (now Health and Care Research Wales) Involving People Network in 2010. She was a member of the HART Hughes Abdominal Repair Trial. Siân has also been fortunate to facilitate training on research and public involvement, plus being a member of several other studies.

To learn more about the purpose of the group, see: