Lived expertise has professional value.
Consultant Patients contribute knowledge gained through life with a condition, treatment or caring role. Consultant Patients are paid for each contribution, with clear roles and agreed terms.
Why I founded Consultant Patient
Beatrice Emmanouil PhD
Founder and Director, Consultant Patient Ltd
View Beatrice’s LinkedIn profile →I founded Consultant Patient because I had seen what people with lived experience can contribute when recognised as professional partners: the expertise to help shape strategy, make plans work and lead delivery.
I have worked in the NHS since 2014 and in hepatitis C elimination since 2021. In that work, I have seen the value of patient and peer involvement at every level, from planning a national programme to putting it into practice. Inclusion cannot be tokenistic. Giving people a meaningful role in decisions, leadership and delivery can transform a programme of work.
I am also passionate about using mathematics and statistics to understand and demonstrate the contribution of peer involvement, and to build a rigorous, publicly available evidence base. That commitment has led me to co-author research with colleagues at the University of Cambridge examining how peer support contributes to hepatitis C case-finding and access to treatment. Two papers are publicly available as preprints, including one detailing the statistical methods underpinning the analysis. This work connects questions I have encountered in practice with evidence that others can examine, challenge and build on.
My portfolio career connects research, NHS leadership and entrepreneurship. Working across those areas has given me different ways to approach the same question: how do we make decisions that work for the people affected by them?
Consultant Patient is my response. I wanted expertise gained through living with a condition, using a treatment, or caring for or supporting someone with a condition to stand alongside clinical, scientific and technical expertise in its own right. That means fair payment, clear responsibilities, informed choice and opportunities to shape a project from the beginning.
The name is deliberate. Consultant doctors are recognised for specialist medical expertise. Consultant Patients bring expertise built through life. I chose the name to make the value of that contribution unmistakable.
For organisations, I want Consultant Patient to be a trusted source of expertise that informs decisions and strengthens what they deliver. For Consultant Patients, I want it to be a place where expertise is taken seriously, contribution is paid and participation remains a choice.