Role
Philip Jones is a module leader for sustainability and communities on the MA Public Health, Leadership in Public Health and Research and practice module leader on the MSc Nursing.
Career overview
Philip Jones began his career as a mental health nurse, having graduated from Birmingham university in 2001. He joined one of the Department of Health’s flagship assertive outreach teams as a newly qualified nurse in inner city Birmingham. Three years later, he moved to Worcestershire taking up a band 7 role and developing assertive outreach in the north of the county. He spent the next 8,5 years working in leadership and management of assertive outreach including a period running the service across the county. He completed his first master’s degree in Theology in 2009 at the University of Wales, Lampeter and this was followed by completing a teaching/lecturing course at Worcester university.
He began a PhD at Kings College, London in 2012 exploring how the cultural values of Thailand impact on the experience of Thai sex workers in receiving support. This was inspired by anti-trafficking work he had done in Thailand, which remains an area of interest. Unfortunately, he couldn’t progress beyond year one due to political instability in Thailand and supervisory issues.
In 2012, Philip Jones moved into academia spending nearly five years as a lecturer in mental health nursing at Middlesex University. He taught and run a variety of modules and later became a course leader for the BSc Mental Health Nursing. He was involved in several major projects in the Department, one of them being WHO funded project to support the transition from hospital-based care to community-based care in Turkey.
In 2017, Philip left Middlesex returning to practice as a regional manager for a private mental health provider. After six months, invited to do some consultancy work for an immigration firm, he dramatically grew the business over twelve months and recruited a large number of new staff giving him some good insight into the working of businesses.
I began an MA Education during this time and used it to reflect on the challenges of high stakes exams for overseas nurses. He completed a PG Cert in mentoring and coaching and later completed an MA Education at Newman University, formerly inspired by thinking about these challenges and how educators can use coaching/mentoring to support overseas nurses on their arrival in the UK. He was also challenged during his time of consultancy to think about the ethics of overseas recruitment and having seen some of the practices and concerned , he completed an MSc in Development Management to explore how overseas nursing impacted countries where they were recruited from and an MSc Systems Thinking, at the open university, to reflect on the complexities of migration in context of the UK.
In September 2018, Philip Jones took up a management role in a social care setting back in central Birmingham, followed by a six-month spell managing in a care home.
In August 2019, recruited by Birmingham City university, he became a part of a course leadership team which eventually led to a formal responsibility for around 500 students on the Mental Health pathway of the new future nurse curriculum. He spent nearly three years at Birmingham City University during which, it really highlighted issues of digital inequity amongst other complex issues we had to manage during Covid-19. He completed an MBA in Anglia Ruskin during pandemic, where he further reflected on the challenges of profit making and the commodification of people in the nurse recruitment industry.
In 2022, he moved across to teach on MA Public Health at Nottingham Trent University. He also began a PhD in 2021 at Keele University focusing on exploring the ethics of overseas recruitment of Nurses, specifically seeking to explore the perspectives of Filipino nurses in the UK and felt that this fitted better with the ethos of the public health program at NTU. He maintains his nursing registration and a keen interest in Mental Health nursing and Social Justice in particular.
Alongside the academic qualifications mentioned above, Phillip have become a Chartered Managed with the Chartered Management Institute having completed a Level 8 Diploma in Strategic Direction and Leadership and a Chartered Fellow of the Institute for Leadership. He is a qualified PRINCE2 practitioner and PRINCE2 agile practitioner. Also qualified Project Management Professional (PMP).
He completed a further PgCert in Digital Pedagogies and Practices in 2022 (Arden) and CELTA qualificstion.
Research areas
Whilst at Middlesex University, Philip was involved in several research projects focused around sexuality/gender and issues of personhood/identity remain an interest.
He is passionate about mental health nursing and believe strongly in critical perspectives around how we understand mental health.
"I believe that as mental health nurse I have an obligation to promote social justice as marginalisation and disempowerment are key factors in contributing to the development of mental health issues. We are heavily dependant on overseas nurses to support our NHS and although there is a focus on developing the skills within the UK there is an obvious sense in which there will be a need for overseas nurses to compliment our domestically trained staff for the foreseeable future. I am particularly interested by the behaviour of agents and other intermediaries. There are also clearly issues of brain drain and global justice that are also important and then also the way in which overseas nurses are treated in the UK (institutional racism, etc)."
External activity
Jones is an advocate, supporter and advisor to the Ugandan nurses and midwives association in the UK particularly supporting them to think about how to support colleagues on arrival and as they wish to develop their careers.
Publications
Jones is currently writing a book chapter reflecting on the important role of occupational therapy within the mental health tribunal process.