NCAP Implementation Group
The NCAP implementation group co-ordinates expert and specialist input into audit development and operation.
Professor Belinda Lennox
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, Oxford Health NHS FT
Belinda is a clinical academic psychiatrist, undertaking research in the causes and treatments for psychotic illnesses and leading the delivery of early intervention in psychosis services locally and nationally.
She trained in medicine at University of Nottingham and in adult psychiatry in Oxford, Nottingham and Cambridge. She is a consultant psychiatrist in the early intervention in psychosis service in Oxfordshire.
Her research focus is on identifying causes of psychosis, and undertaking trials of new treatments, with a particular focus on the possible autoimmune cause of psychosis. She also does research into models of care for improving outcomes for those with a first episode of psychosis. She has led Cochrane reviews of early intervention in psychosis services, and applied health research projects focussed on improving physical healthcare for those with psychosis. She led research to demonstrate the clinical and cost effectiveness of EIP services in England. She was clinical lead for EIP for NHS South for several years 2014-2021, and was a member of the NICE Early Psychosis Quality Standard Expert Reference Group that developed the Access and Waiting Times Standards for EIP in 2015-2016.
In other roles she is the Head of Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, Vice chair of the Psychopharmacology Committee, Royal College Psychiatrists, Associate Editor for the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, and a panel member of the Neurosciences and Mental Health Board, Medical Research Council.
Stephen McGowan RMN, MSc
NHS England Regional Clinical Lead for Early Intervention in Psychosis (North East and North West)
Stephen (Moggie) McGowan is a mental health nurse who has worked as a clinical lead for Early Intervention in Psychosis for over 25 years. He has held regional and national leadership roles and has led the IRIS Early Intervention in Psychosis Network, a group of mental health experts who have supported the promotion of EIP since the 1990s. IRIS published the first best practice toolkit for Early Intervention in Psychosis, which was the basis of the original DH Policy Implementation Guide for EIP and remains the foundation of UK policy for first episode psychosis.
He is an outspoken advocate of evidence-based practice, model fidelity and meaningful outcome measurement and has contributed chapters to numerous publications and supported the development of the WHO International Early Psychosis Declaration. He co-authored the Centre for Mental Health’s guide to Early Intervention, ‘A Window of Opportunity’ and was a member of the NICE Early Psychosis Quality Standard expert reference group that developed the Access and Waiting Times Standards for EIP in 2015-2016. He remains a member of the expert reference group that has updated national commissioning guidelines for EIP and ARMS (NHSE, 2023). He has published guidance for Suicide Risk Management in Early Intervention and is the coordinating investigator for a research study examining the link between fidelity and outcomes in EIP teams in the UK and Canada.
Currently, he works as an NHS England regional clinical lead for EIP in the North East and the North West, providing clinical and organisational expertise and supporting healthcare systems to improve services for people with first episode psychosis. He chairs the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI) EIP Advisory Group and Accreditation Committee, supporting them to establish national quality standards for EIP (CCQI, 2025).
Veenu Gupta
Veenu Gupta, PhD Student in Psychology at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, and NCAP Service User Advisor to the EIP Audit in England, Wales and Ireland
Veenu is currently a Psychology PhD student at the University of Liverpool with expertise in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research and has an MSc in Psychological research methods from University of Leicester. She is also a former Mental Health Nurse, having worked in acute mental health settings and assertive outreach and rehabilitation teams, supporting people with mental illnesses including psychosis, both at East London Foundation Trust and Leicestershire Partnership Trust.
Veenu works in her role as Service user Advisor for the NCAP, where she brings her personal knowledge of experiencing early intervention in psychosis services following her own diagnosis of psychosis. She believes in the value of early intervention services and these very services have influenced and shaped her own recovery over the years and prognosis following further relapse, providing Veenu with a source of motivation to further strengthen and contribute towards early intervention in psychosis services. This has motivated her work on the audit since 2018 to 2022 and her need to give back to the service in some way.
Veenu combines her personal experiences with her research skills to identify the needs of service users in early intervention in psychosis services and prioritise their needs in the NCAP audit. Veenu has also contributed to the refreshed guidelines of the Access and Waiting Time standard to Early Intervention in Psychosis services, as an Expert reference group member in 2020.
Veenu also works as a Service user Advisor to the EXTEND study and has helped develop and is co-chair of its patient and carer advisory group, part of a wider team that seeks to understand the optimal duration of early intervention services for patients with psychosis. Veenu is also Service user Advisor to a PhD fellow researcher and advisor to the Lancet Psychiatry commission into Psychosis. She very much thinks of herself as a lived experience researcher, combining each of her different identities, both personally and professionally, that she brings to the table as a fellow expert on the NCAP team.