Consultant (Cancer) Liaison Psychiatrist, & Clinical Director: Simulation & Clinical Skills. St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. & Honorary Senior Lecturer, St George’s, University of London
Dr Asanga Fernando is a Consultant Psychiatrist specialising in the care of cancer patients. He has clinical leadership, research and educational roles in Cancer and Psychiatry at one of the biggest teaching hospitals and medical schools in the U.K. He has been a Consultant Psychiatrist for the last 8 years in a pioneering clinical service that he helped set up, working together with psychologists, counsellors, oncologists, palliative care physicians, nurses, and surgeons to provide integrated care to carers, inpatients and outpatients with cancer.
He has interests and experience in integrating mental health and physical healthcare and translating policy into practice by setting up clinical services and new clinical pathways. He has previously also worked on a regional and national level on mental health policy. He is also Clinical Director for simulation and technology enhanced learning across the trust and medical school in one of the U.K’s busiest and most advanced simulation and technology enhanced learning facilities. He has set up pioneering inter-professional educational programmes encouraging a human factors and patient safety based approach including those integrating cancer, palliative care and mental health.
He has a strong background in education and remains passionate about the need for better inter-professional education that can positively impact on the lives of cancer patients. He previously completed a Masters degree in Clinical Education as well as other postgraduate qualifications and has published extensively on the subject. He has contributed to ESMO guidance and has been widely published on the integration of mental health in cancer as well as being widely published in clinical education, patient safety, digital health, the epidemiology of psychiatry and clinical leadership. He is actively involved in the advancement of global mental health and holds executive positions on organisations working to this end. He is also an Honorary Senior Lecturer at St. George’s, University of London and is actively involved in research and teaching related to clinical pharmacology.
He completed an undergraduate Sciences degree and taught English prior to completing his medical (MB, BS) degree in London. He completed his psychiatry training at the Maudsley Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurosciences in London, where he completed fellowships in simulation and health policy, and set up innovative educational programmes on mental health capacity building, both in the U.K and internationally. He strongly believes in the need for better co-production with patient voice, greater emphasis on healthcare related quality of life outcomes for cancer patients as well as reducing healthcare inequalities through education, advocacy and better systems implementation.
