Tom Burns is Professor Emeritus of Social Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. Before that he was consultant psychiatrist and professor of Community Psychiatry at St George's in South West London where he and Mike Firn together set up and ran the Wandsworth Assertive Community Treatment Team. He has predominantly researched community mental health services practice, particularly complex interventions. He has published six books with Oxford University Press. Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry, a book on psychiatry for the general reader was published by Penguin in 2014. He was awarded the CBE in 2006 for services to mental health care.
Mike Firn has over 30 years' experience in the National Health Service in England as a registered nurse, team leader and operational manager. He has set up, developed and evaluated numerous new community mental health teams across the care pathway from early intervention, assertive outreach and crisis services. He is a current board member of national and European clinical networks in assertive outreach. He also provides much of his time as an external consultant for an independent charity, The Health Foundation, working alongside grant funded health innovation projects.