Biography

Julian Hughes is honorary professor at Bristol University. He was a consultant in old age psychiatry in the National Health Service (NHS) for over 20 years. He led both community and in-patient teams, with a focus on long-term and residential care.

Julian studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford prior to studying Medicine at Bristol. He gained his PhD from the University of Warwick. He initially trained as a general practitioner (GP) in the Royal Air Force (RAF), where he also started his psychiatry training before moving for higher training to the Anglia & Oxford Regional Senior Registrar Training Scheme. His first consultant post was in Newcastle upon Tyne, but he then moved to North Tyneside General Hospital. From 2009 until 2016 he was honorary professor of philosophy of ageing at Newcastle University; and was professor of old age psychiatry at the University of Bristol from 2016-2019.

As a researcher, he has taken part in numerous studies with funding from the Alzheimer’s Society, the BUPA Foundation the Health Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the NHS and the National Institute for Health Research, including as principal investigator. He has also acted as principal investigator and national chief investigator on clinical drug trials. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal papers.

He was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He has been an adviser to various nations and international bodies, including Alzheimer Europe, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Department of Health. He was the deputy chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics until March 2019, having served as a Member of the Council from February 2013 and as a member of their working party which produced Dementia: Ethical Issues in 2009.

Julian has written, co-written, edited or co-edited a number of books including:

Palliative Care in Severe Dementia, an edited volume published by Quay Books in 2006;

Dementia: Mind, Meaning, and the Person, co-edited with Stephen Louw and Stephen Sabat (Oxford University Press, 2006);

Ethical Issues in Dementia Care: Making Difficult Decisions, co-authored with Clive Baldwin (Jessica Kingsley, 2006);

Supportive Care for the Person with Dementia, co-edited with Mari Lloyd-Williams and Greg Sachs (Oxford University Press, 2010);

The Dementia Manifesto: Putting Values-Based Practice to Work, co-authored with Toby Williamson (Cambridge University Press, 2019);

Clinical Topics in Old Age Psychiatry, co-edited with Philippa Lilford (Cambridge University Press, 2020); and

Dementia, Law and Ethics: A Practical Guide for Nurses and Other Healthcare Professionals, co-authored with Aileen Beatty and Charlotte Emmett (Jessica Kingsley, 2021).

His single author books are:

Thinking Through Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2011);

Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias: The Facts (Oxford University Press, 2011);

How We Think About Dementia (Jessica Kingsley, 2014) and

Dementia and Ethics Reconsidered (Open University Press, 2023).

He now concentrates on writing in the areas of ageing, dementia, palliative care, ethics and the philosophy of psychiatry.