Intended for healthcare professionals

Tessa Richards

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Dr Tessa Richards, is a BMJ Associate Editor and longstanding patient advocate. She pioneered and led The BMJs Patient and Public Partnership Strategy (https://www.bmj.com/campaign/patient-partnership) from 2014 - 2021 and continues to support its spread across The BMJ company. A passionate advocate for patient empowerment, shared decision making and co -design of health policy, practice, and research, she writes and speaks regularly on the importance of patient partnership. She is an editorial board member of BMJ Medicine and on the advisory committee of the European Health Forum Gastein. A key focus of her current work is to advance international learning and debate on innovative co-produced initiatives in healthcare.

Tessa worked as a general physician, rheumatologist and a general practitioner before joining The BMJ where her editorial responsibilities included overseeing the journal's General Practice, Education, and Analysis sections, and commissioning series on Medicine in Europe, Overdiagnosis/Too Much Medicine, High Integrity Health, and Person Centred Care. She lives with stage III adrenal cancer and ischaemic heart disease, and is a carer for close family members with rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, dementia and blindness.

You can follow Tessa on twitter: @tessajlrichards


Competing interests

I declare that that I have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declarations of interest. I hereby declare the following interests, according to the policy.

© I have the following interests to declare:

Personal

I have undergone treatment (and am followed up) for stage IV adrenal cancer and live with autoimmune conditions. I am also a carer of family members with long term conditions.

Organisational

None

Unpaid positions (current)

None