Dr Brian Fisher has been a GP in SE London for 35 years. He is involved with the Lewisham CCG in various projects and is chair of the PPI steering group.

For many years, he has been interested in user involvement in the NHS. He has tried to develop a number of different approaches to make this as real as possible. These have included community development (for which he was awarded his MBE), Patients as Teachers, patient access to their health records and working with colleagues to ensure that lay people’s views are incorporated in the daily work of CCGs.

Dr Fisher has championed patient record access, now being the director of a company called PAERS Ltd that has designed and built kiosk-based access, in conjunction with EMIS, the largest provider of GP software in the UK. It is now possible for all EMIS practices (60% of the UK) to offer this to their patients.

He lead a DH-funded project called HELP which offers community development in health for CCGs and Health and Well-Being Boards