Dr Jacinta Tan is a child and adolescent and eating disorder psychiatrist and medical ethicist. A multidisciplinary academic clinician working with patients across the lifespan and with degrees in Philosophy and Psychology, Child Health and Sociology, Jacinta spent many years researching mental capacity in anorexia nervosa at the University of Oxford.
Jacinta is particularly proud to have just completed the Eating Disorder Service Review for Wales for the Welsh Government in 2018, which was co-produced with a team of lay representatives and third sector organisations as well as clinicians. She has developed with colleagues an AgorIP-funded electronic free iOS and Android app for people worried that their loved ones may have an eating disorder, ‘Diet or Disorder’ and also helped create the About Me Autism Passport App.

Jacinta is at present involved in the Health Foundation-funded CWTCH (Connecting With Telehealth to Children in Hospitals) project, and leading the EMS Ltd-funded Celebrate Every Body project which is a joint enterprise between health and education to evaluate and incorporate resilience and body esteem in primary and secondary schools. Jacinta is also providing ethics consultancy to the Oxford University-based research trial of Deep Brain Stimulation in Severe Anorexia Nervosa, and is completing a Health and Social Care Research Wales (HCRW)-funded mixed methods research project on the interface between primary and secondary healthcare for eating disorders in Wales, called Mind the Gap.
Jacinta is the Welsh representative for the Eating Disorders Faculty in the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a member of the Royal College’s Professional Practice and Ethics Committee. She is the founder and convenor of the Welsh Eating Disorder Research Development Group since 2012, and also the Law and Ethics of Anorexia Nervosa – Values in Practice (LEAN-ViP) network of the Collaborating Centre for Values Based Practice in Health and Social Care since 2017. She is also a founder editor and now a Senior Editor for the Biomed Central open access journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. She works with NHS clinicians, researchers, the third sector, patients, and carers to develop research and quality improvement for eating disorders and values based practice. Her vision is to co-develop interdisciplinary eating disorder, child and adolescent mental health and ethics research and innovation projects together with patients, families, other clinicians, other sectors and agencies and academic partners, which examines issues at the coalface of treatment and thereby directly improves mental healthcare and wellbeing for young people and for eating disorders across the lifespan in Wales.
Twitter: @DrJacintaTan @CWTCHGwent @CelebrateBody