We met Claire Illingworth and Emma Woodberry, joint heads of the Neuropsychology Department, to find out more about their role at CUH.
What’s your role in our hospitals?
We work as consultant clinical psychologists and are the joint heads of the Neuropsychology Department. The department is a small team of 10 psychologists and two secretaries. It specialises in the cognitive, emotional and behavioural effects of brain injury and neurological disease. We receive referrals mainly from neurologists, neurosurgeons and specialist nurses with primary questions about a patient’s cognitive functioning and how best we can help them.
We work with patients with a range of neurological disorders including patients with young onset Alzheimer’s disease, rare dementias, epilepsy, stroke, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, encephalitis, MND, Parkinson’s disease, Long Covid (Brain Fog) and many other disorders of the brain.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
We run a small and cohesive team. Everyone is hard working, committed and passionate about what they do. We have a great relationship with the neurologists, neurosurgeons, nurses and allied health professionals and we both feel privileged to do a job we thoroughly enjoy.
A lot of our work is like a jigsaw and we have to work out how it all fits together, considering what has happened to a person’s brain and how this has affected their personality, their behaviour and their emotions. The work is fascinating because we often see some unusual and rare conditions.
We are always learning and getting the chance to be around some of the best professionals in their field is really very inspiring.
Tell us a bit about your CUH journey.
We have known each other for over twenty years and although our paths have crossed several times over the years, we have had quite different journeys. We get on really well and have lots of fun together doing a job we are passionate about, and striving to improve the department for our patients and staff. What’s great about this is that we bring something different to the team and our skills and experience complement each other well.
Claire
I did a degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Forensic Psychology. I worked as an assistant psychologist in two forensic settings, one in London and one in Nottinghamshire at Rampton High Security Hospital. Little did I know that Emma was also working there at the same time as an assistant psychologist. I initially thought I wanted to work in the Prison Service but decided to train as a clinical psychologist to gain broader experience. I obtained my Doctorate in 2002 from the University of East Anglia and then worked in community Old Age Mental Health in Cambridgeshire. In 2008, I was seconded to CUH for a day a week to work on a research project looking at the effects of brain injury on children where my role was to carry out assessments of their cognition. Soon after I moved to CUH to work in Paediatrics as a psychologist in the Cleft, Lip and Palate Team.
I stayed in the Service for 12 years working in various teams including Cardiology, Neurology, Disorders of Sexual Development and General Paediatrics. I loved my time working with children and their families but in 2020 decided I wanted a change and joined the Neuropsychology department covering a period of maternity leave. When Covid hit the week after I joined the service, I quickly realised this was a team I wanted to work in long term. Everyone rallied round, supported each other and at all times kept the patient at the forefront of what they did. We rapidly changed the way we worked and moved all our assessments remotely whilst setting up a staff support service with other psychologists at CUH. I was fortunate to have my post extended and then in 2021 I applied for and was appointed as the Joint Head.
Emma
I did a degree in Psychology followed by a PhD in Neuropsychology. While I was at university as an undergraduate I became fascinated by how the brain works and how changes to brain function impacted on a person’s thinking, feelings or behaviour. My PhD examined cognitive impairment (problems in thinking) and depression in Parkinson’s disease, using PET (Positron Emission Tomography) imaging techniques. I then worked as a post-doc and lecturer, mostly doing work using functional MRI, specifically investigating dyslexia and then I decided to train to be a clinical psychologist.
In order to do that I had to get a job as an assistant psychologist, and I worked at Rampton High Security prison for a year before training to be a clinical psychologist at UEA. Neuropsychology has always been my passion. For many years I worked with Microsoft Research in Cambridge, publishing papers on how a wearable camera could help people with memory problems to remember past events. I have been Head of Department for 11 years.
My job is always fascinating, and the patients are a joy to work with. They teach us so much. Not a day goes by when I am not learning.
We both love working in a highly respected acute hospital where we feel we can make a real difference to people’s lives. We often see patients and families when they are at their most vulnerable and to be able to be part of that is really rewarding.
What does a usual day look like?
We feel strongly that as Heads of Department it is important to maintain a clinical role despite the many competing demands on our time. This benefits patients in terms of our knowledge and experience and also others in the team in terms of their learning. A typical day involves seeing patients, attending multi-disciplinary team meetings and management meetings, supervising others in the department and often meeting with colleagues about issues related to patients and service delivery.
We might give a talk to our colleagues or other health professionals locally or nationally. We might have a new assessment with a diagnostic question around the person’s cognition – for example, do they have Alzheimer’s or another dementia or has this person’s brain injury caused a change in their personality or behaviour. And, we would typically also see patients for rehabilitation, offering advice and strategies as well as supporting patients adjust to difficult diagnoses and speaking to spouses of people with rare dementias. Claire will often see many of the younger patients as Claire has more experience with this age group and some of that work will involve liaising with schools or colleges and supporting family members. Emma will often see the more complex diagnostic cases.
How do you feel your role benefits our patients?
We think our role benefits patients in many ways.
We often contribute to decisions about complex diagnoses and offer ongoing support to patients and families managing difficult situations.
We support with surgical procedures, specifically pre and post-surgery for epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and gliomas (brain tumours). For example when the neurosurgeons carry out awake craniotomies for brain tumours, we assess a person’s language pre, during and post-surgery. We know that awake surgeries can reduce early and permanent morbidity, reduce stays in hospital and improve chances of recovery, so this is an important role. We offer education and advice about cognition to people which can be reassuring and helpful and our inpatient team work closely with all the MDT to characterise a patient’s cognition whilst in hospital, support families and offer advice regarding discharge.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to join your field?
To be a psychologist you have to be interested in people and fascinated by how people think, feel and behave the way they do.
It is a long journey to be a psychologist often requiring you to have a degree, sometimes a MSc or PhD after which you will work as an assistant gaining some clinical or research skills before applying for a three year training course. Once you qualify you can then choose to specialise in different areas, neuropsychology is one of those areas. You can then choose to do further qualifications and courses in your chosen area.
There are many neuropsychology departments across the UK but most are rehab based. There are only a small number run from an acute hospital like ours and the service is unique in that we offer advice around assessment diagnosis, support and rehabilitation early on in a patient’s journey.