Mr David Neal
Mr David Neal
Head of Policy and Deputy Director
National Research Ethics Service
National Patient Safety Agency
London
David Neal is the Head of Policy and Deputy Director at the National Research Ethics Service (a division of the National Patient Safety Agency in England), with particular responsibility for ethics committee procedure, the Integrated Research Application System and collaborations with regulatory bodies. He is a graduate of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, where he studied History and German. From 1985-2000 he was a career civil servant in the Home Office. Early postings included co-authorship of an efficiency scrutiny of the Charity Commission, which was published in 1987, and work on terrorism legislation. He later specialised in prison issues, leading the development of Prison Service policy on prisoners' family ties, staff training, racial equality and particularly suicide prevention, for which he won a Butler Trust Award. From 2000 to 2005 he was a member of a Research Ethics Committee in Hertfordshire, serving as the Co-ordinator until September 2003 when he joined the Central Office for Research Ethics Committees (COREC), now NRES.