- DEMENTIA RESEARCHER - https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk -

Profile – Piers Kotting

Name:

Piers Kotting

Job title:

Programme Director

Place of work / study:

Office of the NIHR National Director for Dementia, University College London

Area of Research:

Developing capacity, capability and infrastructure to support development and delivery of dementia research, across the full spectrum of health and social care clinical research.

How is your work funded:

National Institute for Health Research

Tell us a little about yourself:

I’ve been working in NIHR land since just before it became the NIHR, first setting up DeNDRoN and now supporting Martin Rossor in his role as NIHR National Director for Dementia Research. I’m also an honorary associate professor at University of Exeter, and a trustee of a small award winning [1] charity, My Life Films, that makes biographical films for people with dementia. Big England Cricket fan, fair-weather Nottingham Forest fan and amateur smoker of meat, fish and cheese.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself:

Arriving predictably late, I got to sit next to Mark Crossley at his testimonial dinner. Probably only a ‘fun’ fact to diehard Forest Fans, or very observant Wales fans!

Why did you choose to work in dementia?

On my first day of work as an 18 year old I found myself on an NHS elderly care ward, with my only training being a 2hr ‘safe lifting and handling’ course, attending to the needs of an elderly lady with advanced dementia.  Over the next 5 years working across a range of NHS, social care and private provider environments, I worked a lot with people with dementia, and experienced plenty of things that didn’t seem right.

Twitter name:

Follow @PKotting [2]