Bernie McInally

Bernie McInally
Masters, BSc, RMN

I am a Clinical Studies Officer with ENRICH Scotland and the NHS Lothian Dementia Research Network (NDN), covering Edinburgh, Lothian, the Scottish Borders, and Dumfries and Galloway. My background is in mental health nursing, where I spent 25 years working as a Community Psychiatric Nurse in Older Adult Mental Health Teams, developing extensive experience in dementia diagnosis and treatment as an independent prescriber through GP-based clinics.

I have been involved in research since the NDN was established in 2010, initially alongside my clinical role, and am now semi-retired and working solely in research.I completed my Registered Mental Nurse (RMN) training in the mid-1980s at South Lothian College of Nursing, before going on to study a BSc in Community Mental Health Nursing at Queen Margaret University in the early 2000s. I was awarded a Master’s in Health Research from the University of Stirling in 2010 and became a registered Independent Prescriber in 2012.

In terms of my research interests, through my ENRICH Scotland CSO role I work to promote and facilitate research involvement within care homes, building relationships between researchers and care home settings to support study delivery. Through my NDN CSO role, I now work primarily as an experienced rater in clinical drug trials, with a particular focus on dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

Clinically, I work at the Western General Hospital two to three times per month, contributing to these trials as an experienced rater.