Meet the Waiting Room Team

Freddie Peel - Head of Strategy and Transformation | Co-founder of Waiting Room

Fred is a manager with over 15 years’ experience in local mental health services and is deeply committed to advancing mental health care in the UK.  With experience in clinic operations, business analysis, project and programme management, user experience design, product management, service mobilisation, quality improvement and strategy, Fred is a proud generalist.

With a business development mindset and an interest in all things Lean, he favours Agile principles and a visual collaboration and management approach in all his work. Fred’s fascinated by emerging AI and XR technologies and has high hopes for their potential to improve care, prevention and training in mental healthcare.

He is passionate about the power of design thinking, visual collaboration and co-production to transform how healthcare is delivered.

Dr Rosa Town - Waiting Room Network Lead | Co-founder of Waiting Room

Rosa is the Network Lead for Waiting Room, helping everyone understand the wellbeing options available to them or someone they’re supporting. She manages both our growing community of practice and all aspects of the platform’s technical operations.

Rosa has extensive experience designing, conducting, analysing, and reporting on evaluations of clinical, community and school-based mental health services. Having completed her MSc in developmental psychology and clinical practice with distinction at the Anna Freud Centre and University College London (UCL), she went on to recently complete her PhD at UCL in child and adolescent mental health.

Rosa’s professional interests include self-management, LGBTQ+ adolescents’ emotional health, shared decision making, service development and digital wellbeing interventions. In her spare time, she enjoys doing yoga, reading fiction and travelling to new and interesting places.

Hannah Benn Gordon - Waiting Room Website Manager

Hannah is the Website Manager for Waiting Room, supporting young people, their families and professionals understand and access wellbeing options available to them.

Hannah’s background spans various roles in the charity sector and in primary care. More recently, she worked as an assistant psychologist for the KeepingWell NCL Hub, a service providing support to health and social care staff across NCL and as a research assistant evaluating CAMHS services in NCL. Hannah believes in the important role that service user involvement and co-production play in the development and improvement of mental health service delivery.

Hannah’s passion lies in integrating therapeutic practices with proficient project management skills to tackle social inequalities, integrating co-design practices, and embedding trauma-informed ways of working at all levels. She loves running, being with her friends and travelling the world (she recently got back from a 4 month trip across Asia).

Grizelda Khaling - Waiting Room Project Research Assistant

After completing her MSc in Psychological therapies and Mental Health, Grizelda became really interested in child and adolescent mental health as well as the importance of giving underrepresented communities a voice and influence within research. She believes in approaching both research and practice with cultural humility, aiming to be self-reflective and trying to learn from others. Through her internship at Anna Freud, she learned the value of co-producing research with young people and their families. Her own background of waiting for treatment from CAMHS gave her a passion for wanting to improve current services for young people and their families and she is excited to be part of a project that can help those who are waiting for treatment. 

In her spare time, she likes to read, crochet, and play video-games.

Becca Paul - Waiting Room Project Research Assistant

Becca has a breadth of experience across research and clinical work. Her undergraduate degree in psychology has laid the foundation of her clinical understanding, which informed her work both as an Assistant Psychologist in cancer support and a Shout volunteer offering crisis mental health support. Becca’s recent role in market research has developed her skills in project management, evaluation, and data analysis in the context of behavioural economics.

Becca is interested in the intersection between physical and mental health, tailoring therapeutic approaches to individual needs, and increasing access to high quality psychological support. Outside of work, she can be found reading, crocheting, playing football, and exploring London.

Kate Hurst - Trainee Health Psychologist

Kate is a Trainee Health Psychologist and is passionate about optimising individuals’ mental and physical wellbeing and supporting lasting positive change. She creates evidence-based, actionable content for the Waiting Room platform, providing young people, parents, adults and professionals with simple tools and strategies to enhance their daily wellbeing and mindset. Kate is leading on a research initiative to understand user experiences of the platform, ensuring it continues to meet the evolving needs of it’s audience. With her expertise, Kate is uniquely positioned to design and deliver tailored interventions and training for the diverse user groups, and she is excited to help the platform grow and reach its full potential.

Dr Emilios Lemoniatis - Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist | Co-founder of Waiting Room

Emilios is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and one of the early co-founders of Waiting Room. The initial concepts for Waiting Room emerged from our collaborative work with young people, and it is a pleasure to see these ideas in action every day.

Emilios’ commitment lies in developing clinical services that are engaging, meaningful, and can function alongside traditional clinical work or as evidence-based interventions. In his daily practice, he combines his training as a Child Psychiatrist and Systemic Family Therapist with a well-honed Design Thinking approach. This unique blend allows him to swiftly develop creative solutions that work in the real world.

His mentors include incredible designers and design companies, who have become valued colleagues over the years. His work with children and young people has made him a champion of Ethical Based Design, and he is proud to be part of the Designing for Children’s Rights Network. This philosophy has significantly influenced the design and development of Waiting Room.

Additionally, he leverages his extensive experience as a Senior Digital Specialist to ensure services are built on a robust technical foundation. This expertise not only supports our current initiatives but also drives innovation, enabling us to continually enhance and expand our offerings.

Dr Rachel James - Director of Therapies and Clinical Governance | Senior Responsible Officer for Waiting Room

A Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Rachel trained at the Tavistock before returning in 2003 to work across a range of clinical services at the Trust, becoming its Clinical Services Director in 2022 and Director of Therapies and Clinical Governance in 2024. Rachel believes in personalised care and is committed to promoting an agile, thoughtful response to the challenges within mental health and the wellbeing landscape.

Nia - Waiting Room Community Consultant

Nia is from London, studying Medicine and has always had an interest in making mental health accessible and understandable for young people from a range of backgrounds, especially BAME. Nia wanted to get involved in developing NCL Waiting Room because it provided her with the unique opportunity of actively being able to see her input and ideas of how to better one’s mental health support progress from her own firsthand experience and relationship with therapy and counselling. 

Hannah Gray - Waiting Room Community Consultant

Hannah is a research assistant in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London, and she is interested in social approaches to understanding and supporting mental health. Hannah wanted to get involved in developing NCL Waiting Room because she is excited about the potential for the service to offer a source of support during the difficult time that many young people spend waiting to access therapy. 

Arshan - Waiting Room Community Consultant

Arshan is from Camden, studying Health and Social Care and interested in systematic change that will better the holistic care for young people. Arshan wanted to get involved in developing NCL Waiting Room as his personal experience with CAMHS is much alike the countless other young people still on the waitlist for an assessment and wanted to be a part of the initial team that’s shaping a potentially life-changing support ‘app’, so to speak, like NCL Waiting Room.

Paula Rimmer - UX Design Consultant for Waiting Room

Paula is a qualified UX Designer with a diploma from the UX Design Institute. She has a passion for enhancing user experiences and making digital information easily accessible for all users. She has previously worked as a teacher for over 25 years, much of that time as a senior leader. She has first-hand experience of working with outside agencies that support children and young people with neurodiverse profiles, including health care professionals primarily from the NHS. She is familiar with the processes involved and the inherent challenges parents face in accessing support for their children and young people.

Dr Jacob Ellis, MBBS, MRCPsych - Psychiatry Liaison Advisor for Waiting Room

Dr Jacob Ellis is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist working in the liaison service at University College London Hospitals. He works clinically with young people experiencing mental health emergencies who live across North Central London (and beyond).

He has been an enthusiastic collaborator with The Waiting Room since the early stages of its development, connecting the team with paediatric, psychiatry and primary care colleagues. As part of his role training other doctors, Dr Jacob Ellis shares how The Waiting Room can be used to identify bespoke community resources, helping young people access the care that they need.