Timothy Skinner

Timothy trained as a Health Psychologist at the University of Surrey, with his PhD focusing on the social support and illness beliefs of adolescents with type 1 diabetes. He then went on to develop a psycho-educational program with Dr Helen Murphy for families and teenagers with type 1 diabetes. Following two clinical trials of the program it has been delivered as part of routine care in some paediatric diabetes services in the UK. Timothy then extended his research into the psycho-social aspects of type 2 diabetes. Working with the Portsmouth (UK), diabetes service he co led the development of a self-management education program for people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. This was then further refined and became the DESMOND program. This was then tested in a multi-centre randomised controlled trial, and then subsequently rolled out across the UK. It is now delivered as part of routine primary or specialist care across the UK, Ireland, Australia and parts of New Zealand.
In 2007 Timothy moved to Australia and in 2008 to rural Australia and has continued to work on rural health and health care since. This has led to his extending his work on diabetes to diabetes prevention, the role of sleep in shaping our physical, social and emotional well-being. This work has led to the established for the Rural Health Sleep Team (RHeST) with colleagues at the La Trobe Rural Health School, University of Western Australia, Federation University and the University of Queensland. This work includes exploring the role of sleep quality and the health of Indigenous Australians, the impact of rural health work on sleep quality, providing sleep health services for rural Australians.
Timothy continues to work on a number of projects relating to the health and health care of rural and remote Australians and Australian communities.