David Weatherill is a retired chartered engineer and company director who has experienced three operable cancers over a period of three years. In addition, he has developed several comorbidities over his lifetime including COPD and Diabetes Type 2. As a result, he has significant personal experience of the delivery of NHS services as a patient over many years.
David has worked both in the public and private sectors of industry within the UK and Southern Africa. After leaving University, he continued his education on a part time basis over a period of three years to attain Chartered Engineer status within the Institute of Civil Engineers and Institute of Municipal Engineers.
Within the public sector he worked on construction projects in the UK including new roadworks and major bridge design within new towns in Scotland. On taking up a new overseas role, David worked on the design, construction and maintenance of new towns on behalf of major mining companies who were extracting rare minerals throughout Southern Africa.
On returning to the UK, he decided to take the opportunity to advance his career through part time study whilst working in the engineering design sector. He gained two Master Degrees, one from Glasgow University (M.ENG) and the second from Strathclyde University (MBA).
David lives in Dundee and following recovery from cancer has been active in the provision of voluntary patient support of the NHS across the UK. He was a member of the Lay Committee within the Royal College of Anaesthetists for four years followed by four years as a lay Examiner with the Royal College of Surgeons. Over the most recent years, he has acted as a PPI Lead on several research projects undertaken by Edinburgh University.
David is particularly interested in developing novel ways of researching illnesses using “big data” such as that being undertaken across the whole of the UK (COALESCE) which is analysing data on four separate TRE’s to develop a UK wide project. He is keen to be involved as a member of the Public Advisory Board, to play a part in ensuring the work of HDR UK can deliver UK wide solutions to health improvements for patients