Nathan Filer

‘I’ll tell you what happened because it’s a good way to introduce my bother. His name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him, I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be dead. And he was never the same after that.’

Have you ever read a line in a book that’s stuck in your mind for days afterwards?

Nathan Filer’s debut novel ‘The Shock of the Fall’ received widespread critical acclaim when it was published in 2013.

It tackled a difficult subject – mental health, and told the story of a young man dealing with his grief at the death of his brother, along with his experiences of health care services for schizophrenia.

Mental health is a subject Nathan’s passionate about, having obtained a first-class honours degree in Mental Health Nursing in 2005.

He worked as a staff nurse in an acute psychiatric ward before taking up a role in mental health research at the University of Bristol.

He’s an outspoken critic of government cuts to NHS mental health care services, and has written about this for The Guardian newspaper. He’s also spoken about these issues on national radio and given numerous lectures at universities, conferences and charities.

In 2014 he was named as a Nursing Times Nursing Leader for influencing the way the public thinks about mental illness and mental health nursing.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Abertay in 2015.