Welcome to the Tuke Institute website

What this organisation is about:

The Tuke Institute is an independent, international think-tank and policy organisation aiming to create change in health-services for the public’s benefit. It aims to promote methods and standards in medicine and medical science so that their practice meets the complete needs of people with illness. Its vision is to translate the reality of illness into health-effective medical practice, an approach that integrates all the domains of medicine (prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation); all the professional domains within clinical medicine (nursing, physical, mental, and social medicine); and welcomes contributions from diverse traditions of medicine.

What is distinctive about this organisation:

A majority of the founding contributors consisted of professionals within medicine who have chronic illness themselves and understand the experience of both medical service use and its delivery. These contributors have had to live with and care for others with a range of illnesses including: HIV, viral hepatitis, stroke, infertility, brain injury, cancer, psychosis, mood disorders, heart disease, diabetes, post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, and asthma. Some are permanently disabled. In total, the contributors represented five nationalities, with experience of seven national medical systems, and provide services in nursing, physical, mental, behavioural, social, and preventative medicine, as clinicians, scientists, and community-based service providers.

Some of these contributors continue in the new Public and Providers’ Advisory Group. The remainder has been gratefully acknowledged in the relevant page. Since then, the Organisational and the Scientists’ Advisory Groups have been developed and are continuing the vision of this founding group (see under “Who We Are”).