Lisa Harrison 1967 - 2026
TalkingAllowed
Talking Allowed works at the intersection of communication, the arts, and education. We are passionate about finding ways to improve the human interaction between, and amongst, healthcare professionals, patients and relatives. Our training directly addresses the significant dilemmas that challenging conversations can present to clinicians, whilst also recognising the importance of prioritising patients’ and relatives’ needs.
Our continued involvement in theatre brings a unique quality to the work we do: health professionals of all grades tell us unfailingly how helpful they find it to watch and interact with skilled actors in role. Combined with expert facilitation and our proven abilities to draw upon the experience in the room, our training creates an ideal learning environment for all participants.
Talking Allowed was co-founded by Patrick Morris and Lisa Harrison
Patrick Morris is the Director of Talking Allowed. He has worked in the field of medical communication for over 20 years. He is a skilled facilitator and role-player, influenced primarily by a career as an arts practitioner. In partnership with Lisa Harrison, he has developed training for IMG Psychiatry Trainees, for LTFT returning-to-work Trainees, and a communications course around DNACPR issues. Alongside Talking Allowed, he is Co-Artistic Director of Menagerie Theatre Company in Cambridge where he runs the Ideas Stage, a programme of artistic work which has academic research as its inspiration. He is currently collaborating with researchers at Oxford and Sheffield Universities on a public engagement project. Other projects include: The Very Space of Absence with The Good Death Project at Cambridge University, to develop workshops around death, dying and mortality; ‘Not Quite Right’, with The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute in Cambridge; ‘Human Rights! Bloody Human Rights!’ with Amnesty International & Queen Mary College London; and ‘Pictures of You’, a collaboration with the MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, exploring bipolar disorder.
Lisa Harrison was an experienced facilitator, role-player and creative practitioner. Her background was in theatre. She toured extensively across Europe, Canada and the UK, performing in venues such as Warwick Arts Centre and West Yorkshire Playhouse. For many years a Visiting Lecturer at the Universities of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and De Montfort, she went on to use the arts more broadly in educational, medical and community settings, working with people from all backgrounds and of all ages and abilities. She initiated creative projects which brought people together who might otherwise not meet, for example working in fragmented diverse communities, and with the lonely and the isolated living with dementia.
She first collaborated with Patrick Morris in 1999 on a project which focused on attitudes to death. This sowed the seed for their long-term partnership, co-facilitating training with a focus on difficult conversations. Very sadly, Lisa died in early 2026. Please follow this link, for a further appreciation of her work.
