Professor Jean V. McHale

• LLB (Hons) (Manchester)
• MPhil (Manchester)

Prior to taking up her chair at the  University of Birmingham in  Jean previously taught at the Universities of East Anglia, Nottingham, Manchester and Leicester.

• Legal Issues in Health Care (LLB)
• Health Law and the EU (LLM)
• Human Rights and Health Care Law (LLM)

Health, Health Care Law and Social Care Law in particular,

Health Law and the EU and the impacts of Brexit
Covid 19 and health and social care
Health Care Privacy and Confidentiality
Legal Regulation of Cosmetic procedures
Legal Regulation of Use of Human Material
Legal Regulation of Clinical Research

Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Jean McHale is Professor of Healthcare Law and Director of the Centre for Health Law Science and Policy at the University of Birmingham.  Her recent books include The Regulation of Cosmetic Procedures; Legal Ethical and Practical Considerations (Routledge 2020) with Melanie Latham , Principles of Medical Law (4th ed) (OUP 2017)  co-edited with Judy Lang and European Health Law: Themes and Implications (CUP, 2015) , with Tamara Hervey. 

She has received funding as PI and Co- I from the ESRC, AHRC, NIHR, British Academy and  Wellcome Trust. She is currently the PI on the ESRC  Covid-19 Rapid Response Grant "Removing Rights from the Vulnerable? The Impact of Covid-19 social care easements" (November 2020- July 2022)." She has previously been invited to give evidence in person in relation to her work in European Health Law to the House of Lords European Committee and House of Commons Health Committee. She has also presented her work to members of the Scottish Parliament and  Scottish Government.

• Director of the Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy

She has given evidence to the House of Commons Health Select Committee in relation to its inquiries in relation to Brexit and healthcare in February 2017 and in November 2017. She has also given evidence to the House of Lords Home Affairs and Health Sub-Committee on the implication of Brexit for patient mobility and health care rights in October 2017. She was cited in the Inquiry Reports of the Select Committees. She has also been invited to present her research findings on Brexit and Health and Social Care in Scotland, to Members of the Scottish Parliament and Parliamentary officials in 2018 and in 2019.

Her Scottish Parliament podcast of presentation with Elizabeth Speakman on the impacts of Brexit for Scotland at the Scottish Parliament in February 2019 was issued by the Parliament as a podcast

She is a Trustee of Coventry Law Centre

Her external activities also have included being the legal member of Ethics and Governance Committee of the Airwave Health Monitoring Study which is being run jointly by the Home Office and Imperial College London. Previously she served as a member of the Promise of the Human Genome Panel of the DTI Health Task Force (1999-2000). She was a member of UK Biobank Interim Ethics and Governance Advisory Group 2003-4. She was a member of the UK Advisory Panel for Health Care Workers Affected by Blood Borne Viruses (206-2010). She was commissioned to write a Paper on Confidentiality and Mental Health for the Expert Committee chaired by Professor Genevra Richardson into the review of the Mental Health Act 1983, published in 1999. 

Her Brexit work has been reported in the National media:

• The Express, 29 September 2018
• Chemistry World, 13 September 2018
• The Guardian, 7 August 2018
• The Independent, 30 May 2017
• The Huffington Post, 21st February 2017

She made a broadcast on 38 degrees Facebook Live session on Brexit and the NHS on the 4th December.

She was interviewed on BBC Radio Northern Ireland for their lunchtime Talk Back programme on 4th December.