Anne Phillips is a Queens Nurse and a National Teaching Fellow with the Higher Education Academy. After a career in specialist and community diabetes nursing in London and Yorkshire, Anne works with colleagues at Birmingham City University and has established a countrywide and international collaborative curriculum for Health Professionals in Diabetes Care. Anne’s doctorate studies concerned invigorating diabetes health professional education to meet service and client centred needs. Anne has published 102 peer reviewed articles and edited ‘Principles of Diabetes Care" which was published in 2017 in its 2nd edition. She has just edited ‘Diabetes: At a Glance’ to encourage student nurses to enter the specialism of working alongside people with diabetes. She has been an editorial member for the European Medical Journal Diabetes Series and UK
Catherine Ren Lawlor
Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Academic Tutor
South East London Training Hub Director at The Good Practitioner - Education and Training
Ren Lawlor is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Independent Prescriber in London and the south east. She currently works as the academic tutor and advanced practice lead for the South East London Training Hub and is a visiting lecturer for various universities including the University of Greenwich. Ren has a special interest in respiratory disease in primary care and is the vice chair for executive committee, and the chair for the education committee for the Primary Care Respiratory Society (PCRS-UK). Ren is the founder and director of The Good Practitioner - Education and Training.
Helen has special interest and expertise in vaccination and immunisation and public health nursing. She has had a varied career across general nursing, midwifery, practice nursing, health visiting and specialist health protection including working for Local Authority teams, and at the Royal College of Nursing as the Professional Lead for public health nursing. She currently works independently, as a nurse consultant and trainer in immunisation and at the University of Hertfordshire as senior lecturer. Helen is also the Chair of the Self-Care forum a national charity working across health and wider organisations to further the reach of self-care.
Dr Catherine Heffernan
Director of Health Improvement & SWL Public Health Consultant
SWL ICB & South London Partnership
Dr Catherine Heffernan is currently SWL Public Health Consultant at the Southwest London Integrated Care System and Director of Health Improvement at SWL ICB. She’s also a visiting senior lecturer at King’s College London. She has over 15 years’ experience working on immunisations, including 9 years as Principal Public Health Advisor for Early Years, Immunisations and Vaccination Services at Public Health England and NHS England (London Region). She has also published widely on improving vaccine uptake and coverage.
Dr Jude A Oben
Consultant Gastroenterologist-Hepatologist
Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital
Dr Oben is an Academic Clinician Scientist and Consultant Gastroenterologist-Hepatologist at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, London. He studied medicine at Oxford (St John’s College) and Stanford University, USA. He has a PhD in Pharmacology from University College London. His initial post-graduate medical training was at Imperial College London, followed by training in eye surgery before changing to Hepatology. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Hepatology at Johns Hopkins University, USA. He is an Associate Professor in Experimental Hepatology at King's College London. His main research interests are Obesity along with Liver disease in Obesity and type 2 Diabetes.
Prof Omar Usmani
Professor of Respiratory Medicine, & Consultant Physician
Imperial College London, & Royal Brompton Hospital and St Mary’s Hospital London
Omar Usmani MB BS, PhD, FHEA, FRCP, FERS, is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London & Consultant Physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital (RBH) and St Mary's Hospital London. He is Clinical Director of Respiratory Trials at ICRRU (Imperial College Respiratory Research Unit).
His Clinical Specialist areas are Asthma, COPD and Chronic Cough. He is Group Leader of the Clinical Research Group within the Airway Disease Section at NHLI and a Principal Investigator. His Research Themes are Inhaled Drug Delivery, Small Airways Physiology, Lung Imaging, Respiratory Pharmacology and Tele-monitoring / E-health.
Jacqueline Brereton
Paediatric & Adult Respiratory Nurse Consultant
Healthier South Wirral PCN
Jacqui has specialised in respiratory medicine since 1989, having worked as a specialist nurse in both primary and secondary care. She has developed many respiratory training packages for healthcare professionals leading to a higher diploma award accredited by Liverpool University.
Jacqui has not only worked for the NHS experience but has also worked for a short period in medical marketing for MSD as she wanted to appreciate how clinical research studies were conceived. She supported the launch of Montelukast working with healthcare professionals across Europe.
In 1992 she was awarded a Medical Community Award by the Association of British Insurers for her work in respiratory care within the local communities. Jacqui worked for nearly five years across six countries in the Middle East supporting doctors and nurses with the Asthma Diploma programme from Edge Hill University.
Jacqui continued her interest in research on returning to the UK by working on the Salford Lung Study – the world’s first ‘real-world effectiveness study’. Now working as a Respiratory Nurse Consultant for Healthier South Wirral. Here she leads and supports nurses across six GP practices in all aspects of respiratory care. Respiratory care has been Jacqui’s passion and love for over 33 years. However, she appreciates most Healthcare Professionals are not as lucky as her at being able to focus on one area of patient only, therefore she strides to support them as much as possible and work in partnership with them.
Dr Rajay Narain MRCP (U.K)
Hon Consultant Cardiologist and Hon.Director
St Georges University Hospital, London, and Global Health Alliance, UK
Dr Narain works as a Honorary Heart Failure Cardiologist at St. Georges University Hospital, London. Dr Narain has set up U.K. 1st Cardio Metabolic Clinic in the NHS, U.K. to look after high risk patients & is helping several countries in setting up this service. Dr Narain is the founder and Director of Global Health Alliance UK, which is a consortium of leading universities and hospitals of UK.He is also Cardiology Advsior to Govt of Ukraine, India & Ireland.
Mr Niraj Lakhani
Lead Clinical Pharmacist and Superintendent Pharmacist
Pharmacist Adviser to the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) for Primary Care Development
Niraj is currently the lead clinical pharmacist for the largest primary care provider in Leicester, Willows Health. As the pharmacist transformational lead and developmental lead, he oversees a team of 12 pharmacy professionals and is responsible for their professional development and ensuring clinical excellence through governance standards.
As a pharmacist primary care development adviser for the Royal College of General Practitioners, Niraj is also involved in the development and quality improvement of general practice and delivery of care. Having completed his PG Dip in clinical pharmacy, including independent prescribing, he is also currently the pharmacist training lead for the Willows academy working closely with medical and pharmacy schools to help train tomorrow’s healthcare professionals. Niraj has also completed the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP) for primary care pharmacists.
His work within long term conditions and the projects he has been instrumental in have been acknowledged amongst some of the key lead drivers of change and improvement in local healthcare landscape and have rippled to influence change in the UK, providing him a platform to showcase the excellent progressive work which his entire team have all been instrumental in achieving. He is currently the primary care lead for the innovative iCKD/LUCID (Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland Chronic Kidney Disease Integrated Care Delivery) project and has worked closely with the UK Kidney Association (UKKA) to develop a peer-led consensus report on all future UKKA guidelines, along with helping mobilise the roll out of the KFRE calculations nationwide. Niraj has more recently founded the pioneering Willows Health Centre for CaReMe Excellence which aims to take population health management approach to lower local health inequalities and improve outcomes for high-risk patients in Leicester. Niraj’s team’s work in the proactive management for respiratory and cardiovascular-renal metabolic diseases has received merit and contributed to his team being named highly commended PCN of the Year and was used as examples of best practice, along with their role in research and new treatment discovery as a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) accredited centre.
Julie Stanton
Director of Nursing- Community Telehealth
Pioneer wound healing and Lymphoedema centres
Julie has been a Tissue viability nurse within the community for the past 28 years and has developed TV services within Birmingham and South Staffordshire. She is a qualified lymphoedema nurse and has combined the 2 specialist roles for the past 20 years. She has worked for the FHSA developing general practice services and prior to this was a District nurse . Julie is a trainer for the lymphoedema training academy and also a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University, teaching on the leg ulcer management degree module and the Masters degree . She is currently working as a Director of nursing as part of the Pioneer wound healing and lymphoedema centres team.
Dr George Kassianos CBE
National Immunisation Lead RCGP, President British Global & Travel Health Association
Berkshire
Dr George Kassianos has been the National Immunisation Lead for the RCGP since 1996. He is President of the British Global & Travel Health Association and Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine RCPS Glasgow and The International Society of Travel Medicine. He chairs the Pan- European Group on influenza RAISE (Raise Awareness of Influenza Strategies in Europe – 20 European countries and Israel) and is Board Member of the European Working Group on Influenza (ESWI). In 2021, Her Majesty the Queen awarded Dr Kassianos the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for services to Primary Care and Travel medicine.