Cherise Gyimah is a pharmacist living in the United Kingdom, with extensive experience in managing polypharmacy and deprescribing, care co-ordination, transfer of care and managing medicines in social care settings. She has worked as a Specialist Pharmacy Advisor with the Care Quality Commission and supported the work of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), reviewing their quick guides for social care providers, as well as presenting on their series of webinars.

Emma is a director of Autism Wellbeing CIC – a small team of professionals and clinicians united by a desire to find ways for autistic and non-autistic people to collaborate equitably and successfully. Her professional career spans 25 years within social care as a support worker, registered service manager, and in service development and commissioner relationships. Emma is a PhD researcher and has qualifications in community mental health, management, and counselling, and holds a MA in Professional Practice. Emma is chair of the Welsh Government neurodivergence ministerial advisory group. Emma has diagnoses of autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia.

Karen Duggan, Specialist Health Advisor and Dementia Project Manager, works as a specialist manager for MacIntyre with a strategic responsibility for all aspects of health and wellbeing of people MacIntyre support. Karen currently manages MacIntyre’s Dementia Project, which was set up following an Innovation, Excellence and Strategic Development Fund Award. Her background is as a clinical Occupational Therapist and she has specialised in learning disability, brain injury and mental health.

Emma Hewat is an Independent Dementia and Learning & Development Consultant. As a Dementia specialist, Emma is passionate about improving the lives of those who care for the most vulnerable people in our society by providing programmes of education and learning to the health and social care workforce. Emma is a Dementia Practice Development Coach (DPDC) and specialises in Dementia Care Mapping, Internal Verification and the Mental Capacity Act.

Helen Ibbotson (CMIOSH) is a highly qualified Health and Safety Practitioner at Safety Wise with over thirty years’ experience. Helen has a particular interest in the provision of care, support and housing for vulnerable people, and in the risks that arise from this provision to carers and support workers. Helen has advised on a wide range of vulnerabilities and the associated risks to workers. Helen is familiar with care and support settings and also in the particular issues which arise when delivering services in people’s own homes, where there is much less control over the environment. Helen has expertise across the range of relevant risks, from cleaning chemicals to electric shock, from infestations to challenging behaviour and always considers risks posed to the service user as well as those affecting the worker.

Therese has worked in aged care for around 17 years, starting in the United Kingdom as a personal care assistant. She has won an industry award in 2005 while working as a Recreational Activities Officer for Improvement of Quality of Life for Residents (Aged & Community Services Industry Award). Therese went on to train as an Occupational Therapist and worked in Vocational Rehabilitation for 4 years, before joining Montefiore Homecare in 2014 as Homecare Coordinator.

Mark Palmer has worked in the area of fire safety since the mid 90’s. He worked for a leading Fire Extinguisher company, as a Service Engineer, Field Training Manager and is currently Director for Help and Safety at Work Ltd, providing Fire Training and Fire Risk Assessment support to a variety of clients including care homes.

Dr Catherine Millington-Sanders is an experienced clinician with a demonstrated history of working in health, social care and corporate industry. Catherine is a GP and Marie Curie National Clinical Lead for End-of-Life Care (EOLC) and has over 7 years’ experience as a specialty doctor in palliative medicine.

After many years working as a District Nurse, Clare completed her degree in Tissue Viability and has worked in this field since 2008 both in the hospital and community. Apart from advising and supporting nurses in a variety of settings, including nursing homes, in the assessment and management of complex wounds, a big part of her role is education and driving forward new innovations in wound care. She believes education is key and should be ongoing so nurses continue to ensure delivery of safe, effective and current evidence based care. Despite over 40 years in nursing Clare still strives to add to her portfolio and recently presented a poster at the European Wound Management Association(opens in a new tab) conference in Amsterdam. She is about to embark on a university course on the management of chronic oedema, an area in which she has a special interest in. Her motto; never stop learning.

Amy has worked as a Senior Clinical Psychologist in the NHS for over 10 years and recently founded Shore Psychology CIC (a new innovative social enterprise aiming to make trauma treatment more accessible for hard to reach communities). She has become an expert in Trauma-Informed Practice (TIP) in Scotland, having led the development of the Enhancing TIP in Scotland: A Toolkit for the Scottish Government, along with contributing to several other TIP initiatives. She holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and is registered with the HCPC. Before training as a Clinical Psychologist, Amy ran her own company (Homes Research and Consultancy) for approximately five years, providing consultancy services to local and national governments across the UK and Europe. A trauma survivor herself, Amy has experience of what it is like to have an undiagnosed trauma reaction, which drives her passion for ensuring that everyone receives timely and appropriate treatment, regardless of their social background.

Dr Robert Johnson trained in Medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, qualifying in 1967. Specialist training in anaesthesia and pain management was undertaken in Bristol. This included a one year secondment to the University of Virginia Pain Studies Clinic in Charlottesville, USA where his interest in herpes zoster (HZ) started. In 1975, he was appointed as a Consultant in Anaesthesia with Pain Management at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, UK. His clinical and research interest in HZ continued and he developed a specialist herpes zoster clinic for patients with zoster associated pain (ZAP). With his wife, a specialist research nurse, he undertook many studies mostly involved with prevention and management of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). His research led to the award of the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Bristol. He has 73 publications on HZ in peer reviewed specialist journals and 8 chapters in textbooks. His current research interests include prevention of PHN by administration of low-dose amitriptyline, commenced soon after HZ has been diagnosed. He is also involved in the analysis of detailed notes and illustrations for 515 HZ sufferers studied by Henry Head, a neurologist, between 1890 and 1907. He is currently the Hon. Senior Research Fellow, Translational Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bristol, UK.

Joe Dent is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner for stroke in the busiest stroke centre in the UK. He currently teaches stroke care to preregistration paramedics at four universities within the UK. Prior to this role he was a Paramedic working in pre hospital medicine for 26 years. He has a very keen interest in educating paramedics in the recognition of stroke by paramedics and is developing this education to those who look after stroke survivors within the chronic and acute phase of their treatment.

Chris is a director at Methodist Homes (MHA), an Anglican priest and associate presbyter in the Methodist Church. At MHA, he provides spiritual leadership for the organisation and works with 140 chaplains to develop the work of spiritual and pastoral care. As a director, Chris served as a gold commander at MHA during the COVID-19 pandemic, co-ordinating the charity’s response to the biggest challenge of its 78 year history. Chris was awarded a PhD for a thesis exploring the development and practice of chaplaincy, resulting in Hospital Chaplaincy in the Twenty-first Century (2nd edition, 2014). He served as president of the College of Health Care Chaplain (2004-2007) and wrote the national chaplaincy guidelines for NHS England in 2015. He continues to be an active researcher and author and in 2019 was made a Visiting Professor at Staffordshire University in pastoral, religious and spiritual care.

Dr Isabela Troya is a Research Fellow at University College Cork and the National Suicide Research Foundation, with recognised expertise in suicide prevention among older adults. She is an applied health researcher and trained Clinical Psychologist, with a focus on mental health in vulnerable populations, including older adults. She has received funding from several national and international agencies for a 3-year fellowship titled Revisiting Suicide Prevention in Later Life: Human-centred approaches in an ageing Ireland. Dr Troya trained and qualified as a Clinical Psychologist and completed an MSc in Global Mental Health in 2016. Her PhD thesis, titled ‘Understanding self-harm behaviour in older adults' was awarded PhD prize of the year (2020) by the UK’s Society for Academic Primary Care.

Professor Pat Schofield has a professional background in nursing and completed her PhD in 2001, which investigated management of chronic pain using sensory environments. Since then, Pat’s focus has been on the management of pain, particularly amongst older adults, and she has completed a number of major projects in this area, including self-management strategies for chronic pain management in older adults, and looking at pain assessment of those with cognitive impairment. Smaller projects have focused on the field of pain and ageing. Pat has led the development of national guidelines for pain assessment in adults and the management of pain in older adults. She is involved in the education of future clinicians; and is an examiner on the European Diploma in Pain Medicine. In 2019, Pat led the European Year against Pain in Vulnerable Populations and she is co-chair of the Global Year against Pain in Vulnerable Populations. Pat holds an honorary role as Professor of Pain & Ageing for Abertay University.

Dan Howarth is the Head of Care for Diabetes UK. He has been a Diabetes Specialist Nurse (DSN) for 12 years and has been based in the UK, New Zealand and Belgium. He is a registered nurse in the UK and New Zealand. Dan completed his Cert in diabetes care at the University of Warwick at the start of his DSN career, and has since completed post grad diploma courses at the University of Auckland. He is currently in the process of completing an MSc in Diabetes Care at the University of Salford, Manchester. Dan has worked within most areas of diabetes management, including community and inpatient care in the UK. He has also worked for the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). During his time at IDF in Brussels, Dan managed various global education projects which included regular training provided to health professionals across the world.

Julia is Team Leader of Wellbeing with The Silver Line, a charity working to fight loneliness among our older populations. It is the UK’s free and confidential helpline for older people who feel lonely or isolated. It is the only helpline apart from the Samaritans open every single day and night of the year.

Dr Gráinne Kent is a CORU Registered Dietitian (Ireland) with 10 years of clinical experience in the UK and Ireland. Gráinne remains active in clinical practice in a consultancy capacity, specialising in care of the older person and those with intellectual disabilities in community settings. Gráinne completed her PhD in 2022 and continues to gain expertise in research and teaching at third-level institutes.

Lending her expertise and answering your questions in the studio is Julie Van Onselen. Julie is a Dermatology Nurse Specialist and founded JVO Consultancy – education in dermatology. Julie’s work involves developing and producing a range of Dermatology educational projects on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, the NHS, academic departments, professional groups and patient groups. In July 2012, Julie was awarded the Stone Award for Outstanding contribution to dermatological nursing by the British Dermatological Nursing Group (BDNG).