Signum Speaker
, Signum

Dafydd Loughran
CEO, Concentric Health

Peter Ella-Tongwiis
Post graduate research scientist, North Wales Urological Research Centre

Alex Makanga
Senior biomedical scientist, Besti Cadwaladr Health Board

Matt Gibson
Head Of Sales, Siemens Healthineers

Steve Luzio
, Diabetes Research Unit Cymru

Tom Powell
Innovation and QI Manager, Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board

Tom is an experienced health and social researcher and innovator with a breadth of knowledge and experience following various roles across academia, the NHS and civil service, including clinical research, provision of national statistics, health economics, informing national policy development and health service delivery.

Menna Brown
Lecturer, Swansea University Medical School

Menna Brown is a lecturer at Swansea University Medical School and a current PhD student (Medicine and Social Care). She has over ten years experience in research and education. Research interests include; Health Psychology, Health and Wellbeing, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Medical Eduation. Menna is currently working in collaboration with Swansea Bay University Health Board on her ACTivate your wellbeing project.

British Heart Foundation Speaker
, British Heart Foundation

Amit Chandratreya
Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon, Prince of Wales Hospital

Mr Amit Chandratreya is a Consultant Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgeon working at the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend.

He provides a comprehensive knee service from sports injuries around the knee through to the management of arthritic conditions. He has a special interest in ligament reconstruction and joint preservation surgery.

To treat patients with innovative advance therapies and not with arthroplasty, he becamea founder active member of the UK Biological Knee Society. He also is part of a Clinical Steering Group for bracing treatment for Osteoarthritis.

Cartilage surgery and regeneration are treatments that he provides in the NHS. He is one of the signatories which helped NICE to change their guidelines on ACI (Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation). To reduce costs, he has performed Wales’ first single stage ACI surgery in the form of CartiOne.

 

Paul Stroemer
ATTC Network Programme Manager Midlands / Wales, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult

John Chester
Clinical Professor and Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology, Cardiff University

Emma Kempshall
, Cardiff and Vale UHB

Wendy Ingram
Clinical Lead for Paroxysmal Nocturnal Haemoglobinuria, Cardiff and Vale UHB

Ian Weeks
, Cardiff University School of Medicine

Robin Petterson
Frequent Caller Lead, Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust

Keir Lewis
Professor and R&D Director, Swansea University, Respiratory Innovation Wales

Keir is Professor of Respiratory Medicine in Swansea University and a Consultant Physician and Director of Research & Development in Hywel Dda University Health Board, Wales. He is the first Medical Director of Respiratory Innovation Wales.

He is a member and has chaired various research committees and task forces for the British Thoracic and European Respiratory Societies. He is Wales Respiratory Specialty Lead on the UKCRN and advises Welsh Government, NICE and the HTA. He has guest lectured worldwide and co-authored various papers and two textbooks. He is a Chief Investigator or collaborator on several ongoing portfolio studies on the clinical and translational aspects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and smoking cessation.

Working with the NSH, local universities, pharmaceutical and biomedical companies, he has helped attract over £15M funding and has won a NHS Wales Award (2018), MediWales Awards for Innovation & Collaboration with International Industry (2017) and their Research Award in the NHS (2018).

Anne Dreyer
Digital Business Manager, Roche Diagnostics

Within Roche Diagnostics’ Access and Innovation Directorate, Anne works with our partners on the adoption of digital innovations for healthcare, to improve the lives of patients. With Roche, as throughout her career on both sides of the Atlantic, the focus has been on workflows within the cancer pathway.

Claire Smith
Account Manager, Roche

NWIS Speaker
, NHS Wales Informatics Service

Ifan Evans
Director - Technology, Digital & Transformation, Welsh Government

Robyn Miles
, Respiratory Innovation Wales

Greg Baily
Technical Director, Huntleigh Healthcare

Annette Thomas
, Cardiff and Vale UHB

Sian Morgan
Head of the All Wales Genetics Laboratory (AWGL), All Wales Medical Genomics Service (AWMGS)

I am a Consultant Clinical Scientist responsible for the rapidly expanding diagnostic All Wales Genetics Laboratory, and support an expert workforce of approximately 120 Clinical Scientists, Bioinformaticians and Technologists as Wales seeks to become a leader in the field of precision medicine and its associated research. I have been a  long-term member of the AWMGS workforce, working in the laboratory for 28 years. In the last few years I have overseen and lead the move to next generation sequencing (NGS) with the development and introduction of new genetic services.

Tom Clutton-Brock
Clinical Director, NIHR Trauma Management MedTech Cooperative, University of Birmingham

Dr Tom Clutton-Brock FRCP FRCA FFICM, Clinical Director, NIHR Trauma Management MedTech Cooperative.  Director, ERDF Medical Devices Testing and Evaluation Centre.   Deputy Director, Institute of Translational Medicine, Birmingham.  Chair, NICE Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee.  Reader in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine, University of Birmingham

 

As a senior clinical academic Tom has had a career long interest in medical devices and diagnostics with a particular interest in device safety and usability.  He was named in 2016 as one of the “100 most influential drivers of the health technology revolution, globally”

 

Helen Lane
, Cwm Taf UHB

Rebecca Thomas
Senior Nurse Professional Standards and Quality Improvement, Cwm Taf UHB

Rebecca is a creative, innovative and enthusiastic individual with a great passion for nursing and is motivated to improve standards of dignity and care for patients and promote the professional identity of nursing.

Having 18 years of experience within a wide variety of services, has provided her with a comprehensive, highly specialised and detailed professional knowledge. Drawing on experiences from secondary acute medicine, including respiratory, endocrinology, gastroenterology and neurological sciences.

Her Current role is as the Senior Nurse for Professional Standards and Quality Improvement. She is responsible for leading Quality(assurance and improvement) and ProfessionalNursing Standards. Integral to her role is supporting multi professional teams as they lead and develop improvements within their areas, providing the staff with the tools, techniques and support they need to improve the experience of patients, carers and service users.

She was nominated for the Innovation in Nursing Award, RCN in Wales Nurse of the Year 2014, where strong leadership and innovation excellence were highlighted as being her main strengths.

Described as having an authentic appreciation of the needs and experiences of staff delivering direct care, with high energy levels and enthusiasm for quality improvement which is extremely motivating for the staff she engages with.

She has a clear vision for how she wants to move forward within the improvement agenda. She is not phased by new and challenging situations and the words ‘can’t do’ are not in her vocabulary. She is innovative and creative in her approach to exploring different ways of working and developing services, and   has the insight to know that she can always learn and enjoys gaining knowledge and sharing best practice.

Robyn Davies
Head of Innovation, Cardiff and Vale UHB

Stephen Parnell
Assistant Director Organisational Systems Change, Cardiff & Vale Health Board

Kath Mackay
Interim Director Ageing Society, Health & Nutrition, Innovate UK

Lewis Francis
Associate Professor and Programme Director to MSc Nanomedicine, Swansea University Medical School

Based at Swansea University Medical School, Dr Francis is an Associate Professor in Reproductive Biology and Gynaecological Oncology Research Group (RBGO). Lewis has developed tissue, cell and molecular biochemical and biophysical research approaches for functional cell and molecular analysis, in both human reproductive and regenerative medicine. Adopting disease specific phenotype models in both cell line and patient derived systems, his research focuses on the exploration of biomarker expression, gene regulation networks and cell-matrix interactions in niche tissue microenvironments.

Sarah Prior
Senior Lecturer for Diabetes Research Group, Swansea University

Andrew Morris
Head of Pharmacy, Swansea University Medical School

Andrew Morris is Head of Pharmacy and Professor of Pharmacy Education at Swansea University Medical School. Previously Andrew was Dean of Science at the University of Nottingham Malaysia where he was also a member of the Management Board. This followed a 6-year tenure as Head of Pharmacy at Nottingham Malaysia – a School that he had initially helped to establish. Andrew has previously held positions in primary care pharmacy in Wales as a Community Pharmacy and Prescribing Adviser and across South Wales and England as a community pharmacist.

Paul Boyle
Vice Chancellor, Swansea University

Professor Paul Boyle has recently been appointed as Vice-Chancellor Elect at Swansea University. Prior to this he was President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester. Previously, Paul was Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the UK’s largest funding agency for social science research; the International Champion of Research Councils UK, with responsibility for international strategy on behalf of all seven UK research councils; and President of Science Europe, representing over 50 European funding agencies.

Paul is a Fellow of the British Academy, The Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Geographical Society of Scotland.  He is Chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, which is Scotland’s highest level science advisory body; a Board Member of Universities UK, who provide leadership and support to executive heads of 133 UK University institutions as well as Chair of their Research Policy Network; Vice-President of the European University Association which represents over 800 universities in 48 countries; and a Council Member and Trustee of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which has over 500 member institutions in 37 Commonwealth countries.

Paul is an ‘impact champion’ for the United Nations HeForShe global solidarity movement for gender equality and on the Advisory Board of Sporting Equals, promoting ethnic diversity in sport and physical activity.

Clare Birt
Marketing Director, Mangar Health

Professor Sir Mansel Aylward
Chair, Life Sciences Hub Wales

Sir Mansel is Chair of Life Sciences Hub Wales.  He is also Chair of the Bevan Commission, an independent expert panel to oversee NHS reforms in Wales and to provide expert advice to the Minister for Health and Social Services. He is Professor of Public Health Education at the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University. He was recently appointed as Professor of Prudent Health and Wellbeing at the School of Management, Swansea University.

He was the first Chair of Public Health Wales NHS Trust, responsible for the delivery of public health services at national, local and community levels in Wales. He was a panel member of the Parliamentary Review of Health and Social Services in Wales.  Earlier in his career he was Chief Medical Officer, Medical Director and Chief Scientist at the Department for Work and Pensions in London.

He was knighted in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours 2010 for services to health and healthcare. In 2016, he was elected to fellowship of the Learned Society of Wales.

Dr Andrew Goodall
Director General of Health and Social Services and Chief Executive, NHS Wales

Dr Andrew Goodall was appointed to the role of Director General of Health and Social Services/Chief Executive NHS Wales in June 2014. His role includes both supporting Ministerial priorities for health and social care within the Civil Service structures, and the leadership and oversight of NHS Wales.

Including this current role, Andrew has been an NHS Chief Executive in Wales for 11 years, the most recent post being that of Chief Executive of Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, a position held since the Health Board’s inception in October 2009 until 2014.

During his 25 year NHS career, Andrew has held planning and operational positions across a number of NHS organisations across South Wales as well as national roles. He has particular areas of interest in improving patient safety, quality and patient experience; partnership working across Public Services; and delivering frontline services through service improvement and modernisation.

Dr Goodall has a law degree from Essex University and a PhD in Health Service Management from Cardiff Business School.

Gwyn Tudor
CEO, MediWales

As CEO of Mediwales for nearly 16 years, Gwyn has overseen a transformation of the forum to its current size, influence and corporate structure. Gwyn works with the directors and members of MediWales to develop the forum’s future strategic direction. His in-depth knowledge of the life science sector allows him to represent MediWales’ members’ interests on a number of Welsh and UK government panels and boards.

Gwyn’s career has developed over twenty years from being a front line product designer working in a number of sectors, including the development of medical devices, to his current managerial role.

Hamish Laing
Professor of Enhanced Innovation, Engagement and Outcomes, Swansea University

Patient Representative
,

Duncan Baird
Professor of Cancer and Genetics, Cardiff University

Duncan Baird is professor of Cancer and Genetics at Cardiff University. He has worked in the field of telomere biology and genome instability for 25 years. With long term funding from Cancer Research UK his work spans basic discovery science through to clinical application and commercial development. He is co-founder of TeloNostiX Ltd. an IVD company that provides high-resolution prognostic and predictive tests for cancer patients and the pharmaceutical industry.

Anna Sussex
Public Health Wales National Programme Manager for Frequent Attenders, Unscheduled Care and clinical lead, WEDFAN

Anna Sussex is the Public Health Wales National Programme Manager for Frequent Attenders, Unscheduled Care and clinical lead for WEDFAN, the Welsh Emergency Department Frequent Attenders Network

With a background in emergency nursing, she is leading on work with the Emergency Departments in Wales, in collaboration with a broad spectrum of partner agencies across statutory, non-statutory and voluntary sectors, aimed at:

• supporting patients who frequently use services including EDs, Welsh Ambulance Service, GP OOHs, Police and Fire & Rescue, so they receive personalised and sustained support in a meaningful way for them, and
• reducing demand on unscheduled services.

Anna worked as an Emergency Department Sister in Cardiff and Vale for 17yrs and was responsible for the implementation of the successful and award winning C&V Frequent Attender Service, now in its 5^thyear. The service has won 2 NHS Wales Awards for Working Seamlessly across Organisations and the Chief Medical Officers Award for Outstanding Contribution to Prudent Healthcare. Anna is also RCN Nurse of the Year for Innovation 2016

Rinesh Amin
Co-founder, DrDoctor

Rinesh is the Co-founder of DrDoctor, a digital health company transforming the way hospitals and patients communicate. DrDoctor uses pragmatic, common-sense technology to tackle the financial strain on the NHS – one hospital at a time. Currently partnered with 22 major Trusts around the UK, including Aneurin Bevan, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Great Ormond Street, to date we have saved the NHS millions of pounds and 3000 years’ worth of missed appointments.

Gareth Roberts
Assistant Medical Director and Consultant Nephrologist, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

Gareth is a consultant nephrologist and AMD for value and costing at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. He is deputy lead of the Welsh Renal Clinical Network and a research active consultant whose PhD focussed on inflammation and immunity. He is currently chief investigator of a national study looking at the socio-demographic factors that influence shared decision making in patients with advanced kidney failure.

Adele Cahill
Assistant Director Value Based Health Care and National Lead Value Based Procurement, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

Adele has been a senior Procurement professional for over 33 years, heading up the Procurement teams across NHS Wales.  Adele has spent time between 2010 and 2015 in other general management roles supporting Turnaround and Transformation programmes across various Welsh Health Boards, before joining Aneurin Bevan in 2016  as the Assistant Director for Value Based Health Care.

Supporting Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) as a framework to support NHS Wales to re-design for Value has been one of the key drivers over the past three years, moving this from a local initiative into one supported for scale up of outcome measurement, at a National Welsh Government level.

Adele has more recently picked up the National lead, in collaboration with the Director of Procurement NWSSP, to support the development of a system that aligns more closely with Industry using outcomes data and innovative approaches to consider a risk-sharing approach to ‘Procuring for Value’.

Kay Wilson
Early Phase Team Lead, Clinical Trials Unit, Velindre Cancer Centre

Kay Wilson is a Senior Research Nurse Lead managing the Early Phase team at Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff. Specialising in Solid Tumour early phase clinical trials. With 20 years’ experience as a registered nurse 15 of which has been in Oncology.

Kay provides leadership and management the clinical team delivering SACT early and late phase clinical trials at the Clinical Research Treatment Unit at the Cancer Centre.

Kay’s passion has advanced during her time in research supporting the then new initiative to bring early phase research to Wales, setting up a designatedearly phase research clinicand facilitating patient referrals into this clinic 8 years ago and is keen to make available Oncology phase I clinical trials and advanced therapies to patients in S.Wales and beyond.

Kay supports Research Nurses by providing mentorship and training for nurses in conjunction with Health and Care Research Wales.

Studying at Cardiff University with the School of Nursing to obtain her nurse qualification. Kay has a keen interest in Management and Leadership and has studied these at post grad level.

Jessie Powell
Senior Nurse Manager (CRF), University Hospital of Wales Cardiff

Jessie Powell is a Senior Nurse Manager who leads the Clinical Research Facility (CRF) at the University Hospital of Wales Cardiff, specialising in the delivery of early phase clinical trials.  As a registered adult nurse for the last decade, Jessie started her career in the emergency dept. before making the move into research and now has nearly seven years of experience in this area.  Jessie is responsible for the operational management and development of the Clinical Research Facility and provides leadership to nursing and administrative staff working in the facility.  Jessie is passionate about leadership and was awarded runner up in the leadership category at the 2017 Cardiff and Vale staff recognition awards.

Jessie is the primary contact person and facilitator for the safe and ethical implementation of new and existing research studies in the CRF, involving a broad range of clinical specialties, in accordance with Good Clinical Practice (GCP) Guidelines, EU Clinical Trials Directive and Research Governance Framework.

Jessie gained a BN (Hons) Adult Nursing degree from Glamorgan University (now the University of South Wales) and is currently completing an MSc in Clinical Research at Cardiff University.

Alan Parker
Reader in Translational Virotherapies, Cardiff University - School of Medicine

Alan Parker is a Reader in Translational Virotherapies, based at Cardiff University School of Medicine. His group study the adenovirus, and the basic host: cell interactions that underpin cellular infection and tropism. Using this information, his team develop refined, tumour selective and clinically tractable virotherapies for translational applications in the oncology setting. Prior to relocating to Cardiff in 2013, Alan spent 7 years as a Postdoc and Royal Society of Edinburgh Personal Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow (2005-2013), and two years at King’s College London (2003-2005). Alan is a board member of the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (https://www.bsgct.org/), a society that seeks to educate, promote and lobby on the clinical progression of advanced gene and cell therapies for patient benefit. Within this role, his is especially focussed on promoting opportunities for Early Career Researchers (https://www.bsgct.org/its-an-ecr-life/). Furthermore, in conjunction with his role as a STEM ambassador, Alan is committed to promoting education around advanced medicines such as gene and cell therapies to the lay community.

Barry McDonnell
Reader in Cardiovascular Physiology, Cardiff Metropolitan University

His work focusses on Hypertension, arterial ageing and microvascular damage. He is currently PI on a number of clinical and population based longitudinal trials. He has honorary appointments in both Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA and MacQuarie University, Sydney, Australia. For the past 3 years he has led the Wales national lead for the global blood pressure screening campaign, May Measurement Month.   

Mark Briggs
Head of Cell and Gene Therapy, Welsh Blood Service

Rob Orford
Chief Scientific Adviser for Health, Welsh Government

Rob Orford has been Chief Scientific Adviser for Health in Welsh Government since January 2017. In his current role he is responsible for providing expert professional advice on health science to Welsh Ministers and Welsh Government and is professional lead for Healthcare Science in NHS Wales. He is policy lead for Genomics, Imaging and Pathology and sponsor of the Welsh Scientific Advisory Committee.

Previously he was Group Leader and Principal Scientist at Public Health England (from 2008 to 2016). His background is in molecular biology, undertaking postdoctoral research with the Medical Research Council (2008-2002) Cancer Research UK (1999-2002). He is also a STEM Ambassador.

Joanne Oliver
Health Service Engagement Lead for Wales, British Heart Foundation

Joanne qualified as a Registered General Nurse in 1989 specialising in cardiac nursing until 2012, latterly as a Cardiac Rehabilitation and BHF Heart Failure Specialist Nurse within Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. She successfully completed her Masters in Advanced Nurse Practice at Cardiff University and dissertation focussed on education programmes to support best practice provision within Palliative Care for Heart Failure Patients.

Since 2012 Joanne has worked in a few different roles within BHF and was appointed as BHF Health Service Engagement Lead for Wales in April 2016. The priority of this role being to lead high level engagement whilst influencing senior decision makers within NHS Wales health and social care to raise the understanding and need for prioritising evidence based care for those people at risk of or who have CVD. It is also a priority to use knowledge and field intelligence to identify current and future opportunities for CVD innovative implementation, best practice development, spread and adoption, and the co-ordination of activities to capitalise on all opportunities.

Joanne is currently the BHF co-opted BACPR Committee member, sits on the All Wales Cardiac Rehabilitation and Heart Failure Specialist Nurse Group and is the third sector representative within the All Wales Heart Conditions Implementation Board.

Dr Pasquale Innominato
Oncologist, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board - Cancer Services

Alison Powell
Wales Development Lead, Workflow - Practice Unbound

David Minton
Associate Medical Director, Value Based Health Care, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

David Thomas
Assistant Director, ABCi, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Headquarters

Jonathan Goodfellow
National Clinical Lead, Wales Cardiac Network

Jonathan was born in Pontypridd and was educated at Pontypridd Boys Grammar and Coed-y-lan Comprehensive school. He trained at the Medical College of St Bartholomew’s Hospital qualifying in 1985. His cardiology training was in Bristol and Bath before returning to Cardiff to do research, then as Senior Registrar. In 1999 he was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Cardiology at the Wales Heart Research Institute, and also as part-time NHS cardiologist in Bridgend. In 2005 he became a full-time NHS consultant in Bridgend. He was lead cardiologist between 2005-15 during which time the department expanded significantly to provide a comprehensive echo service, pacing service and diagnostic cardiac catheter lab. In 2008 he was part of the team that won a NHS Wales award for innovations in cardiology out-patient services. He became Medical Director at Princess of Wales Hospital from 2015 to 2018. He is the immediate past-President of the Welsh Cardiovascular Society and the current Chair of the Society of Physicians in Wales.