Donald Grosset

Consultant Neurologist, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow; UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network Clinical Director 

Donald Grosset is Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow. He has just been active in Parkinson’s for over 25 years through his clinical practice, and in research studies. He is also Clinical Director of the UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network.

 

Caroline Rassell

Chief Executive, Parkinson's UK

Caroline Rassell has worked for a number of years both in local government and more recently in the NHS where she was the CEO for a health system pushing to provide opportunities for people to live well. Most recently she worked for the charity Versus Arthritis overseeing a strategic review of their services. Outside of work, Caroline is an avid park runner and well being advocate.

 

Sion Jones

Consultant Geriatrician, Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor

Sion Jones is a Consultant Geriatrician with a specialist interest in Movement Disorders based at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor. Chair of the North Wales Movement Disorders Disease Specific Advisory Group and joint lead of the North Wales Parkinson’s Excellence Network.

Daisy Norton

Live Loud! volunteer

Daisy is studying Neurosciences at Cardiff University. Growing up in the Rhondda, Daisy was surrounded by the Welsh language and is privileged to speak it. During her second year, she spent time studying neurological conditions including Parkinson’s which inspired her to volunteer for Live Loud! in March 2021.

Jude Evans

Live Loud! volunteer

Jude Evans was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2011, which happily coincided with retirement and spurred a move to North Wales. Jude put her hand up to volunteer remotely via Zoom for Monmouthshire Live Loud! Group. This wasn’t an entirely altruistic move as she noticed her own voice was getting quieter.

Katherine Crawford

Director of Services, Parkinson's UK

Katherine Crawford joined Parkinson's UK in 2004 and has worked in a variety of roles, from direct support for people living with Parkinson's, to leading and managing the charity's work in Scotland. She is now overseeing Parkinson's UK's direct support services and local networks across the UK.
Katherine has had a varied career prior to joining Parkinson's UK, having practised as a solicitor, owned and run an outdoor events and tourism company, and worked in adult education.
She aims to bring the range of skills she's developed over the years to help ensure Parkinson's UK's local services are the best they can be.

Dr Jessica Marsh

BSc, MSc, DClinPsy, PGDip, Specialist Clinical Psychologist, Leicester Partnership NHS Trust

Working alongside multidisciplinary colleagues, Jessica’s clinical work is focussed on a biopsychosocial approach to rehabilitation particularly on the interaction of psychological adjustment, cognition, and behaviour. She works with people who are experiencing a range of neurological conditions in both inpatient and outpatient settings.
Jessica qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 2013 at the University of Leicester and has continued her professional training in the field of Neuropsychology, completing a post-doctoral PGDip in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Glasgow. She is currently working towards her practice certificate in Clinical Neuropsychology with the University of Bristol. She is an HCPC registered Practitioner Psychologist, a chartered member of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and a member of the Association of Clinical Psychologists (ACP).
Jessica has a specialist interest in promoting the importance all healthcare workers have in providing psychological support to the people they work with. She is a strong advocate for the use of reflective practice for professionals within the clinical environment.

Jane Simpson

Professor of the Psychology of Neurodegenerative Conditions at Lancaster University. 

Jane, with colleagues, has recently published extensive, evidence-based guidance on the psychological therapies which might work best with individuals with neurodegenerative conditions including Parkinson’s. She leads the motor neurodegenerative work within the British Psychological Society and sits on other patient and charity bodies associated with improving care for people with these conditions. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and holds significant funding from UK and international bodies. She is passionate about the need to improve psychological care for those with neurodegenerative conditions who need it but also to learn from those coping well. From a research perspective she is keen to conduct more studies to assess interventions which work, given the general lack of research in this area, and to understand more about the currently fragmented and unclear pathways to mental health care in the UK experienced by individuals with these conditions.

Debra Borsley

Principal Speech and Language Therapist, Airedale Foundation Trust

Debra Borsley is a Speech and Language Therapist who has worked with people with Parkinson’s for over 30 years.
Based in West Yorkshire, she has worked on a number of projects with Parkinson’s UK and has set up a Speech and Language Therapy Parkinson’s network in Yorkshire to share good practice.

Jane Price

Parkinson’s Disease Nurse Advanced Practitioner, Powys Teaching Health Board. Chair, Parkinson’s Disease Nurse Specialist Association 

Jane is a Parkinson’s Disease Nurse Advanced Practitioner in Powys. She is based in Bronllys Hospital, working across both the primary and secondary care setting. Qualified in 1986, she has been a Parkinson’s nurse since 2003 undertaking Independent prescribing, a Post Graduate Certificate in Education a BSc in Nursing studies, and an MSc in Care of the Older Person. She is the current Chair of the Parkinson’s Disease Nurse Specialist Association (PDNSA), which works in partnership with Parkinson’s UK and the UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network to promote and establish high quality exemplary practice and services.
She is committed to providing education and self-development for nurses, teaching on the Parkinson’s UK Induction for new nurses, and on the MDS summer schools for nurses and the African education programme for nurses in South Africa and Tanzania.

Richard Walker

Consultant Physician at North Tyneside General Hospital and Honorary Professor of Ageing and International Health at Newcastle University. UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network clinical lead: medicine

Richard Walker is a Consultant and previous Director of R & D at North Tyneside General Hospital, and Honorary Professor of Ageing and International Health at Newcastle University. He is the Clinical Lead for the Northumbria Parkinson’s disease service.
His research interests in PD include epidemiology, psychiatric symptoms, palliative care, respiratory symptoms, exercise and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). He was on the UK PD NICE Guidelines 2017 Development Group and the PD Quality Standard Advisory Committee for NICE. He is consultant lead for the UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network. He is Associate International Director for SSA for the Royal College of Physicians, London and is the Clinical Lead for the Northumbria/Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre health link which started in 1999. He is immediate past Chair of the Movement Disorders Society African Task Force. He has published over 200 peer review papers.

David Blake

Parkinson’s UK Volunteer Educator

David Blake was diagnosed in 2014 when aged 65 years. He still lives an active life including his work for Parkinson's UK as a Volunteer Educator. His main role is to deliver one hour sessions on Parkinson's Awareness to care staff in nursing and care homes. To date nearly 100 training sessions have been delivered both face to face and through Zoom. In a partnership between Parkinson's UK and the School of Nursing at The Queen's University Belfast (QUB), David also helped create, and featured in, a podcast "Learning about Parkinson's". This podcast is now included in the curriculum for first year student nurses at QUB and is also available on the Parkinson's UK website for wider use.

Dr Ed Richfield

Consultant Geriatrician, North Bristol NHS Trust

Dr Ed Richfield is a consultant in Elderly medicine with a sub- speciality of movement disorders, working at North Bristol NHS Trust. He completed his medical degree at the University of Liverpool, and post-graduate training in the Yorkshire deanery. His PhD, from Hull-York Medical School, is titled “Palliative care in Parkinson’s disease: developing a needs assessment tool”. He has been involved in the Neurology Academy as a delegate and faculty member since 2014 and sits on the British Geriatric Society (BGS) movement disorder special interest group committee. He is a member of the International Movement disorders Society (MDS) taskforce exploring palliative care in Parkinson’s disease and current chair of the International Neuropalliative Care Society (INPCS) clinical committee.

Suzette Shahmoon

Assistant Psychologist, Institute of Neurology, University College London

Suzette has been helping people with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-esteem issues and has been supporting people with chronic illness, as a cognitive hypnotherapist for over 10 years. Currently based at the functional neurosurgical unit at Queen Square, she is researching wellbeing in people with chronic neurological disease and their caregivers.

Annette Hand

Prof. Doc (Health), MA, Pg Dip (CR), Dip HE, RGN,Professor of Nursing – Clinical Academic, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Northumbria University

Annette began her nursing career in 1991 studying at the Northumbria School of Nursing. Post qualification she worked across various settings including orthopedics, community nursing and palliative care. In 1998 she started her career in Parkinson’s and progressed to Nurse Consultant in 2004. She continued in that role for 17years, coordinating the Parkinson’s service, supporting patients and their families, and managing a team of Parkinson’s specialist nurses. In 2018 Annette was appointed to a national role as Clinical Lead for Nursing with the Parkinson’s Excellence Network to support services across the UK. Annette has continued an active research role and been involved with multiple research studies at a local, national, and international level and has published multiple articles. In 2021 Annette was appointed to Professor of Nursing – Clinical Academic, the first post of its type in the North East of England. Annette now divides her time between clinical practice, research, and education.
Educationally, Annette has been teaching within Higher Education since 2004. She currently teaches on several post graduate courses for the university and her interests include non-medical prescribing, Parkinson’s, clinical research, and research impact.

Bart Post

Neurologist, Radboud University Medical Centre, Netherlands

Dr Post is a member of the neurologist team at the centre of expertise for Parkinson and Genetic Movement Disorders at the Radboudumc, Nijmegen; this is a Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence chaired by Prof dr Bas Bloem.

In daily practice, he is specifically interested in Parkinson's disease with a young age and genetic movement disorders.

Dr Post is a chair of the residency program at the neurology department and vice chair of the central board for residency programs in the Radboudumc.

Kyle Montague

Associate Professor, Computer and Information Sciences, Northumbria University

I am an Associate Professor and co-lead of NorSC Lab at Northumbria University. My research spans a breadth of topics and domains with the unifying vision to address critical social problems and challenges by designing and configuring digital technologies that empower individuals and marginalised communities. More specifically, my work seeks to democratise access to the tools and processes by which we provision technologies and services that shape society.

Kuhan Pushparatnam

Tech Lover, Product Creator, Person with Parkinson’s

46 years young, including a 25 year career turning technology into usable products (telecoms industry) and now almost a decade living with Parkinson’s.
Find out more about me at www.morethanatremor.com

Amelia Hursey

Research Participation Lead, Parkinson’s UK 

Amelia joined Parkinson’s UK as Senior Research Participation Officer in July 2015 and has since been promoted to Research Participation Lead. She is responsible for initiatives to increase research participation for people affected by Parkinson’s, health care professionals and researchers. She is responsible for creating the innovative Parkinson’s UK Take Part Hub and co-producing the Staying Connected toolkit.
By linking with Parkinson’s UK internal teams and external partners (such as the NIHR CRN, Cure Parkinson’s Trust et al.) she hopes to evaluate current research practice, identify development potential and continue to create successful networks to support, promote and organise future research participation.

Anette Schragg

Consultant Neurologist and researcher in Parkinson’s at University College London. 

Anette runs a number of clinical studies, including the ADepT-PD trial, which looks at the effectiveness of antidepressants in Parkinson’s, as well as observational studies to understand anxiety in Parkinson’s better, and a programme to develop and evaluate a supported self-management tool for people with Parkinson’s. Anette also leads the London North Local UK Parkinson's Excellence Network.
 

John Whipps

Patient and Public Involvement member

John Whipps was a Professor at Warwick University before he was diagnosed with Parkinson's, 14 years ago. Since diagnosis, he has followed research trends in Parkinson's, joined the Research Support Network, read and commented on Lay Summaries of grant applications and become a member of the Trial Management Teams of three clinical trials. He is also a co-applicant for two of those trials and has participated in drug trials himself.

Sue Whipps

Patient and Public Involvement member

Sue Whipps is a retired primary school teacher, married to John Whipps, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's 14 years ago. After attending the World Parkinson's Congress in Glasgow, she realised that there were big gaps in understanding between some clinicians, researchers and people affected by Parkinson's. For that reason, she became involved with local support groups and founded the Peninsula Parkinson's Research Interest Group. She has, like John, been a PPI representative on several Trial Management Groups and Patient and Public Involvement member in groups designing new services and drug trials.
 

K. Ray Chaudhuri

Professor of Movement Disorders and Neuroscience, Clinical Director Parkinson Foundation International Centre of Excellence, Kings College Hospital, London 

Professor Chaudhuri is a recognised teacher and active researcher within the Guy’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine, London, UK and is one of the medical directors of the National Parkinson Foundation International Centre of Excellence at King's College, London. He also serves as chair of the Restless Legs Syndrome UK and International Parkinson’s Non-Motor Group, a member of the Movement Disorders Society, chair of the appointments committee, the Task force of practice parameter group for Parkinsons and restless legs syndrome, American Academy of Neurology, and also has various committee positions for the Department of Health, UK. 

His major research interests are drug treatments of Parkinson’s and restless legs syndrome, Parkinsonism in minority ethnic groups and sleep problems in Parkinson’s.

Shelley Jones

Consultant Pharmacist, Neurosciences, Kings College Hospital, London

Shelley provides and develops services to the specialist tertiary referral centre for both neurology and neurosurgery. Clinical specialties include Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Motor Neurone Disease and Epilepsy, not forgetting the busy neurosurgical unit. Shelley specialised in neurosciences at Kings College Hospital in 2006, after completing her pre-registration and a clinical diploma at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Shelley is also the co-chair of the UKCPA Neurosciences Specialist group, committee member of the Parkinson's Disease Specialist Pharmacist Network, and a member of the NHSE Neuro Clinical Reference Group.

Monty Silverdale

Consultant Neurologist at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. 

Professor Silverdale jointly runs the Salford Royal Parkinson’s disease and Movement Disorders service and is lead Neurologist on the Greater Manchester Deep Brain Stimulation Programme. He is Neurodegeneration research lead for Greater Manchester. He is also Chair of the UK Parkinson’s disease Portfolio Development Group, which organises Parkinson’s disease research throughout the UK and is an invited member of the World Movement Disorder Society Evidence Based Medicine Committee. His research interests include pain in Parkinson’s disease, biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease, and Deep Brain Stimulation.

 

Emma Bracher

Specialist Occupational Therapist, Emma Bracher Occupational Therapy

Emma Bracher is an independent occupational therapist based in Warwickshire. 6 years ago, following her own father’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s, she set up ‘Bigger & Better – fighting back against Parkinson’s’. She runs exercise classes and therapy programmes specifically for people with Parkinson’s, to improve day-to-day functioning and quality of life.

 

Jane Rideout,

Excellence Network Clinical lead: user involvement

Jane Rideout is User involvement lead on the Excellence Network Clinical Leadership Team. She runs a local support group, hosts First Steps and organises and hosts online sessions supporting people affected by Parkinson’s. She is an advocate of exercise for people with Parkinson’s. Jane was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 13 years ago.

 

Maria Lewis

Chartered Physiotherapist, Reach Your Peak, Wales

Maria was an NHS physiotherapist for 17 years before leaving to set up her own private practice working in the community. She has a wealth of knowledge in both neuro and cardio/pulmonary rehabilitation. 
Maria and Sally Tawhai, co-founder of Reach Your Peak, are both members of the Excellence Network Exercise Hub and were part of the group who wrote the Parkinson’s Exercise Framework for professionals.
As part of Parkinson’s UK Excellence Network Exercise Hub, they produced a series of exercise videos for the Parkinson’s UK YouTube Channel. They shared their knowledge on delivering online exercise with other exercise professionals within the Exercise Hub and were delighted to be asked to film a video on the importance of exercise for Parkinson’s UK Virtual First Steps Programme.

 

Sally Tawhai,

Chartered Physiotherapist, Reach Your Peak, Wales

Sally runs a successful MSK private practice as well as being the England U18 Rugby physiotherapist. She specialises in exercise prescription and sports physiotherapy as well as being a qualified Pilates instructor.
Sally and Maria Lewis, co-founder of Reach Your Peak, are both members of the Excellence Network Exercise Hub and were part of the group who wrote the Parkinson’s Exercise Framework for professionals.
As part of Parkinson’s UK Excellence Network Exercise Hub, they produced a series of exercise videos for the Parkinson’s UK YouTube Channel. They shared their knowledge on delivering online exercise with other exercise professionals within the Exercise Hub and were delighted to be asked to film a video on the importance of exercise for Parkinson’s UK Virtual First Steps Programme.
 

Wendy Barnett

I have been a nurse for 40 years, and was diagnosed with Parkinsons four years ago. I decided to retire and retrain to teach specific exercise classes, I trained with Pd Warrior, and Brian Grant foundation and set up my successful classes in Stourbridge on Tuesday and Thursday using techniques I have developed from my training. I think I’m unique in the fact I teach and have the disease myself, which gives my clients confidence in what can be achieved.

 

Karin Chandler

Live Loud! Project Officer, Parkinson’s UK

Karin Chandler is Live Loud! Project Officer for the Parkinson’s UK Wales team. She has been working for the charity since 2018 and has put her heart and soul into developing the Live Loud! Programme.

 

Dr Camille Carroll

Associate Professor and Consultant Neurologist, University of Plymouth

Dr Camille Carroll, Associate Professor and Consultant Neurologist at the University of Plymouth, leads the Parkinson’s clinical research and Parkinson’s disease service in Plymouth. Her research is focused on trials of neuroprotective therapies, and the use of digital health technologies for disease monitoring and personalised care in Parkinson’s.

 

Dr. Ed Newman

Consultant Neurologist, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Glasgow Royal Infirmary

Dr Newman is a consultant neurologist and works between Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He has a specialist interest in movements disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and dystonia. He is part of the national DBS service, which is based in Glasgow. Dr Newman is also interested in medical education and runs the undergraduate clinical neurosciences teaching programme at University of Glasgow’s School of Medicine.
 

Karen Robinson

Consultant Dietitian and Chair of the Neurosciences Specialist Group (NSG) of the British Dietetic Association

Karen qualified as a dietitian in 1997, gaining over 24 years experience of working with progressive neurological conditions, and has been on the committee of the NSG for over 7 years.

Julie Jones

Clinical Academic Fellow and Senior Lecturer (Physiotherapy), Robert Gordon University

Julie Jones is a physiotherapist with a specialist interest in Parkinson’s. Julie is a Clinical Academic Fellow, jointly funded by Parkinson’s UK and the Chief Scientist Office and is a senior lecturer at Robert Gordon University. She is also a member of the Strategy Advisory board of Parkinson’s UK in Scotland and Chairs the Scotland wide Parkinson’s Active project. She is also a member of the Parkinson’s UK College of Experts grant review panel, and sits on the Research Participation Steering Group at Parkinson’s UK. Within the Parkinson’s Excellence Network, Julie is part of the core team who have developed the Exercise hub, which runs education events to support exercise professionals nationally to improve and develop service provision for people with Parkinson’s.