Advisory Team
Dr Julian Abel
Retired palliative care consultant, Compassionate Communities UK
Dr Julian Abel is a retired palliative care physician, Director of Compassionate Communities UK, author and podcaster. He views compassion as intrinsic to human relationships and has developed compassionate community projects in palliative care and healthcare in general nationally and internationally. His work in Frome with Helen Kingston forms the basis for his book The Compassion Project. His popular podcast Survival of the Kindest explores the impact of the absence or presence of compassion in a wide variety of settings.
Mo is a managing GP partner in Northwest London pathfinder practice and has been supporting deprived communities for over 17 years. These have ranged from traditional primary care to dedicated services for the homeless and refugees. He has had an interest in medical ethics and worked for over a decade as a medical director in local and regional roles across London. Currently non- executive Director on the board of an integrated health care provider.
Outside of clinical practice, he has an extensive international healthcare management career in both public and private sector work for small, medium and large organisations. This has involved supporting ways of saving and improving the lives for patients by bringing innovative practice across the globe.
He has been a co-author for many years of the Handbook of Practice Management with a background of training on improvement methodologies at the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Currently he supports teaching on global healthcare as a visiting scientist at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
Prof Clare Cable
Community Nursing, Scotland
With 35 years’ experience as a Registered Nurse, Clare is the Chief Executive and Nurse Director of the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, a charity founded in 1889 which exists to support nurses and midwives who work in our communities. In 2016, Clare was awarded an Honorary Professorship in Nursing at Queen Margaret University and a Florence Nightingale Foundation Leadership Scholarship. Her vision is to unleash the creativity of nurses to be catalysts for positive change in the health and wellbeing of individuals, families and communities. She co-created a transformational programme for community nurses with human values at its heart. It is called the Queen’s Nurse Development programme (the Queen in question being Queen Victoria). The programme has inspired over 130 nurses and midwives in Scotland to take their own flourishing very seriously by finding a path which chimes with their values and traditions to become change makers to address injustice and inequity.
You can find out more about the Queen’s Nurse Development Programme here and you can follow Clare on twitter @ClareCable.
Professor Ann Gallagher
Head of health Sciences, Brunel University, London
Ann is Head of Head of Health Sciences at the College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences at Brunel University, London. She was until 2023 Head of Nursing at the University of Exeter. She has extensive experience as a nurse, educator, ethicist, researcher and editor. Ann trained as a general nurse in Belfast during ‘The Troubles’ and later specialised in mental health. She has a PhD in professional ethics. Prior to coming to the University of Exeter in 2020, she was Professor of Ethics and Care at the University of Surrey. Ann is a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nursing Ethics.
Ann’s career has been dedicated to the understanding and promotion of ethics in health and social care. Her research areas include: dignity in residential care; compassion in the NHS; professionalism in paramedic practice; and ethical aspects of professional regulation. Human values matter to her ‘because ethical values underpin everything we do and are necessary to enable patient and care-giver flourishing’.
Giskin Day, PhD
Medical humanities, Imperial College
Giskin Day is a Principal Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. She is the course lead for the very popular intercalated BSc in Medical Sciences with Humanities, Philosophy and Law.
She believes that human values are important in medicine because too often ‘care’ can become procedural rather than personal. Her Wellcome-funded doctoral research on gratitude in healthcare, conducted at King’s College London, explored social emotions in care-giving relationships.
Prof Paul Gilbert, OBE
Psychologist, Founder Compassionate Mind Foundation
Paul is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby and Visiting Professor at the University of Queensland. He has researched evolutionary approaches to mental health alongside clinical work as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist for over 40 years in the NHS.
He established the Compassionate Mind Foundation in 2006 which promotes well-being through facilitating the scientific understanding and application of compassion. He also founded and developed compassion focused therapy (CFT) and compassionate mind training. He has contributed to 300 academic publications and written or contributed to 22 books, including The Compassionate Mind and Living Like Crazy.
Dr Margaret Hannah
Public Health, IFF, Scotland
Dr Margaret Hannah is Director of Health Programmes for International Futures Forum (IFF). Her background is in public health where she worked for over 20 years mostly in Fife, Scotland. Over the course of her career, she used IFF thinking to address the systemic challenges facing healthcare in the 21st century, publishing a book about this called: Humanising Healthcare: patterns of hope for a system under strain (Triarchy Press 2014).
During this time, she was instrumental in designing and implementing the Fife Shine Programme, which aims to grow a new pattern of health and care in communities based on people’s strengths and aspirations for their lives. At its heart is the importance of nurturing community and relationships recognising most recovery from illness and longer-term care takes place at home, with family, friends and neighbours to help.
Margaret now supports other pioneers who are changing the culture of care and growing a new pattern of provision to meet contemporary health needs. She is married with two sons and enjoys music making, walking, seeing friends and family.
Prof Raanan Gillon
Medical ethics, Imperial College
Raanan is Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics at Imperial College London and is director of the Imperial College intensive course in medical ethics which he started in 1983 and which is still going strong. He was President of the Human Values in Healthcare Forum for several years and is an enthusiastic supporter of Paquita’s magnificent and generous support in relaunching it.
Raanan is a trustee, past Chairman and now honorary President of the Institute of Medical Ethics and a Councillor and past President of the British Medical Association. He was editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics for 20 years until 2001, and he retired from part-time NHS general practice at the end of 2002.
He has published extensively on medical ethics and in 1999 was co-recipient of the American Hastings Center Henry Knowles Beecher award for contributions to ethics and the life sciences.
Dr Sabena Jameel GP
Educationalist, Virtue ethics. Birmingham
Dr Sabena Jameel is a practising GP in inner city Birmingham. She has worked as a GP for over 20 years. She is also a medical educator, and was formerly the Associate Dean for GP Education in Birmingham and Solihull (Health Education West Midlands). She is now an Associate Clinical Professor in Medical Professionalism at the University of Birmingham Medical School. Dr Jameel has a PhD which looked at enacted practical wisdom in medical practitioners. This work is rooted in Aristotelian Virtue Ethics. Sabena has co-organised a seminar The Askeplion Project – Practical wisdom and the holism of healthcare for June 14th at the Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice in Health & Social Care at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
Dr Arti Maini
GP Coach, Medical education. Imperial College
Dr Arti Maini is Imperial’s Director of Undergraduate Primary Care Education and is a GP in NW London. Arti is an experienced coach, coach trainer and supervisor. She is the coaching lead for Imperial’s Medical Education Innovation and Research Centre (MEDIC). She leads coaching skills training for Imperial medical students and medical faculty, supporting them to develop person-centred approaches to healthcare, skills in interpersonal communication, leadership and collaboration and skills to support their own wellbeing. She works with the NHS London Leadership Academy as a coach for those working within the NHS and is on the faculty of the Coaching Supervision Academy. She is an advisor to the Personalised Care Institute. Arti is co-author of the highly acclaimed book Coaching for Health-Why it works and how to do it. Her education and research interests include coaching for health, education, well-being and leadership, person-centred care, capacity building, social accountability, medical humanities and professional identity.
Dr Andrew Papanikitas
GP, Dep editor BJGP. Oxford
Andrew Papanikitas is a GP, educator and erstwhile academic in Oxford with an interest in professionalism and ethics in healthcare education. He co-edited the BMA medical book award-winning Handbook of Primary Care Ethics (CRC press) and BMA Highly Commended Marketization, Health and Ethics (Routledge) in 2018.
He teaches medical ethics across the entire professional life course, from applicants to medical school through to healthcare leaders. He also teaches on a range of courses at Oxford University and is a Catalyst Fellow at Hull-York medical School. His PhD is on education in ethics of British family doctors.
As deputy editor of the British Journal of General Practice, he is responsible for the discussion blog (www.bjgplife.com) and the Life and Times section of the journal. He volunteers with several local initiatives including a Clinical Ethics Committee and school medical careers programme. He tweets in his own capacity as @gentlemedic
Liz Pryor
Patient advocate and Charity Founder/CEO Ann Robson Trust
Founder and CEO of the Anne Robson Trust.
In 2010, Anne Robson, died unexpectedly after a week-long stay in hospital. Her daughter, Liz Pryor, went on to work with several charities in and around the NHS, to try to address some of the challenges that had come to light during the last weeks of her mother’s life. Liz wanted to do something to help other families facing the death of a loved one, to try to ensure others didn’t have the same experience. In 2018 she set up the Anne Robson Trust charity.
The charity believes that no one deserves to die alone. Everyone should have the comfort and companionship they wish for in their final days, and the support to prepare for the end of their life. For more info visit www.annerobsontrust.org.uk
Dr Siân Rees
Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Experience, Oxford
Sian is lead for Community Workforce and Health Innovation at Oxford and Thames Valley Health Innovation network. Siân and her team work across the region helping to ensure that patients and the public are involved from needs analysis to design, delivery and evaluation of health and care services. Current work has a focus on the health and wellbeing of NHS staff.
Siân has a background in public health medicine with over a decade of policy experience at the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). She has also been a trust board director and public health advisor to health and care commissioners at local and national level. She is an Associate Fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. She is President of the Medicine and Society Section and trustee of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Throughout her career Siân has endeavoured to hear what matters most to those she is working with and to incorporate this into action. This has proved to be a repeatedly humbling experience, easy in theory but hard in practice.
Dame Philippa Russell
Carers UK, Carer
Dame Philippa Russell is Vice-President of Carer UK and chaired the Government’s Standing Commission on Carers for six years. She was formerly Chief Executive of the Council for Disabled Children and a Commissioner with the Disability Rights Commission.
She is an Honorary Fellow of both the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She is also a member of the Medicine and Society Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the NHSE Commitment to Carers Programme Oversight Group.
Dame Philippa is a Board Member of Think Local, Act Personal and of the South East Forum on Ageing and as the parent of an adult disabled son, she has wide involvement with a range of third sector organisations supporting carers and a range of disabilities and special needs.
Duncan Reynolds
Social scientist. Researcher
Duncan Reynolds, PhD, is a Social Science Research Associate in the Centre for Primary Care in the Wolfson Institute of Population Health at Queen Mary, University of London. He is currently working on an NIHR funded project which is aiming to create Artificial Intelligence to aid the treatment of patients living with multiple long-term condition and polypharmacy. Within this project, Duncan is undertaking an ethnography to understand how new and complex technology is created in practice by large, diverse, interdisciplinary groups. Duncan received his PhD from the School of Business and Management at QMUL, where he undertook an ethnographic study of how trusting emerged in practice in clinical trials. Duncan’s main research interests are: social practices, healthcare, innovation, and trust.
“In a world of constantly emerging technologies, guidelines, and regulations, the fact that medicine is human endeavour may be lost, and therefore it is vitally important that values such as compassion, trust, and care remain central in healthcare”.