President: Nick Ross

Nick is a journalist and campaigner and was one of the founders of HealthWatch. He is a veteran broadcaster who launched British breakfast TV, Watchdog and Crimewatch and whose credits include many of the best-known news and current affairs programmes on radio and TV.

He is a Trustee of Sense About Science and the UK Stem Cell Foundation, Chairman of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at UCL, a non-executive director of one of the largest NHS acute hospital trusts, and a member of the Royal College of Physicians Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine and of the research steering group of the Royal College of Surgeons. He has twice been Chairman of the Royal Society Science Book Prize and been a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics as well as several government committees and inquiries including the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee, the Health of the Nation Working Group and the NHS Taskforce. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a visiting professor at UCL.

Chair: Professor Susan Bewley

Susan Bewley is Professor (Emeritus) of Obstetrics & Women’s Health at King’s College London. She has always been devoted to the cause of rational, empathic and evidence-based medicine and the development of learning cultures. She was Honorary Clinical Director Obstetrics, NHS London (2010–2013) and consultant obstetrician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (1994–2011) where she was responsible for leading a highly regarded maternity unit and introducing innovative services, including perinatal mental health and domestic violence enquiry and advocacy.

Her main research interests were severe maternal morbidity, domestic and sexual violence, and institutional abuse, with over 350 publications including seven books. She chaired the RCOG Ethics Committee 2004–2007 and NICE Guideline Development and Evidence Update Groups (2012–date), as well as performing independent reviews of NHS maternity services and being an expert advisor to Government. She worked part-time at the Havens Sexual Assault Referral Centre (2014–2018) variously as an out-of-hours Sexual Offenses Examiner, research lead and locum consultant lead.

 Vice-chair: Dr James May

James graduated from Sheffield Medical School in 1997, and is now a GP principal in Kennington.

He has an MA in Bioethics from St Mary’s College in Twickenham, writing a dissertation on the mind-body problem in medicine, and he has a long-term interest in the history and philosophy of science.

Treasurer: Anne Raikes

Anne is an Oxford maths graduate who qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

She has since acquired fifteen years’ experience as a fund manager for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, specialising in asset allocation mainly for international corporate clients.

In her spare time she is a keen choral singer who also enjoys skiing, tennis and walking.

Secretary: Professor David A Bender

David is Emeritus Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at University College London. His research has been mainly in the area of tryptophan, niacin and vitamin B6, and especially the role of vitamin B6 in steroid hormone action. His main activity prior to retirement was teaching, especially to medical students.

More information at http://www.david-bender.co.uk

Newsletter Editor: Mandy Payne

Mandy attends committee meetings, but is not a Trustee of the Charity

Letters for publication are welcome — please contact the Editor.

Dr John Illman

Dr John Illman is a former editor of General Practioner. He spent five years as medical correspondent on the Daily Mail and eight years on The Guardian as health editor. The immediate past chair of the Medical Journalists Asssociation, he divides his time between writing, lecturing and media consultancy work. He is a visting lecturer in medical journalism at the University of Westminster and is writing a series of books on mental health. His former titles include The Body Machine with Christiaan Barnard. He has received several awards.

Keith Isaacson

Keith is a Senior Consultant Orthodontist. He joined HealthWatch shortly after its formation and has been on the committee for many years. He is currently Vice Chairman of the committee. Professionally he was formerly Chairman of Examiners for Orthodontics for the Royal College of Surgeons of England and formerly Chairman of the Medical Writers Group of the Society of Authors. Life Member of the British Orthodontic Society. He has lectured extensively worldwide and co-authored four text books, which has been translated into 15 different languages. He is lead editor of the British Orthodontic Societies' Guidelines on Radiography.

Les Rose

Les is a freelance consultant clinical scientist, now mostly retired, and worked for over 35 years in managing clinical trials, training and advising clinical researchers, and evaluating results of trials. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Clinical Research, and a Life Fellow of the Society of Biology. He serves on the editorial boards of The Biologist, Focus on Alternative and Complementary Medicine (FACT), and the Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine. Les has a blog at majikthyse.wordpress.com, and tweets as @majikthyse.

Membership Secretary: Alan Henness

Alan designed, created and maintains the HealthWatch website.

Alan is Director of the Nightingale Collaboration, which challenges misleading healthcare claims and was initially setup with funding from Dr Simon Singh.

Professor John Kirwan

John trained in Rheumatology at The Royal London Hospital, where he also undertook his MD thesis working on appropriate outcome assessment techniques in rheumatoid arthritis. After moving to Bristol University he coordinated the clinical trial team that first showed unequivocally that glucocorticoids (often called “steroids”) are able to hold back the progress of rheumatoid arthritis. He was Head of the Academic Rheumatology Unit in Bristol from 1995 to 2014, and a prominent member of OMERACT, the international organisation standardising clinical trials in rheumatology. At OMERACT and in Bristol he pioneered collaboration with patients as partners in the whole research process. John has also been instrumental in developing and testing new approaches to long term patient management, particularly in rheumatoid arthritis. Working in close collaboration with GP and nursing colleagues his unit developed and won national awards for their NICE-compliant care pathway for newly diagnosed patients and their 'direct access’ system for managing established disease.

Roger Fisken

Roger read medicine at Oxford, where he also undertook a PhD in neuroanatomy. He trained in clinical medicine in Birmingham, then received specialist training in Birmingham, London (St Bartholomew's Hospital) and Liverpool before becoming a consultant physician in North Yorkshire, specialising in diabetes and endocrinology. He retired in 2010. Roger's endocrine research focussed on hypercalcaemia and hyperparathyroidism. During his working life he was a referee for several medical journals, including The Lancet and Diabetic Medicine. He has been a member of HealthWatch UK for twenty years and has, on several occasions, acted as an assessor for the student prize competition.

Andrew Fulton

Andrew graduated from Queen Mary University in 2017 and currently works at the Eastman Dental Hospital as a Paediatric Dentist.

He won the HealthWatch Student competition in 2015 and has been involved in HealthWatch since as a committee member and trustee. He is currently pursuing training with the aim of specialising in Paediatric Dentistry.

Philippa Pigache

Philippa has been a journalist and author for more than 50 years. She has contributed (staff or freelance) to The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Independent Television News, the Mirror, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, The Observer and World Medicine. Since the 1990s she has specialised in health and medical science, contributing to The Lancet, Pharmaceutical Visions, Hospital Post Europe and Hospital Imaging & Radiology Europe. She has also authored a number of consumer health books and published short stories and a novel. From 2002 to 2016 she was honorary secretary of the Medical Journalists’ Association and editor of the journal, MJA News.

Coopted committee members

Tom Moberly

Tom is a medical journalist. He is currently editor of BMJ Careers, and has previously worked as clinical news editor at GP magazine, science reporter at Scrip World Pharmaceutical News, and as a news and feature writer at the Pharmaceutical Journal.

Jolene Galbraith

Jolene is junior doctor representative.

Sofia Hart

Sofia is a student representative.