Prof Raj Thakkar

PCCS President 

As President of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, Prof Raj Thakkar will serve a two-year term, representing the Society and guiding it in line with its aim and governance.

Working closely with the Board of Directors, Secretariat, and other key officers, the President leads strategic planning, chairs major meetings and conferences, and oversees succession and recruitment processes.

Externally, the President represents PCCS at national events and contributes to key healthcare initiatives, including NICE stakeholder engagement. 

Dr Chris Arden

GP, Park & St Francis Surgery in Hampshire, GPSI Cardiology in Southampton and Winchester

Chris Arden is a GP near Winchester, Hampshire. He also works in community cardiac clinics in Southampton and Winchester as a GPSI in cardiology, assessing patients with suspected heart failure, atrial fibrillation, palpitations, hypertension and valvular heart disease.

The community cardiac service provides echocardiography, ambulatory ECG, blood pressure and event recorder monitoring; receiving consultant mentorship support from secondary care and working in partnership with specialist heart failure and cardiac rehabilitation nursing colleagues.

He does a weekly stress echo clinic at Southampton General Hospital and has BSE accreditation in echocardiography.

Chris Arden is former Editor in Chief of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Journal, a member of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, British Society of Echocardiography, British Society of Heart Failure and British Heart Valve Society. He is on the editorial board of the British Journal of Cardiology.

Ivan Benett

GPwSI in Cardiology

I've been a GP since 1984 in Central Manchester. In 2007 I gained a Diploma in Cardiology for GPs. I established a Tier 2 service to receive referrals from GPs for patients with cardiology symptoms or pathology. I have also held a variety of educational and managerial positions in the Health Care system in Manchester. I have retired from front line GP provision but continue to work as a GPwSI in Cardiology for one day a week. I have been involved with the PCCS and predecessor  organisations for over ten years.

Beverley Bostock

PCCS President Elect, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Mann Cottage Surgery and Editor in Chief, Practice Nurse Journal

Beverley is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in general practice in Gloucestershire. She is also Editor in Chief of Practice Nurse journal. She qualified as an RGN at St George’s Hospital London and gained a BSc in Professional Nursing Studies after completing 2 years of an advanced clinical practice MSc at Wolverhampton University. She is an Independent Nurse Prescriber and holds an MSc in Respiratory Care and an MA in Medical Ethics and Law.

Beverley’s other qualifications include a Post Graduate Award in Diabetes Therapeutics from Warwick University.

Beverley has extensive educational experience developing modules in diabetes and CVD for an Open University-affiliated organisation and is an Expert Witness for a clinical negligence company. She has been a Queen’s Nurse since 2015, a title which is given to nurses who have demonstrated a high level of commitment to patient care and nursing practice.

Beverley is the president elect for the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and has worked on the Implementation Steering Group of Public Health England’s CVDPREVENT project and Oxford AHSN’s ‘Prevention of CVD during the pandemic’ guidance. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer in behaviour change at Imperial College London for the MSc in Preventive Cardiology.

Terry McCormack

GP in Whitby, North Yorkshire, Professor of Primary Care Cardiovascular Medicine at Hull York Medical School (HYMS) and Immediate Past President of the British and Irish Hypertension Society.

Terry McCormack is a GP in Whitby, North Yorkshire, Professor of Primary Care Cardiovascular Medicine at Hull York Medical School (HYMS) and Immediate Past President of the British and Irish Hypertension Society. He is a primary care researcher, particularly interested in hypertension, lipids and anticoagulation.

In 2020 he was the winner of the HYMS Undergraduate Medicine Phase II and III Teacher of Excellence Award. Guideline work includes the NICE Hypertension, Perioperative Care and Venous Thromboembolism guideline committees and the AAGBI/BHS preoperative BP guideline. He is an editor of the British Journal of Cardiology and a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology

Dr Jim Moore

Past President of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, GP, GPSI Cardiology, Gloucestershire

Dr Moore is a GP in Gloucestershire with a special interest in Cardiovascular Medicine and Past President of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, spearheading significant changes in this organisation. He lectures extensively across the UK.

He has been heavily involved in National CVD advisory groups, guidelines and working parties. He is currently a member of the National Heart Failure Audit Expert Steering Group. He was a member of the NICE Chronic Heart Failure in Adults Guideline committee (2016-2018) and was a board member of British Society for Heart Failure.

Dr Moore has provided cardiovascular clinical support to local commissioning organisations for over two decades and more recently to Cardiac Networks in the South-West. He is currently Clinical Co-Lead (Primary Care) for the West of England Integrated Cardiac Clinical Network.

Dr Moore is the National Clinical Co- Lead (Primary Care) for the National Cardiac Transformation Programme which has included working closely on NHSE initiatives such as Managing Heart Failure @Home and more recently chaired a group that developed the National (NHSE) guidance for the Virtual Ward care for people with heart failure (in publication). He also provides support for the National Cardiovascular Prevention Programme.

He has been involved in the establishment and subsequent development of the community-based Gloucestershire Heart Failure service since its inception in 2003 where he continues to work as a GPSI.

Professor Michael Norton

Consultant Community Cardiologist, Visiting Professor of Community Cardiology and Deputy Medical Director, Dept of Community Cardiology, Sunderland and North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Professor Michael Norton is a Consultant Community Cardiologist and Visiting Professor of Community Cardiology based in the North East of England. Michael runs the Dept. of Community Cardiology in Sunderland. He is also the Deputy Medical Director of the North East Ambulance Service and is clinically active in pre-hospital emergency medicine. Michael has significant experience in syncope and related disorders having worked for over eighteen years (six as head of Department) within the Falls & Syncope Service at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. Michael’s main clinical and research interests are cardiovascular risk reduction, neuro-cardiovascular syncope and cardiac arrest. He is a director and national council member of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society. He is also the co-founder of Cardioproof, a community interest company, which aims to improve survival from cardiac arrest by increasing bystander CPR and use of public access defibrillators.

Alison Warren

PCCS Secretary, Consultant Pharmacist for Cardiology, Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups and University Hospitals Sussex

Alison is a Consultant Pharmacist in Cardiology working in both primary and secondary care in Sussex. She qualified as a pharmacist from Bath University and has over 20 years of experience in cardiology. She has an MSc in Cardiology (Sussex University) and as an independent prescriber manages patients across a range of cardiac conditions. She is passionate about improving the prevention and care of people living with heart conditions.

She has published on topics in clinical pharmacy and cardiology. She was a member of the NICE Hypertension Guideline Group (2019). She worked as an educational facilitator with CPPE for the first wave of the NHS England pharmacists in GP practices and teaches at Brighton Universities on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Alison is Fellow and a Faculty Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.