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 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 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.

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.

Prof Raj Thakkar

PCCS President and CKD representative

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. 

Joanne Haws

Independent Nurse Consultant & Specialist in Cardiovascular Disease

Joanne Haws is a registered nurse, specialising in Cardiovascular Disease, who held a variety of roles within the NHS before setting up in business as an independent consultant in 2010.  Joanne is the Clinical Director of Learn With Nurses, an award-winning Community Interest Company providing online clinical education that is accessible to healthcare professionals globally.  She is the former Chair of the UK Cardiovascular Nurse Leaders Forum and the Nurses and Allied Health Professionals Working Party of The British and Irish Hypertension Society; and has authored many publications in the nursing and cardiology press both in the UK and internationally.  Joanne is a Senior Clinical Consultant on the National CLEAR Programme, supporting frontline teams in the transformation of CVD prevention services and has been a Specialist Advisor to the Care Quality Commission since 2014.

Dr Xenophon Kassianides

General Practitioner with Extended Role in CVRM Medicine at the Yorkshire and Humber Deanery, Honorary Clinical Lecturer, Hull York Medical School, First5 GP Representative and Council Member, Primary Care Cardiovascular Society

Xenophon is a General Practitioner with Extended Role in Cardiovascular-Renal-Metabolic (CVRM) Medicine, working with The Ridings Medical Group and NHS The Humber Health Partnership. He holds an MD from Hull York Medical School and has completed postgraduate studies in Clinical Practice, Management, and Education with the University of Lancashire. He is a Member of both the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Xenophon's clinical and research focus is on CVRM conditions, with a particular interest in integrated care and prevention. His work in cardiology includes investigating cardiovascular outcomes and patient-reported outcomes in chronic kidney disease, as well as the effects of intravenous iron on cardiovascular health. He has served as Principal Investigator of the NIHR-adopted randomized controlled trial ExplorIRON-CKD and contributed to national research efforts, including the COVID-19 RECOVERY trial.

Passionate about academic medicine, Xenophon  has an extensive publication record and has taught widely, holding lecturer positions with several UK medical schools. He continues to contribute actively to education as an Honorary Lecturer at Hull York Medical School and as a peer reviewer for leading scientific journals.

Dr Paul Ferenc

GP with interest in Cardiology, Worcestershire and PCCS Treasurer

Graduated from Birmingham and completed foundation years in the North West., where I undertook a cardiology house job. Moved to Worcestershire to undertake GP training. Since 2015 I have been working at the local hospital in the cardiology department, in general cardiology and also heart failure.  

Throughout this time, I have been heavily involved at primary care level in the improvement of cardiovascular disease monitoring and treatment, especially the use of anticoagulation and detection of AF. I am lead for IHD, AF and heart failure within the practice, but also CVD lead in the PCN. I was until recently the CVD clinical lead for Hereford and Worcestershire. I  was also previously the   CVD Clinical Advisor for the local AHSN with the aim of improving outcomes for cardiovascular disease in the region.  I also run local education sessions in cardiovascular disease and been involved in several CVD educational articles in various publications.

Helen Williams

National Clinical Director for CVD Prevention, NHSE and Consultant Pharmacist for CVD, SE London ICB and UCL Partners

Helen is the National Clinical Director for CVD Prevention at NHS England and is working on delivery of the national CVD ambitions for AF, Blood Pressure and Cholesterol in the NHS Long Term Plan. Helen has worked as a CVD specialist for more than 25 years across all care settings. She was clinical adviser to the national AF programme and developed the pharmacist-led virtual clinic model to optimise uptake of anticoagulation in AF, which has now been spread nationally. Helen has recently been appointed as one of the long term conditions lead for South East London Integrated Care System and is also working at UCLPartners on the implementation of proactive care frameworks for long-term conditions to support primary care in the post COVID-19 environment.

Dr Sundhya Raman

PCCS Lifestyle Medicine Representative, BSc (hons) MBBS DPhil (Oxon) Dipl IBLM/BSLM

Dr Sundhya Raman is a medical doctor (Guys, Kings and St Thomas’s, 2007) with a BSc in Pharmacology & Physiology, a PhD (DPhil) in Genetics/Epigenetics is qualified in Lifestyle Medicine with the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine and the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

She began her career as a clinical scientist, and aside from her DPhil at Oxford she worked in labs around the world including at Yale, University of Sydney and at the Wolfson Centre for Age Related Diseases, London.

Dr Raman is the founder and director of a lifestyle medicine health consultancy (My Wellness Doctor) which provides advice and support to educate and empower individuals to prevent illness, reverse disease, and optimise mental and physical wellbeing using evidence-based lifestyle modalities.

She has created a programme using lifestyle change to lower cholesterol in a primary care setting, and is the lead for virtual group consultations for diabetes at Plant Based Health Online.

Dr Raman regularly presents talks and teaching on lifestyle medicine and healthy ageing to both medical professionals (GP registrars, medical students, MIMs Learning Live, PCN training events) as well as to the lay public, including a focus on specific risks and solutions for BAME groups. She authored the diet section for JBS4 and co-authored the section on physical activity. She contributes to media publications on lifestyle advice to prevent chronic disease.

Prof 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.

Dr Hannah Wright

GP Registrar Trainee, GP ST2 (Reading and Newbury VTS), Honorary Clinical Teaching Fellow – Imperial College London

Hannah Wright is a GP Registrar in Reading and Newbury VTS. She studied undergraduate medicine at the University of Oxford, before completing Foundation Training and Core Medical Training in London. Subsequently, she spent a year as a National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow at HQIP (Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership) where her work focused on using National Clinical Audit data to drive Quality Improvement, as well as educating Junior Doctors about using Local and National data to drive improvement. Hannah then spent a year as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at Imperial College London, on their novel ‘Lifestyle Medicine and Prevention’ course, which involved teaching undergraduate medical students about the wider determinants of health and the power of preventative medicine. Her interests include Medical Education, Preventative Medicine and Quality Improvement.  

Alison Warren

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 25 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 and has led on system wide quality improvement initiatives.

She has published on topics in clinical pharmacy and cardiology She has a national profile having worked with NICE, NHS Specialist Pharmacist Services, Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, British and Irish Hypertension Society and the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association. 

Alison is a lecturer at the University of Brighton and is a Fellow and a Faculty Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
 

Beverley Bostock

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

Bev is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in long-term conditions.  She is currently President Elect of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society.  She has a special interest in cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, heart failure, chronic kidney disease and lipid management along with common comorbidities such as metabolic liver disease, asthma and COPD. She is Editor in Chief of Practice Nurse Journal and has been a Queen’s Nurse since 2015.    

In a previous role she developed and delivered accredited modules in cardiovascular disease, heart failure and diabetes in collaboration with the Open University.  As well as holding an MA in Medical Ethics and Law and an MSc in Respiratory Care, Bev has a PgDip in Diabetes from the University of Warwick. Bev has had an extensive range of articles published in various journals on the management of long-term conditions and is a regular speaker at national conferences.