Pearl Avery has had an interest in Gastroenterology since qualifying as a nurse in 2005. Most recently as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Nurse in Dorset for 8 years the last year as a Nurse consultant. During that time, she has been continually educating herself and developing as an advanced nurse.  She has become a prescriber and completing her Master of Science in advanced clinical practice in 2019. Pearl had worked with the IBD Registry team as a supporter of the aims and objectives of The Registry since 2015 and undertook a secondment in 2020. Pearls use of this data locally at Dorset helped to build the IBD nursing team twofold at her trust and left the team in excellent health with a sustainable model of care for the future. An interest in digital health led to a successful application to the HEE/NIHR bridging award and the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur programme. Taking a step away from clinical care to develop a research proposal and work as a patient safety practitioner Pearl plans to undertake a PhD with a focus on the experience of people with IBD of using digital and virtual health services. Pearl is now working clinically again as an IBD Clinical Nurse Specialist at St Mark’s Hospital and also working 1 day a week at Wyke Regis medical center as an ANP with a specialist interest in gastroenterology part of her plans for a clinical academic career.

Phil Tozer is an IBD surgeon and proctologist at St Mark’s Hospital. He leads the Robin Phillips Fistula Research Unit with Professor Ailsa Hart and undertakes research in IBD, proctology and abdominopelvic catastrophe. Phil has published extensively in perianal Crohn’s disease and champions PPI within his academic work, supporting patient groups with information campaigns and the production of advice leaflets and books. His specialist practice at St Mark’s is primarily aimed at tertiary patients form around the UK with particularly complex IBD and perianal disease.

Miss Jessy Choi is a Consultant Ophthalmic surgeon in Sheffield Children, Sheffield Royal Hallamshire and Jessop Hospitals; and honorary lecturer in the University of Sheffield.

She developed the North-Derbyshire universal visual screening programme for preschool children in 2005; then set up the Sheffield paediatric inflammatory eye disease multi-professional service in 2009. She also runs the regional strabismus service in Sheffield.

The paediatric uveitis service continues to expand; currently provide a multi-streams weekly consultant led MDT clinic and overseeing the uveitis screening service.

The Sheffield paediatric uveitis team comprise of a seamless partnership between the ophthalmologists and the department of rheumatology, infectious disease and gastroenterology; sharing the same value and goal to improve the care and management of inflammatory eye disease. We have the drive and passion to improve and are proactive in research development. We participate actively in studies, to positively shape the advance in treatment in the future.

Nicola Dames is a nurse, a wife, a patient, a mother and a business women. Diagnosed in 2001 with Ulcerative Colitis, which lead to Stoma surgery in 2006. Nic joined the PLG 3years ago, her passion for patient involvement in research as well as patient led research resulted in becoming a published first author of a major study published in Colorectal Disease.

Melissa Fletcher is a member patient representative on the IBD UK committee and has been involved in the development of the UK IBD Standards 2019. She is enthusiastic about supporting the Committee and giving a patient perspective in terms of developing IBD services further in the UK so that all sufferers receive one standard of service provision.  She is also an advocate of taking ownership of disease management and self-directed support and is keen to influence other patients on how to do this effectively.
Melissa has been a member of Crohn’s and Colitis UK since she was diagnosed with Crohn’s in 2004.  She has been an awareness raiser, volunteer and fundraiser for the Charity and was also a member of the personal grants panel for several years.
Melissa is an active member of her local Patient Panel at the University Hospital of Southampton.  She is passionate about supporting others, raising awareness of IBD and ultimately finding a cure for IBD.

Sister Vikki Garrick MSc, BSc, RGN, RSCN, Non-medical prescriber. Foundation of Nursing Studies Fellow (FoNS) 2018. Scottish improvement Leader (ScIL) 2021.
Vikki’s career as an IBD Clinical Nurse Specialist has spanned the last 16 years and has culminated in her recent appointment as a Nurse Consultant in Gastroenterology in the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow. Publications include the experience of teaching self administration of Methotrexate at home and a review on the practical management of perianal Crohn’s disease from her MSc thesis in 2015.
Vikki is a keen proponent of the importance of effective MDT working in the delivery of high quality patient care and is keen to raise the profile of IBD Nurses specifically. She completed a scoping exercise on IBD Nurse services across Scotland in conjunction with the Scottish Government in 2017 and has submitted the report as part of the DO IT Collaboration. Key findings from this report focus on service improvement, MDT working and utilising the specialist nurse skillset to its full advantage.
Vikki is also the current Co-chair of the Scottish IBD Nurse Network which has work streams focussing on the implementation of the National IBD Blueprint. She is heavily involved in the Cross Party Working Group at the Scottish Government which functions to lobby politicians to raise the awareness of IBD within Scottish Parliament from a patient and Healthcare Professional perspective. Nationally, Vikki has also been the only paediatric nurse on the BSG IBD committee and more recently was voted onto the BSG AYP committee. She is also one of 2 paediatric nurse representatives on the IBD UK group.
Vikki is driven towards providing more effective services for people (specifically young people) who live with IBD through the implementation of QI approaches and effective MDT working.

Kay Greveson, a qualified independent nurse prescriber, has 17 years experience as a IBD nurse, having worked at various teaching hospitals including lead IBD nurse at the Royal Free Hospital, London.  She now works as IBD advanced nurse practitioner at The London IBD Clinic. Her research interests include in travel health and IBD, transitional care and screening prior to Anti-TNF therapy. She founded IBD Passport charity in 2014 and has since won numerous prestigious medical and nursing awards for its development. A speaker at national and international events, she has published work in numerous journals and co-authored chapters in several books including ‘IBD Nursing’ and ‘Curbside Consultation in IBD’.  Kay was a committee member of the Nurses section of European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation 2015-2018 and chair in 2018. She formed part of the committee in writing the 2019 European consensus statement on the role of the IBD nurse specialist.

Dr Hawthorne studied medicine at Queens’ College Cambridge and went on to do his clinical training at the University of Oxford, qualifying in 1983. He trained in general medicine and gastroenterology in Nottingham and Manchester, and did research work in Nottingham on eicosanoids in ulcerative colitis, with Prof Chris Hawkey, leading to an MD. He took up a consultant post at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff in 1995, where he has further built up the large inflammatory bowel disease clinic established by Prof John Rhodes. His clinical interests are inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal failure.
As chair of the IBD section committee of the BSG, he led the IBD guidelines writing group, published in Gut 2019. He sits of the IBD UK committee and was senior author on the 3rd UK IBD Standards published 2019. He chairs the Medical Research Grants committee for Crohn’s Colitis UK. He is also a director and board member of the IBD Registry co. and is an elected representative on the BSG Council. His research interests include clinical trials of immunosuppressive therapy in IBD, and the natural history of inflammatory bowel disease.

Dr Shuvra Ray graduated from Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ medical school in 2004 before undertaking basic general medical training in SE London. He completed his MRCP and pursued higher specialist training in gastroenterology in SE London & Kent. He completed a fellowship in IBD at St Thomas’ before obtaining a prestigious 18 month research scholarship in IBD research at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA. He was awarded his PhD in inflammatory bowel diseases at University College London. He was appointed as a consultant gastroenterologist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals in 2017 and is also lead for inpatient gastroenterology services and clinical governance. He is a passionate advocate for the centrality of multidisciplinary care in the management of IBD and is actively involved in training of nurses, AHPs and other members of the MDT.

I completed my nurse training just over 10 years ago at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital, and this is where I found my passion for colorectal nursing. Post registration I worked in a colorectal surgical unit where I developed and expanded my skills and knowledge which then lead to me working in intensive care.  Following this, I landed my ‘dream job’ as a Colorectal Stoma Care CNS before going on to do Colorectal Enhanced Recovery. I now work at University College London Hospitals in the most exciting and innovative role yet as a Surgical Inflammatory Bowel Disease CNS.

Professor Sebastian (Seb) is the lead clinician at the IBD unit in Hull University Teaching Hospitals, Hull. He leads an integrated IBD Unit (IBD HULL) of clinical and research staff, which prides in personalised care models for IBD patients. IBD Hull has gained recognition as one of the most research active IBD units in the UK and collaborates in several multicentre national and international IBD studies. He is chief investigator in 7 ongoing multicentre studies including 2 pan European studies . The current research areas include pharmacogenomics, Transcriptomics in treatment response, novel risk prediction in acute severe colitis, multimodal approach to perianal Crohn`s disease, Inception cohort studies , pharmaco-epidemiology. He has over 300 peer-reviewed publications focussing on IBD (H- index 39, i10 index 71). He was awarded the NIHR Royal College of Physicians research award for outstanding contribution to research in 2016 and BAME researcher of the year award in 2019 .He has been co-author for a number of European Colitis and Crohn`s Organisation (ECCO) guidelines and workshops in various aspects of IBD. Seb is the upcoming chair of CLINICOM and member of CONFER Task Force committees of ECCO, Co-leads the Y&H NIHR LCRN gastroenterology speciality. Nationally, he is the chair of the BSG research committee and exec committee member, current member of IBD CRG, International committee, lead of the IBD subgroup of BSG AI task force and past chair of the adolescent Section of British Society of Gastroenterology.