Medical technologies advisory committee members

Biography

Jacob is a Consultant in Emergency Physician at Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust where he works clinically at Basingstoke and Winchester sites. Prior to his appointment at NICE he was the Clinical Lead for the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, working closely across all tiers of the trust to improve the delivery of safe patient care.

He is also the Acute Care Common Stem training lead for the trust, co-ordinating cross divisional education for trainees, and representing them at a deanery level.

Prior to his career in Medicine he obtained a BSc in Computer Science at the University of Durham and worked for several years in the technology sector in London. He maintains a strong interest in computing specifically, and technology in general, and recently sponsored the development of a new Emergency Department Information System for the trust.

Biography

Kiran Bali MBE JP has extensive experience as a Lay member on a number of health bodies, ensuring the patient voice is at the core of all deliberations.

For over 2 decades, Kiran has worked on initiatives aimed at engaging, educating and empowering communities to actively participate in decisions relating to their health and wellbeing.

In 2008, Kiran was awarded an MBE for her services to the community. Kiran serves as a Magistrate and is actively involved in impactful community cohesion, nationally and internationally.

Biography

Dr Katherine Boylan is director of innovation for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), a position she has held since April 2020. This role involves overseeing innovation activities within MFT, part of the wider research and innovation function.

The innovation team in MFT supports:

• intellectual property and commercialisation management
• adoption of novel technologies within the trust
• strategic partnerships with commercial organisations and other leading clinical/academic centres
• a portfolio of strategic programmes including the diagnostic and technology accelerator and clinical data science unit
• the interaction with the co-located companies across the Citylabs innovation district.

Prior to this position, Katherine worked in the University of Manchester for a number of years, most recently as operations director for the Medical Research Council funded molecular pathology node, and the trust-funded diagnostics and technology accelerator. Katherine’s academic background is cancer genetics (PhD, University of Dundee) and molecular biology (BSc, University of Sheffield).

Biography

Stacey is the founding director of Pro Bono Health Economist Network, a charitable organisation aiming to organise volunteers to provide pro bono research and education support to other health charities, particularly those with limited funding or resources.

Stacey is also a research scientist in the modelling and simulation team at Evidera, where she is responsible for providing strategic and scientific insights across client projects.

After completing her PhD at the University of York, Stacey has been working as a health economist for over a decade, specialising in economic modelling and health technology assessment across an extensive range of therapeutic areas. She has previously worked for NICE, where she supported national guideline development.

Biography

Donna is a clinical scientist who has spent most of her career working the field of assistive technology. As a research assistant in the medical engineering department of Dulwich Hospital, London she gained a PhD in biomedical engineering from King’s College London.

She held joint academic and clinical posts in the medical engineering and Physics Department of King’s College Hospital. During this time as well as working in clinical services she took part in research on assistive technology and its provision. She was co-ordinator and taught on academic courses in rehabilitation engineering and jointly developed the MSc in assistive technology at King’s College London.

She moved to Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and as a consultant clinical scientist and until 2019 she was head of the rehabilitation engineering service which provided a range of assistive technologies. In 2015 the department expanded to include a regional NHS communication aid service. She also became lead scientist for the Trust.

From 2019 Donna was the research and innovation director for Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust. She retired in 2022 however remains an honorary senior research fellow in the Trust. She remains state registered as a clinical scientist and undertakes medico-legal work as an expert witness providing assistive technology reports.

She joined MTAC in 2021.

Biography

Teik is currently a GP partner at The Garth Surgery in Guisborough, a market town on the edge of North Yorkshire. He is also the clinical director of the East Cleveland Group Primary Care Network

An innovative and entrepreneurial doctor, Teik has developed new clinical services, led clinical work streams in commissioning and GP federation. With more than fifteen years of experience from research to community geriatric medicine, general practice and management, he maintains a strong interest in primary care research and adoption of innovations in primary care.

Biography

Neil is a professor of health technology assessment (HTA) at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He is deputy director of the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) funded Complex Reviews Support Unit (CRSU). His research interests include methods development for evidence synthesis and decision-analytic modelling and the use of 'development focussed' HTA to support decision-making regarding the development of, and investment in, nascent healthcare technologies.

He holds postgraduate degrees in pharmacology, health economics and applied statistics and an MBA. He has worked in the pharma, academic, and consultancy sectors in roles spanning basic pharmacological research, clinical development, epidemiology, and health technology assessment.

Biography

Michael is a health economics, policy, and reimbursement manager at Medtronic, a global medical technology company. He supports the company's market access strategies by leading on health economic and reimbursement activities of innovative medical devices that alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life.

Before joining Medtronic, Michael worked in the NHS as a pharmacist and later as a medicine optimisation pharmacist in a clinical commissioning group (CCG) with a special interest in geriatric and palliative care medicine. During his time at the CCG, he worked closely with clinicians, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders to bring about transformational change that improved patient quality of care and delivered cost savings to the NHS. Michael also undertook a secondment within the Department of Health and Social Care where he supported the Medicines and Pharmacy Directorate in assessing and mitigating risks to the supply of medicines in the UK due to shortages, regulatory concerns, and Brexit.

Michael holds a Master's of Science (MSc) in Health Policy from Imperial College London. He also has a Master's of Pharmacy (MPharm) and a postgraduate certificate in Independent Prescribing, both from the University of Kent. Michael remains a registered pharmacist on the General Pharmaceutical Council and a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Biography

Emily was a registered nurse and obtained a BA (Honours) degree in Psychology through the Open University. After leaving the NHS, Emily set up an education consultancy service that ran for 14 years.

As a non-executive director of a primary care trust, Emily involved users, carers, and community organisations in developing quality monitoring and evaluation work. In 2013, while Emily was a lay member on the NICE guideline development group for chronic hepatitis B, she initiated a series of chronic hepatitis B health education activities in Manchester in the Chinese community. The work culminated in some local individuals testing positive, and receiving treatment for this asymptomatic but potentially lethal disease.

Over the last 16 years or so, as a result of serious health problems, Emily has undergone various investigative procedures and this has brought her into close contact with advanced medical technologies. Emily hopes that her understanding and experience as a patient can add value to the discussions and evaluation of potential innovative medical technologies competing for NHS resources.

Biography

Avril is a lead clinical scientist within Clinical Engineering at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She leads its successful medical device innovation team, developing novel technologies for patient and system benefit. Device risk management, trialling and regulatory compliance form a significant part of her role.

In addition, she is the MedTech lead for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Devices for Dignity (D4D) MIC, which manages a portfolio of collaborative health-tech development projects. These are intended to benefit people living with interrelated long-term conditions and themes include kidney care, diabetes, neurological conditions and rehabilitation. The majority involve industry collaborators. She has been a lead or co-investigator on NIHR device development and Research Council funded health-tech projects exceeding £10M value since 2016.

Avril was awarded a PhD from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield for developing and evaluating minimal access orthopaedic 'virtual environments' for surgical training. Her background includes an early NHS career as a biomedical scientist in haematology, followed by biomechanics and human factors research, pan-European orthopaedic R&D involving several major medical device, engineering and IT companies to return to NHS-based paediatric clinical gait analysis, en route to her current roles.

Biography

Karen is a registered nurse and the director of education at Queen’s University Belfast, school of nursing and midwifery. As director of education she has responsibility for the coordination, development, and quality assurance of programmes relating to nursing and midwifery within the school.

She has published widely in the field of healthcare and nurse education and is a clinical section editor for BMJ on examination. From 2006 to 2016 she served as a member of the Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee (IPAC). She has participated in the development of several national patient safety guidelines in the UK.

Biography

Naomi is the regional head of allied health professions for Health Education England (HEE). She is responsible for strategic leadership and operational support to ensure employers and Integrated Care Systems develop allied health profession (AHP) workforce supply, training, and education for service delivery and transformation across the North West. She is the national lead for HEE's AHP support workforce programme and co-chair of the North West AHP Supply and Transformation Board.

In previous roles, Naomi led the national AHP strategy implementation programme as head of programmes for the chief AHP officer at NHS England. She was a NICE fellow from 2017 to 2020 and has also worked for NICE's implementation programme. As a chartered physiotherapist, she was a member of council for the Chartered for Society of Physiotherapy from 2013 to 2015 and has held a range of clinical, management and leadership roles in the NHS.

Biography

Abdullah is a senior research fellow in systematic reviewing at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) within the University of Sheffield. He is the director of ScHARR-TAG Reviews, an academic group which is involved in the production of evidence reports to support health policy decision making by NICE and other national bodies.

Abdullah has undertaken research on the clinical effectiveness of healthcare technologies for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme for over 15 years and has been involved with the NICE Decision Support Unit.

His research interests include the application and development of systematic review methods. In particular, the review and synthesis of diagnostic and prognostic evaluations, rapid reviews, review techniques for individual patient data and mixed treatment comparisons.

Biography

Jai is a Consultant vascular and interventional radiologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT), appointed in 1999. Together with his colleagues, he provides one of the largest and most comprehensive adult and paediatric vascular interventional radiology services within the UK.

Jai's main areas of clinical interest are in trans-arterial therapies for the treatment of liver tumours, radiological management of portal hypertension and treatment of vascular malformations. He was previously lead clinician for vascular radiology at LTHT for 5 years. He has also been involved in regional Radiology training as Deputy Training Programme Director for the West Yorkshire Radiology Training Scheme and Head of School of Radiology for Health Education England (HEE) across Yorkshire and the Humber.

Jai has previously undertaken national committee work as Chair of the Education Committee and Secretary of the British Society of Interventional Radiology (BSIR). He is currently Chair of the Interventional Radiology Committee at the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR).

Biography

Kazem Rahimi is a professor of cardiovascular medicine and population health at the University of Oxford and a consultant cardiologist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. His research interests include hypertension, heart failure, multimorbidity and cardiovascular risk management, using a variety of methodologies such as individual-patient meta-analysis, large-scale decentralised clinical trials, and digital health technologies.

Kazem leads the Deep Medicine programme at the Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health, with a major interest in the application of machine learning approaches to electronic health records. He also leads the Blood Pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists' Collaboration (BPLTTC), which is an international collaboration of all the major trials of blood pressure lowering drugs. He is the director of the Martin School Programme on Informal Cities and a co-investigator of the PEAK-Urban programme.

Biography

Roger is Professor of Clinical Neurophysiology in the Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, and honorary consultant in the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology in the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne. His clinical and research focus is on developing and testing novel diagnostic techniques for patients with neurological diseases.

Biography

Alun is a consultant in transplant surgery and paediatric and adolescent urology at Nottingham University Hospitals. He is co-lead for paediatric transplantation and also for the living donor kidney transplant programme there. Transition and long-term care of congenital problems are further special interests.

He has been a member of the NICE guideline development groups for lower urinary tract dysfunction in neurological disease and for transition from paediatric to adult care, and was also a member of the committee developing quality standards for transition. He was a NICE fellow from 2013-16.