Paul Chazot

Prof Paul Chazot FBPhS is Director of the Durham University Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing Pain Challenge Academy.

Paul has developed three new clinical development programmes over the last 20 years, one for chronic pain (Votucalis), one for Post-concussion syndrome, and one for Alzheimer’s Disease (PBM-T 1068nm), the former at the pipeline stage for the company Akari Therapeutics UK, and the latter two reaching the Phase 2 clinical stages in the US and UK. He is also the key academic collaborator for the Durham University spin-out company Nevrargenics, who has developed exciting new rational drug leads (RAR-M) for disease-modification in a range of neurodegenerative diseases (Ellorarxine).

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Frances Cole

Frances Cole is a retired GP passionate about quality primary care and community management of persistent pain since in 1996. She gained a postgraduate diploma in CBT therapy in 1993-4 and focused on the role of biopsychosocial approach to persistent pain management.

In 1996 she and colleagues set up the first primary care based pain management programmes in the UK. The outcomes found people with pain had significantly less anxiety, depression, improved physical health and, most of all, their confidence to cope with their lives despite the pain had doubled. They grew their lives, slept better, some returned to work, travelled to see family abroad and took up new hobbies and friendships.

Since then Frances has worked in pain rehabilitation and enabled many patient resources and services to develop from collaboration with patients and clinicians both in primary and specialist care in the UK.

Frances co-founded the Live Well with Pain website along with Emma Davies, with the aim of improving support for professionals supporting people living with pain.

Frances was Chair of British Pain Society Pain Management Programme Special Interest Group 2010-2012 and somehow picked up a National NHS Clinical Leadership Award in 2011 for pain work!

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Rosie Cruickshank

Rosie Cruickshank is a Highly Specialist Physiotherapist working at INPUT Pain Management Centre at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.

She has worked with a pain management approach since the early 2000’s, firstly in MSK Outpatients and then at INPUT.  She has trained in and works with the Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach.  She has wide experience of providing training for physiotherapists including undergraduates, graduates, MSc students and Extended Scope Practitioners.

Rosie has a background in dance and completed her first degree in dance.  She has an interest in the emerging research that supports the benefits of the role of the Arts in Health.  She continues to be fascinated by Embodiment and the role of our relationship with our bodies and what we do with them on our mental and physical health.

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Emma Davies

Dr Emma Davies is Principal Pharmacist for pain, analgesic stewardship and harm reduction for a Health Board in South Wales. She has worked in pain management since the mid-2000s, developing her interest in analgesic stewardship and supported self-management whilst working in the multi-disciplinary, Southampton Pain Service.

Currently, Emma provides pain management support in primary and secondary care, working with medical teams, pharmacists and the wider MDT. Emma also teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and develops guidelines and educational materials locally and nationally. She was a lead author for All Wales analgesic stewardship and prescribing guidelines and was a committee member for NICE guidance on safe prescribing and withdrawal of dependence forming medicines.

Alongside Dr Frances Cole, Emma co-founded the Live Well with Pain website with the plan of improving support for professionals supporting people living with pain.

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Diarmuid Denneny

Diarmuid is a physiotherapist and independent prescriber. He is a specialist in complex and persistent/chronic pain and has significant clinical experience in this area being lead physio at a large central London multi-professional NHS pain clinic for over 16 years. He is interested in communication skills and psychologically informed care to support those living with pain. He is also trained in coaching, narrative medicine, forest bathing, and mindfulness teaching.
Diarmuid has represented physiotherapy and pain in many committees including past chair of the Physiotherapy Pain Association (PPA), committee member for the NICE chronic pain guidelines (NG193), and CRPS UK. He is passionate about advocacy and involvement and is a committee member of Footsteps Festival, and the Global Alliance of Partners for Pain Advocacy (GAPPA).

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Simon Gill

I have worked as a Pharmacist since qualifying in 2001, spending the first eight years within the community pharmacy sector before changing role to become an NHS primary care medicines management pharmacist in 2009. I have lived and worked within North Wales all my life. More recently, I developed and expanded my role and became an independent prescriber in 2016 with a particular interest in pain management. This interest led me to cross paths with and undertake research with members of the CFMHS team with a shared interest in the prescribing of high dose opioid analgesics.

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Patrick Hill

Dr Patrick Hill is chartered by the British Psychological Society as a Clinical and a Health Psychologist. He is registered as a Chartered Scientist by the Science Council and as a Practitioner Psychologist by the Health Care Professions Council.

Patrick has 35 years’ experience in applied Clinical Health Psychology, specialising in the management of long term health conditions, particularly chronic pain. He has also worked in a number of NHS national support teams, specialising in clinical governance and patient involvement in healthcare, including the UK’s ‘Expert Patient Programme’. He retired from full time NHS work in March 2015 and currently works in a number of services as an independent consultant clinical health psychologist.

He has published extensively on pain and other health conditions and also has 30 years’ experience in medico-legal reporting and court work in the areas of personal injury, chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Laura Hissey

Laura is a HCPC Registered Practitioner Psychologist who specialises in Pain Management. She is currently the Psychology Lead for an NHS Pain Service in the West Midlands. She has over 15 years’ experience of working in specialist multidisciplinary pain teams in both primary and secondary care NHS pain services.

Within her clinical practice, Laura provides highly specialist psychological assessment and interventions to support people to understand and self-manage a wide range of long-term pain conditions.

Aside of her NHS work, Laura works privately with Physiotherapy colleagues to deliver skills-based training courses for health professionals to enable them to train and support people with long-term conditions to self-manage their problem.

Her research interests include understanding pain beliefs and adjustment to chronic pain; as well as understanding the role of psychosocial factors in pain; and promoting the long-term maintenance of behaviour change.

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Roger Knaggs

Roger is a clinical academic pharmacist. His current position provides teaching and research opportunities whilst maintaining regular clinical practice. Roger’s main research interests focus on the appropriate use of analgesic medicines and associated clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization.

He aims to promote the importance of pain within pharmacy and the role of pharmacy within pain management. Roger was the inaugural chair of the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association pain management group.

Roger is the current President of the British Pain Society. In 2019 he was appointed a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and is the Chair of their Technical Committee. In addition, he has associations with several other healthcare policy and government organisations in the UK, including the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Care Quality Commission and NICE.

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Kerry Page

Kerry Page is the Programme Manager of Rethinking Pain, a progressive and innovative community based chronic pain service (operating across Bradford & Craven). Rethinking Pain is an integrated pain service, led by a community sector charity (Keighley Healthy Living) commissioned by Bradford District & Craven Health and Care Partnership, ICB.

Rethinking Pain actively connects a person’s clinical care with place-based, person centred pain management support, via a joined-up pain pathway.

Kerry has ten years experience in project management and in advocating for and demonstrating transformational change in health care. Her background includes design, oversight of delivery and evaluation of community-centred, clinically connected health interventions and development of integrated models of care that address health inequalities, improve quality of life and reduce NHS costs and pressures.

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Deepak Ravindran

Dr Deepak Ravindran is Honorary Professor at Teesside University, and NHS Consultant in Pain and Lifestyle Medicine, and works as Director for Lifestyle Medicine at the Central Reading PCN. He is Author of the Amazon Bestseller “Pain Free Mindset”.

He serves as the Deputy Editor of E-Pain Platform at FPM/ NHS England and The Chief Medical officer at Boutros Bear, a digital rehab platform and Associate Coach at Peak Health Coaching

Deepak adopts a trauma informed ‘upstreamist’ integrative approach to pain practice and has helped set up the award-winning community pain service in Berkshire (IPASS) in 2015 and the Berkshire Longcovid Integrated Service (BLIS) in 2020.

A multi award-winning Management Honours graduate from Henley Business School, he has completed the Diploma in Nutrition from University of Winchester and courses on Functional Nutrition for chronic pain.

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Rachel Stovell

Rachel is Joint Chair of the Physiotherapy Pain Association (PPA). She was the lead physiotherapist in the Facial Pain Team at the Eastman Dental Hospital and an Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapist at University College London Hospital Pain Management Centre.

Qualifying in 1993 from Manchester Rachel specialised in MSK working in the NHS, industry – Occupational Health and the private sector, including having her own private practice. The recurring presentation of people with persistent pain led her to search many sources and attend numerous courses before undertaking an MSc Pain Science and Society at King’s College London. It was following this that she moved to specialist NHS pain services.

Rachel maintains a particular interest in orofacial pain, the role of movement in pain experiences, as well the neuroscience of pain. Working as part of the Lived Well with Pain Team, Rachel is committed to furthering the understanding of persistent pain, disseminating knowledge, and supporting healthcare professionals working in this area.

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Paula Whitehurst

Paula Whitehurst is a lead Pharmacy Technician at Derby and Derbyshire Integrated Care Board.

Since 2022, Paula has been working with Derbyshire healthcare professionals on an Opioid Change Management Programme of Work. This agenda has involved collaborative working with Health Innovation East Midlands, Live Well With Pain and the voluntary sector. Ninety healthcare professionals in Joined Up Care Derbyshire are accredited as Ten Footsteps Practitioners and several Pharmacists and GPs have undertaken the More Skills Less Pills course offered by Live Well With Pain.

Collaboratively, we aim to reduce harm from opioids and support patients to live well with persistent pain.

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