Dr Rachel Davies,

Dr Rachel Davies, PhD FRCP is a consultant pulmonologist in the National Pulmonary Hypertension Service, Hammersmith Hospital, London and honorary senior lecturer at Imperial College, London. The pulmonary hypertension service sees over 1500 patients with all forms of pulmonary hypertension per year. She has particular responsibility for running the genetics and transplant arms of this Service as well as managing the pregnancy of patients with pulmonary hypertension in conjunction with the materno-fetal obstetricians.

She also has a keen interest in medical education and in 2012, she was appointed Training Programme Director of the North West Thames Respiratory Medicine specialty training programme. She is Vice Chair of the Respiratory Specialist Advisory committee, a sub-committee of the Joint Royal Colleges Physicians Training Board and is the lead for Quality in Training for the UK. She is actively involved in teaching and regularly lectures undergraduates, post-graduates and speciality trainees from all base specialties as well as being an author of the best-selling revision guide for MRCP, Cases for Paces which is soon to publish its fourth edition. She is also an active member of The British Thoracic Society, having previously served on their Council, Quality Improvement committee, Nominations committee and the Pulmonary Vascular Specialist Advisory Group.

Dr Sophie Fletcher

Dr Fletcher led the ILD (Interstitial Lung Disease) service at University Hospital Southampton between 2013-18, a regional specialist service recognised by NHS England, a service that receives both national and international referrals. She is the joint lead of the Southampton Combined ILD and Rheumatology clinic, a regional referral clinic.

Dr Fletcher is the current Chair of the Interstitial and Rare Lung Disease Specialist Advisory Group for the British Thoracic Society (BTS) and provides expert advice to guide the content of the national scientific symposium.

Dr Fletcher works closely with the University of Southampton and the NIHR Respiratory
Biomedical Research Unit (BRU). Since 2015, UHS has hosted 26 clinical trials in ILD, for
which Dr Fletcher has been the Chief Investigator (2), Principal Investigator (22) or
coinvestigator (2).

She won the BTS/NIHR award in 2023 for Principle/Chief Investigator making an outstanding contribution in design, conduct and dissemination of NIHR portfolio studies and founded a clinical international fellowship in ILD at UHS which has so far supported 14 fellows and has supervised 6 successful NIHR associate PIs.

In collaboration with the British Lung Foundation, Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis, the Southampton Biomedical Research Unit, and regional ILD centres in Southampton and
Portsmouth, she co-founded a patient support group for those in Wessex with ILD – WILD.
www.wildsupport.co.uk

Professor Najib Rahman

Professor Rahman is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Research Delivery Network Specialty and Settings Lead for respiratory disorders. His research focuses on practice changing and translational studies in pleural disease and respiratory intervention.

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He also directs the Oxford Respiratory Trials Unit and works clinically as a pleural specialist. He was appointed Director of the Oxford Respiratory Trials Unit and Consultant Lead for Pleural Disease in Oxford in 2011. 

He was appointed as Professor of Respiratory Medicine in 2018 and is runs randomised and observational studies in pleural infection, pneumothorax and malignant pleural effusion.  He is trained in Thoracoscopy, Thoracic Ultrasound and Clinical Trials methodology, and has published over 300 papers with citations of >6000. He is co-chair of the BTS Pleural Guidelines 2022, Chair of the BTS Pleural Intervention Committee 2022, and Chair of multiple ERS guidelines on pleural disease.

Dr Caroline Baxter

Dr Baxter is a Consultant Respiratory Physician at Manchester University Hospital Foundation Trust where she is the Divisional Medical Director for Respiratory and Thoracic Services. She has a specialist interest in bronchiectasis and complex lung infection, including pulmonary aspergillosis. She was the Clinical Director of the UK National Aspergillosis Centre until 2023, which holds an international reputation for patient care, research, and education. Her PhD focused on the molecular detection of aspergillus in sputum samples which has since led to the UKs first accredited pyrosequencing assay to detect genetic antifungal resistance mechanisms. She has continued an active portfolio of research in lung infection working both for the South Manchester Bronchiectasis Service and the Medicines Evaluation Unit, an early phase accredited clinical trial unit in Manchester.

Dr John Curtis

Dr Curtis (MB ChB FRCP DMRD FRCR) is a recently retired Consultant Radiologist at University Hospital Aintree, a post he held between 1997-2023. His interests are Chest Radiology, Emergency Radiology and Medical Education. He founded the Aintree FRCR 2B Course in 2002 and was Head of School, Mersey Deanery 2008-17 and a Past President of the British Society of Emergency Radiology and the Liverpool Medical Institution. In addition to traditional face-to-face teaching, he is particularly interested in radiology video production, online teaching and is always open to adopting teaching formats that trainees find the most useful – feedback and action are absolutely essential to good education. He has twice won the Royal College of Radiologists JRF Trainer of the Year award in 2014 and 2021 and the Royal College of Radiologists Gold Medal in 2017. In his spare time he plays golf, walks the dog and loves to watch Liverpool FC at Anfield.

Dr Hitasha Rupani

Dr Rupani is a consultant respiratory rhysician at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) and the holder of a Research Leaders Programme (RLP) award. In addition to inpatient clinical work, she leads the severe asthma service at UHS.

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Her research focuses on improving our understanding and treatment of asthma and asthma attacks. She came to UHS to do her PhD, which she completed in 2015. This investigated the immune responses of people with severe asthma to viral infections and how they vary. As a consultant she has continued asthma research including looking at asthma outcomes after an intense education programme, and trialing different ways of diagnosing asthma. She also set up a multi-centre study also looking at immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines in patients with severe asthma.

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She has also been the chair of the BTS Asthma advisory group.

Dr Mark Allenby

Dr Allenby (MBBS, BSc (Hons), FRCP (UK)) trained in the south west of England. He is currently a consultant respiratory physician at University Hospital Southampton. Dr Allenby has a special interest in cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis.

Mark Mottershaw

Mark Mottershaw is based out of the greater Portsmouth area and works at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust as a chief respiratory physiologist.

Dr Arjjana Sivaloganathan

Dr Sivaloganathan is a consultant respiratory physician at University Hospital Southampton (UHS). She is the clinical lead for the UHS complex home ventilation service and is also one of the consultants leading the respiratory high dependency unit.

Dr Anindo Bannerjee

Dr Banerjee is a consultant respiratory physician at University Hospital Southampton (UHS). He has specialist clinics for patients with lung cancer, TB and non-TB mycobacterial diseases and complex breathlessness.

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He runs the diagnostic cardiopulmonary exercise testing service at UHS, and is also the clinical lead for the Trust's lung function laboratory. Regionally, he's involved in the endobronchial ultrasound service for the south.

Professor Paul Elkington

​Professor Elkington is a clinician scientist with a subspecialty interest in tuberculosis.  He delivers inpatient care on the respiratory wards and outpatient tuberculosis care, and has a broad teaching portfolio.  He leads the tuberculosis research group, which conducts cross-disciplinary research using bioengineering approaches to identify new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.  In addition, he initiated and co-directed the Personal Respirator Southampton (PeRSo) project, providing highly efficacious and sustainable PPE during waves 1 and 2 of the COVID-19 pandemic.  He was awarded an MBE for services to medicine in 2020.

Dr Jennifer Graves

Dr Graves qualified from Bristol University in 2000. She undertook her Respiratory training in Wessex and the Southwest of England. She started as a Respiratory Consultant at the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury in 2011, before relocating to Dorset County Hospital in 2015.

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She is the Lung Cancer Lead for Dorset County Hospital and the Lung Cancer SSG Lead for Dorset. She is also the Clinical Director for the Dorset Lung Cancer Screening Programme.