Speakers' Bios - 2024 BSACP Conference
Bec McKay
Bec McKay is a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist running the Complex Abortion Network for the Eastern Region. She is also lead for Early pregnancy and Emergency Gynaecology in Peterborough City Hospital. She has worked in the field of Abortion Care within the NHS for 25 years. She is currently the Abortion Module Guardian for the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) for their Abortion Care Specialist Modules and is passionate about education. She is a current doctor member for BSACP and sits on their Education and Training Committee, along with helping to organise the Conference for the past 4 years.
Charlotte Glynn
Photo Credit: RCN/Stuart Fisher
Charlotte is a Lead Nurse for BPAS Telemedical Hub Doncaster. Her background is in sexual health and contraception, and she has been working in abortion care for the last 3 years. Her special interests are early medical abortion, non-medical prescribing, LARC fitting, the role of research and audit in SRH, and the care of vulnerable people and communities. She is a committee member of the RCN Women’s Health Forum Committee and was awarded Forum Member of the Year Award 2024.
Jane Fisher
Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) is a UK charity providing impartial information and support to parents through antenatal screening and its consequences, including specialised support after prenatal diagnosis and through TOPFA. ARC also supports and works collaboratively with health care professionals and runs a well-established training programme for staff working in the field. Jane Fisher joined ARC in 2001 as Support Co-ordinator and became Director in 2004.
As well as managing the charity, Jane is also involved in directly supporting parents, training care health professionals, research, policy and media work. She was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the RCOG in 2023 in recognition of her services to women’s health.
Jayne Kavanagh
Jayne Kavanagh is an Associate Professor at UCL Medical School and a specialty doctor in Homerton Abortion Care Service in East London. She is co-chair of Doctors for Choice UK and co-director of the charity Abortion Talk.
Jayne is passionate about improving abortion education for healthcare students and about destigmatising abortion.
She produced and co-Directed Kind To Women, a short documentary film about the1967 Abortion Act.
John Reynolds-Wright
John Reynolds-Wright is a CSO/NES Clinical Lecturer in Sexual and Reproductive Health.
He is the research and guidelines team lead at BSACP and is the first person to complete the new FSRH Abortion Care Specialist Modules.
Judith Bowler
Judith is Senior Sister in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (SRH) with the Hywel Dda University Health Board in West Wales. She has been working in nursing and midwifery since 1984. She is also a Faculty Registered Trainer (FRT) for the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) and Lead for Safeguarding within the Sexual Health Service. Judith’s special interests are women’s health, equality of care and access to Abortion Care services. Judith has been a member of BSACP Council since October 2023, and she is a keen part time livestock farmer.
Katie Morris
Professor Katie Morris, Professor Maternal and Fetal Health, University of Birmingham, Director Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit. Her research aims to improve the care for women with multiple pregnancies, fetal anomalies, growth restriction, reducing infection in maternity and prevention of preterm birth, employing prognostic and diagnostic research, modelling, systematic reviews and clinical trials. She has received research funding from the HTA, RfPB, MRC and charities. She sits on the RCOG Research Committee and Scientific Advisory Committee, RfPB West Midlands Panel, Wellbeing of Women Scientific Advisory Committee, British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society Executive Committee as President and is Clinical Speciality Lead for Reproductive Health and Childbirth for the West Midlands.
Her clinical practice is at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust where she cares for women with complex pregnancies including maternal cardiac disease, fetal growth restriction and multiple pregnancies including providing fetal therapy. She is lead for the Women’s and Children’s Health theme of Birmingham Health Partners.
Lesley Carline
Lesley Carline BSc (Hons) Midwifery, Bereavement Specialist Midwife.
I have worked in the NHS for 31 years, training as a general nurse in my local hospitals in the North East in 1993, moving on to acute medicine at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield once qualified. I moved to the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading in 1997 and started midwifery training there in 2000. After a brief foray onto the antenatal and postnatal wards after qualification, I returned to intrapartum care and never left. I was a Delivery Suite co-ordinator for several years, always with a special interest in bereavement care, and was appointed as the bereavement midwife in 2007. After developing the existing service for 4 years, I moved to East Anglia in 2011 and took up the role again but this time in a newly created post at Peterborough City Hospital. Caring for women experiencing perinatal loss from the beginning of their journey through to the postnatal period and beyond remains the main focus of my role. Midwifery is a diverse art, encompassing care of women during some of the best and worst experiences of the pregnancy journey and I wholeheartedly believe in compassion, support and advocacy that is tailored to each individual woman and her supporters as the framework for this in every setting that we provide that care. Being married to a former serviceman for the last 27 years plus caring for a series of boxer dogs, reptiles and chickens over that time has kept me sane, although there are many who would disagree with that statement!
Lydia Kingsley
Dr Lydia Kingsley, MBChB, FFSRH. Interim Medical Director, National Unplanned Pregnancy Advisory Service (NUPAS).
Lydia’s background is in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (SRH). She completed her SRH training in Manchester, and was the Senior Doctor at Brook in Manchester in the early 2000’s. She then became the Clinical Director of the SRH services in Halton, St Helens and Knowsley (Cheshire and Merseyside), overseeing their eventual integration with the GUM service. Lydia left the NHS in 2013 to become a Regional Clinical Director at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), where training was part of her portfolio, and she was the FSRH General Training Programme Director for BPAS’ peripatetic training programme. Lydia is the Deputy Module Guardian for the new FSRH Abortion Care Specialist Modules (ACSM), which is the only multidisciplinary training route for abortion skills in the UK, accessible to doctors, nurses and midwives. BPAS was heavily involved in the pilot of the FSRH ACSM, providing training for doctors in modules 4-6 under Lydia’s leadership.
Lydia was appointed Interim Medical Director at NUPAS in April 2024.
Namita Kumar
Professor Namita Kumar, MBChB MD MMEd FRCP FAcadMEd, Postgraduate Dean, Consultant Rheumatologist. Involvement in medical education started when Namita was a doctor in training. In 2003 Namita was appointed as a board member of the Postgraduate Medical and Education Training Board, the first UK regulator of Postgraduate Medical Education. In 2010 she was appointed as Foundation School director for Northern Deanery, in 2013 to the post of Postgraduate dean for HEE NE and in 2019 Regional Postgraduate Dean for HEE North East and Yorkshire. She was made an Honorary Clinical Professor by Durham University in 2014, Newcastle and Sunderland Universities, as well as UCLAN in 2017. She was a council member of the Academy of Medical Educators 2014-2017, and a Councillor then Trustee Councillor of Royal college of Physicians from 2017-2022. She was appointed as a trustee for NCEPOD in January 2022, and has been the Co-chair of HEE Postgraduate Deans since 2020. Namita was appointed to the new role of National Dean in Dec 2023.
Patricia A. Lohr
Patricia trained in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles followed by a Fellowship in Family Planning & Contraceptive Research and Master’s Degree in Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the Director of Research and Innovation of British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Patricia is widely published and has contributed to evidence-based guidance produced by the RCOG, FSRH, NICE, and Society of Family Planning. She serves as an expert advisor to NICE, Associate Editor for the journal BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, Chair of the BSACP Education and Training Committee, and on the Advisory Group for the charity Abortion Talk.
Pippa Clayton-Smith
Pippa is Lead Sonographer at MSI Reproductive Choices. She has worked as both a nurse and a sonographer across a variety of areas of women’s health including termination of pregnancy, early pregnancy, acute gynaecology, and fertility. She is passionate about the education of nurses and midwives in ultrasound and the provision of safe and effective abortion care.
Rebecca Blaylock
Rebecca is an interdisciplinary researcher working primarily on abortion care. She draws on critical public health, epidemiology, sociology, and anthropology, amongst other disciplines and methods.
Rebecca has been the Research & Engagement Lead at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) since 2018- a post she now shares. In September 2023, she joined the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) to undertake an NIHR/Wellbeing of Women Doctoral Fellowship. During her fellowship she will be exploring how the introduction of telemedicine has impacted the accessibility and equity of abortion services in England and Wales. She has an MPH from Imperial College London and an undergraduate degree in anthropology from the University of Cambridge.
Samuel Yosef
Sam is a Doctoral Student at King’s College London in the Cultural Competency Unit and the Operations Manager for the British Society of Abortion Care Providers.
His PhD project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the London Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS-DTP) and is focused on understanding and addressing the influence of colonialism on postgraduate specialty training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the UK through Participatory Action Research (PAR).
He received an MA in European Studies (Cum Laude) from the University of Groningen, an MA in Languages Cultures and Society from the University of Strasbourg and a BA in International Cooperation and Development from the University of Rome – Sapienza.
Sam has worked in medical education for the past 4 years in various roles with different organisations including the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH). He is the current Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Reproductive Justice Initiative (RJI).
Sue Mann
Sue Mann is the National Clinical Director in Women’s Health. Jointly trained in Public Health and Women’s Health, she is also Consultant and Lead for Women’s Health In City and Hackney North East London. She is committed to the delivery of population and system level change for the delivery of better access, improved outcomes and reduced inequalities in women’s health
Yvonne Neubauer
Dr Yvonne Neubauer is an Associate Clinical Director at MSI Reproductive Choices UK (formerly Marie Stopes), a Specialist in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare at North Bristol Trust and a member of the Advisory Group for Abortion Talk. She is passionate about education, and has established a successful training program where NHS doctors can gain the surgical abortion skills to maintain a sustainable abortion care workforce.