Speakers and Facilitators
On this page you can learn more about this year's keynote speakers and workshop facilitators, who between them bring a wealth of experience of the key topics in Community Paediatrics. Click on each speaker or facilitator's name to view their biography.
Keynote Speakers
Doug Simkiss is the current Chair of BACCH. He worked as a Consultant Community Paediatrician in Birmingham and at the Universities of Warwick and Aston.
Grace Thompson, 22, is an inclusive facilitator, consultant, and artist. She works as a dancer and as an advocate for disabled people within the Church of England and the World Council of Churches, both nationally and internationally. Grace has a complex neurodevelopmental and medical history and
was diagnosed with autism as a teenager.
Ingrid Wolfe is Professor of Paediatrics and Child Population Health at King’s College London, Consultant at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, and Deputy Chief Medical Officer (Population Medicine) at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Ingrid leads the CHILDS group working to advance and apply knowledge for improving child health. She is Director of NIHR Applied Research Collaborative (ARC) South London, Director of King’s Health Partners Women’s and Children’s Health, and co-Chair of the British Association for Child and Adolescent Public Health.
Ingrid is qualified clinically in paediatrics and public health, and as an academic leads several research programmes in applied and experimental health systems research. She publishes and speaks widely in academic, clinical, and policy settings. She was awarded an OBE for services to children’s health in 2016.
Rhianna Goodyear and Joy Keenan are medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School who have received neurodevelopmental diagnoses since starting at medical school. Both have conducted research projects this year (submitted to BACCH) looking at neurodevelopmental conditions.
Emily Simonoff is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Emily’s research and clinical focus is on neurodevelopmental disorders in children and young people and their overlap with other mental disorders. She served for two terms as a UK National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator. In relation to ADHD work, she was the Senior Clinical Advisor to the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) on the 2018 ADHD guidelines and was a member of the ICHOM Standard Set for Neurodevelopmental Disorders Advisory Group. Previously she chaired the European ADHD Guidelines Group and is a member of Eunethydis. In relation to autism, Emily was a Guideline Group member for the first two NICE guidelines on children and young people with autism, the Medical Advisor on The Autism Dividend and Westminster Commission. She is now the Chief Investigator on the NIHR PATHWAYTS study (Puberty suppression and Transitional Health With Adaptive Youth Services).
Dr Ian Male is a consultant community paediatrician with ongoing research interests over how to improve assessment of children and young people with possible neurodevelopmental conditions. He will become joint academic convenor along with Christiane Nitsch for BACCH at the end of this conference.
Professor William Farr initially worked as a primary school teacher after obtaining a degree from the University of Sussex and UC Berkeley. William works on the Primary PGCE at the University of Cambridge, teaches on the Undergraduate Education Tripos, and has Psychology and Education Masters and PhD students. In research, he collaborates across the University, Education and Healthcare sectors in various Chief Investigator or Co-applicant roles, mainly on the topic of assessment and diagnostic pathways for children with possible autism, or other neurodivergent conditions.
Dr Joanna Garstang is a Clinical Associate Professor of Child Protection at the University of Birmingham, Consultant Community Paediatrician, and Designated Doctor for Child Death for Birmingham and Solihull. Her specialist areas are in safeguarding children, Child Death Review and Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood. Her research has focuses on improving multi-agency working in safeguarding and preventable child mortality. Joanna has been part of the team conducting analyses of Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews.
Joanna led an NIHR study ‘Involving Parents and Staff in Learning from Child Deaths’, developing a Child Death Review toolkit with bereaved parents. She led a study, ‘Improving Safeguarding Outcomes Following Adoption or Special Guardianship’, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. She is currently leading research on risks of vaping and infant death and improving care for families after sudden child death.
Joanna is Chair of the Association of Child Death Review Professionals, and a Specialist Medical Advisor to the National Child Mortality Database.
Rhianna Goodyear and Joy Keenan are medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School who have received neurodevelopmental diagnoses since starting at medical school. Both have conducted research projects this year (submitted to BACCH) looking at neurodevelopmental conditions.
Nancy Sayer works for NHS Kent and Medway ICB. She has worked with Looked-After Children since 2005 in Provider Services, with CCGs and now in an Integrated Care Board (ICB). Nancy was a committee member for the NICE review of the guideline on Looked-After Children and Care Leavers, published October 2021, and is a peer reviewer for the LGA. She is the co-chair of the National Network of Designated Health Professionals for Children, providing expert advice to NHSE, DHSC and DfE. Nancy is currently seconded two days a week to the Southeast Regional Care Cooperative (RCC) as the health lead.
In 2018 Nancy attended a reception at Buckingham Palace to recognise her work in the field of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children’s health. She recently co-authored a paper for the UASC Governance Board on what good looks like for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children.
In 2024 she was awarded the title Queen’s Nurse recognising her leadership and dedication to patient care.
Workshop Facilitators
Dr Ella Aidoo Advance Care Planning: Difficult Decisions (1st Oct)
Rosie Alexander Waiting Times Examined: Exploring Community Paediatrics Waiting Times and the Contributing Factors Through Data and Dialogue (30th Sept)
Dr Jane Armstrong Challenging Consent & Capacity Cases in Safeguarding and Children in Care (30th Sept)
Corinna Bishop Advanced Clinical Practice (ACP) In Community Paediatrics (1st Oct)
Dr Emma Bradley CSAC/Training Workshop (30th Sept)
Dr Vivienne Campbell Helpful Things to Know about Scoliosis in Children with Disabilities (30th Sept)
Lizzie Cardis Access to Children and Young People's Community Services (1st Oct)
Dr Jill Ellis What makes a good service for children and young people with Down syndrome and how can we work collaboratively with parents/ carers to achieve this? (30th Sept)
Dr Bo Fischer Developing a Mental Health Toolkit for Community Paediatrics (1st Oct)
Dr Kimberley Hallam Trainee Workshops: CCH START Assessment/ CVs and Consultant Interviews (30th Sept)
Dr Jo Harris Paediatric Audiology: Does this child have a syndromic hearing loss?
Tess Hayden Hearing the Voice of the Child in Child Protection: How Co-Designed Communication Toolkits Can Help (1st Oct)
Dr Nicola Herberholz Developing a Mental Health Toolkit for Community Paediatrics (1st Oct)
Dr Simon Lenton Looking Forward: Implications of the NHS 10-Year Plan (30th Sept)
Dr Ella Aidoo is a Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Medicine in Evelina London Children's Hospital and is Head of Service. She sits on the RCPCH subspeciality committee and is also an external examiner for the Cardiff University Masters in Palliative Medicine. She is a keen educator and has more recently been exploring how simulation training can help educate doctors, nurses and AHPs in paediatric palliative medicine.
Dr Emma Bradley is a community paediatrician in Bristol. She is co-chair of the CSAC and has been on the committee for the last 8 years in different roles. She is also a TPD in Severn deanery. Her specialist interests are around vulnerable children and safeguarding.
Corrina Bishop is a newly qualified ACP working for Hampshire and Isle of wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Physiotherapist by background, working across the therapy and medical teams with children with complex physical difficulties.
Rosie Alexander is a Senior Project Manager at the NHS Benchmarking Network, where she leads a portfolio of benchmarking exercises across both community and acute care. She has overseen the children’s community benchmarking programme for the past three years, working closely with NHS services to generate meaningful insights and support service improvement. Driven by a passion for harnessing the power of data to drive meaningful change, Rosie is keen to share findings and connect with colleagues around the intelligence held within the NHS Benchmarking Network.
Dr Jill Ellis is a Consultant Community Paediatrician working in Newham, east London, where her interest is mainly in in neuro-disability. As part of this she has set up a monthly Down Syndrome clinic. She first became interested in Down Syndrome (DS) when she worked on trial of vitamin supplementation for babies with DS in early 2000s, and as a trainee she joined the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group (DSMIG). Since that time she has been actively involved in DSMIG, including writing guidance documents and supporting research. She is currently DSMIG Chair.
Miss Tess Hayden has been a Speech and Language Therapist since 2015, working with children from 2-19 years of age. She specialises in working with autistic young people and their families, which includes the assessment process and providing further support, such as enabling the young person to advocate for themselves as well as educating those around them in understanding autism. Tess also has an interest in supporting communication in children with Selective or Situational Mutism.
Dr Simon Lenton qualified in 1977 and was appointed to his consultant job in 1987, the fifth CPCCH in the UK. During his consultant career he:
- championed community child health as a specialty within the BPA (later RCPCH) and chaired the first College Specialist Advisory Committee (CSAC) in Community Child Health developing the curriculum and syllabus,
- helped develop the community model for children’s palliative care,
- completed Public Health training with a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from LSHTM,
- worked a Policy Adviser in the Department of Health where he helped support the development of Children's National Service Framework (NSF),
- was elected to Vice President (Health Services) within the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). He led “Modelling the Future” which set out a vision and strategy for the future development of children’s health services,
- chaired the expert working group on "Child Friendly Health Care" (CFHC) on behalf of the Council of Europe. CFHC translated the values contained within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into a practical framework for service delivery. Now endorsed by 47 health ministers across Europe through a Declaration of Lisbon 2011,
- chaired the British Association for Community Child Health, publications included “the meaning of integrated care for children and families” and the “Family Friendly Framework”.
- co-chairs the British Association for Child and Adolescent Public Health, sits on the Health Improvement Committee of the RCPCH and is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit (BPSU),
- is now developing training in Population Health Management for future trainees though the BACCH and BACAPH Improving Services Series [B-BISS].
Dr Vivienne Campbell and Ellie Smith have worked together for a very long time and work within an outpatient neurodisability disability service where they primarily see children and young people who are wheelchair users. Scoliosis is one part of their journey and Vivienne and Ellie have been gifted a lot of their stories to share.
Dr Jo Harris works as a specialty doctor in the children's audiology department at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust. She worked for many years as a community paediatrician with an interest in audiology in Sheffield but now works solely in children's audiology. She sees all babies and children with a newly diagnosed hearing loss and additionally runs an auditory processing service for the area. She is currently the chair of the British Association of Paediatricians in Audiology.
Dr Bo Fischer is a Consultant Paediatrician working in Community Paediatrics in Suffolk. She has completed subspecialty training in Child Mental Health in Cambridgeshire and has been working with children and young people within children's community multidisciplinary teams since 2008. Bo is keen to make a lasting positive difference towards the recognition and management of mental health difficulties and disorders in paediatrics. She has been an active member of the Paediatric Mental Health Association for over 17 years, taking on roles as treasurer, academic convenor and deputy convenor and is currently the convenor for the organisation. She is the Training and Assessment Advisor for the College Specialty Advisory Committee for Child Mental Health at the RCPCH and current PMHA representative for BACCH.
Dr Nicola Herberholz is a Consultant Paediatrician who has been working in Paediatrics since 1997, both in Germany and the UK. She was fortunate to train in a Paediatric grid post for Child Mental Health which included working in the Cambridgeshire CAMH team. Nicola now works in Cambridgeshire Community Paediatrics where she continues to advocate for the emotional wellbeing of children and young people as member of the mental health team. Training and advising colleagues on mental health topics is important to her. Nicola’s role includes the Named Doctor for Children in Care, safeguarding work and neurodevelopmental assessments as well as joint working with CAMH. Since her Child Mental Health training, Nicola has been on the Executive Committee of the Paediatric Mental Health Association (PMHA), first as Trainee Representative, then Academic Convenor and nowadays as Treasurer. In the past she has also been the PMHA representative for BACCH.
Dr Jane Armstrong is a Consultant Community Paediatrician in Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust. She is a Designated Doctor for Safeguarding Children in Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board. She has been a Consultant Paediatrician since 2005. She performs child protection medicals where there have been allegations of physical abuse, female genital mutilation and neglect, and previously performed medicals where there were allegations of sexual assault or rape from 2001-2019 in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She holds Licentiate Membership of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine (Sexual Offences Medicine). Jane is Co-chair of Birmingham Safeguarding Partnership Serious Cases Sub-group and is Chair of West Midlands Child Protection Special Interest Group.
Rachel Porter and Lizzie Cardis are part of the Community Waits and Transformation programme at NHS England, working on improving access challenges for community services, particularly community paediatrics and children's therapies.
Dr Ian Male How to Write a Successful Abstract (1st Oct)
Dr Liz Marder What makes a good service for children and young people with Down syndrome and how can we work collaboratively with parents/ carers to achieve this? (30th Sept)
Gillian Middleditch Advanced Clinical Practice (ACP) In Community Paediatrics (1st Oct)
Rachel Porter Access to Children and Young People's Community Services (1st Oct)
Dr Shankar Rangan Paediatric Audiology: Does this Child Have a Syndromic Hearing Loss? (1st Oct)
Dr Rebecca Rhodes What makes a good service for children and young people with Down syndrome and how can we work collaboratively with parents/ carers to achieve this? (30th Sept)
Dr Sharmi Sivakumaran CSAC/Training Workshop (30th Sept)
Dr Mary Small What makes a good service for children and young people with Down syndrome and how can we work collaboratively with parents/ carers to achieve this? (30th Sept)
Dr Ross Smith Advance Care Planning: Difficult Decisions (1st Oct)
Dr Victoria Smith Trainee Workshops: CCH START Assessment/ CVs and Consultant Interviews (30th Sept)
Dr Claire Stewart Hearing the Voice of the Child in Child Protection: How Co-Designed Communication Toolkits Can Help/Trainee Workshops CCH START Assessment/ CVs and Consultant Interviews (1st Oct/30th Sept)
Prof Ingrid Wolfe Looking Forward: Implications of the NHS 10-Year Plan (30th Sept)
Alison Worden Waiting Times Examined: Exploring Community Paediatrics Waiting Times and the Contributing Factors Through Data and Dialogue (30th Sept)
Dr Ross Smith is a Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Medicine based in Martin House Children’s Hospice (but working throughout all of Yorkshire, in all areas [Community, Hospital and Hospice]). He has a subspecialist interest in Advance Care Planning, leading the Child and Young Person’s Advance Care Plan Collaborative (CYPACP) and representing paediatric principles through multiple projects working with resuscitation UK (ReSPECT).
Dr Sharmi Sivakumaran is a community paediatrician in Swansea. She is co-chair of the CSAC and has been on the committee for the last 6 years in different roles. She is also the Paediatric Education Lead in the Wales deanery. Her specialist interests are around neurodevelopment and hearing loss.
Gill Middleditch is an ACP working in Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Health Visitor and Registered Nurse for Learning Disability by background. She is also a visiting fellow at the University of Greenwich and NIHR RDN Co-led speciality for paediatrics in the South East. Gill is currently undertaking an NIHR-funded research award on: "How can we engage adolescents with ADHD to understand their condition"?
Alison Worden is a Project Manager at the NHS Benchmarking Network, specialising in benchmarking projects that support service improvement across children and young people’s health services. Over the past four years, Alison has led the national Children and Young People’s Mental Health benchmarking project, working with providers to explore service models, access, and outcomes. This year, she is leading the Children’s Community Services project, which includes the Paediatrics service. Alison brings a collaborative approach to data interpretation and is committed to enabling meaningful conversations that drive change across the sector.
Dr Mary Small is a Consultant Community Paediatrician based in Surrey, where she works as the Named Doctor for Safeguarding and leads the Autism and Down Syndrome pathways. She plays a key role in service design, clinical governance, and neurodevelopmental assessment across community settings.
While working in Leicester, Dr Small chaired a multidisciplinary group to develop an integrated community-based pathway for children with Down Syndrome and collaborated with adult services to complete a lifespan approach. Passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people, she integrates her expertise in developmental paediatrics and pathway design to advocate for quality care. She is currently DSMIG Vice Chair.
Dr Claire Stewart is a Community Child Health ST5 Sub-speciality Registrar at Evelina London Children’s Hospital and the National Trainee Representative for the British Association of Community Child Health (BACCH). With 14 peer-reviewed publications, she is committed to driving transformative change in paediatrics. Her award-winning research and quality improvement work have influenced national and international practices. Most recently, she has led the 'My Voice Matters' initiative to ensure all children’s voices are heard in child protection, removing barriers posed by verbal communication - an approach now shaping safeguarding practices across the UK.
Professor Ingrid Wolfe is a paediatrician and healthcare public health physician and scientist conducting research about child health services, systems, and policy, with a focus on applied research. Key themes include health systems strengthening, models of care to improve outcomes and equity of care, and population health approaches to prevention and early intervention within healthcare. Recent research includes leading a large scale cluster randomised trial of integrated care (the Children and Young People’s Health Partnership (CYPHP) and cluster RCT), a programme of work developing and testing models of care to improve care coordination and outcomes for children with complex needs and disabilities (NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, South London), leading a multi-centre study investigating and designing a supportive coordinated model of care for children experiencing adversity (NIHR Policy Research Programme, ORACLE, OveRcoming Adverse ChiLdhood Experiences).
Dr Liz Marder is an almost retired Consultant Community Paediatrician specialising in neurodisability, having worked in Nottingham in this capacity for over 32 years. Her clinical work was based in an inner-city clinic and at the Child Development Centre, from where she led the Nottingham Down Syndrome Children’s Service. She has been Medical Advisor to the UK Down's Syndrome Association (DSA) for many years. She is a founder member of the UK and Ireland Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group (DSMIG-UK) having undertaken many roles on the steering group and is currently web editor for www.dsmig.org.uk .With DSMIG colleagues she has contributed to the development of a number of resources providing health information for parents and professionals including parent information leaflets, the insert for babies born with Down Syndrome for the UK Personal Child Health Record, Down Syndrome growth charts, Early Support programme materials, and UK Guidelines for Medical Surveillance in Down Syndrome. She has written articles for paediatric journals and contributed to books on medical management of children with Down Syndrome, also co-editing a comprehensive text book on health aspects of Down Syndrome (Mac Keith 2014), and most recently was lead author for Down Syndrome in the Mac Keith Press online resource Child Development and
Disability Essentials (2024 ). She is a Trustee of the Nottinghamshire Down Syndrome Support Group (NDSSG) .
Dr Rebecca Rhodes is a paediatric resident in Nottingham subspecialising in Paediatric Neurodisability. She has experience of volunteering in low-resource settings and is passionate about improving the health and wellbeing of children, particularly those living with disabilities, across the globe. She is the Deputy Convenor of the International Child Health Group and has been involved in advocating for children and young people with Down Syndrome and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities locally, nationally and internationally though there's lots more work to be done! The highlight of her week is attending a local Sing and Sign choir (run by the NDSSG) to learn from young people whose signing is so much better than hers.
Dr Shankar Rangan works as a Consultant Audiovestibular Physician in Paediatrics at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and is Head of the Department of Paediatric Audiovestibular Medicine. His particular area of interest is aetiology of permanent childhood hearing impairment, and he runs the course “Aetiological investigations for hearing loss in children” at ICH London. His other areas of interest include APD, tinnitus and Hyperacusis in children, Autism and Audiological problems and Paediatric Balance problems. He is the Northern representative for the British Association of Paediatricians in Audiology and the President of the British Association of Audiovestibular Physicians.
Rachel Porter and Lizzie Cardis are part of the Community Waits and Transformation programme at NHS England, working on improving access challenges for community services, particularly community paediatrics and children's therapies.
Dr Ian Male is a consultant community paediatrician, director of research, and honorary senior lecturer. He is an active researcher focussing on autism service delivery, but has also been involved in quality and service improvement and audit. He is currently Deputy Joint Academic Convenor for BACCH and is about to take over as Joint Academic Convenor. Ian regularly marks abstracts for BACCH and other conferences.
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