Meet our Clinical Champions- Cohort 2

In April 2022, 20 Health Care Professionals from across the UK became our newest cohort of Clinical Champions for Prostate Cancer.

Our Clinical Champions are leading improvement projects that aim to transform care for people living with or affected by prostate cancer over the next 18 months. 

Emma Gray

Clinical Oncology Consultant
Somerset Foundation NHS Trust (Musgrove Park Hospital)

Emma is a Clinical Oncology Consultant in Somerset with a special interest in treating patients diagnosed with prostate cancer with radiotherapy and systemic options.

Emma is a strong believer that all patients should be offered entry into a clinical trial (if available) and has been the Principal Investigator on a number of practices changing trials. Emma is currently the Trials Clinical Lead for her department working with the team to open a wide portfolio of trials and encouraging recruitment. 

Somerset has a semi-rural population and Emma is keen to ensure equal access to healthcare whether a patient lives on the coast or up on the Quantocks. With this in mind, her project is to continue the work she has already undertaken in setting up a Radium 223 service in Taunton. This will offer patients with bone only castrate resistant disease another form of treatment to help their symptoms and extend life. The aim would also be to look at Lu177 PSMA therapy too.

When not at work, Emma enjoys running, biking, and windsurfing and is kept busy with 2 young daughters.

Michal Jerzy Smolski

Consultant Urologist

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Michal’s passion is providing optimal surgical and non-surgical management to patients diagnosed with Prostate Cancer He has accomplished higher surgical training in the Northwest of England, followed by a Robotic Urology Fellowship at Liverpool Royal Hospital. Since his appointment he has been leading transformation of preoperative and postoperative care for Prostate Cancer patients. He has introduced a day case RARP into the trust.

Michal is a keen researcher, and he has been working on implementing new treatment strategies for a high-risk Prostate Cancer within trials including PROTEUS trial.

Through the Prostate Cancer UK Clinical Champion Programme Michal’s project will focus on implementing a novel Active Surveillance program tailored to individual patients and thus reduce the rate of overtreatment of low-risk Prostate Cancer patients in the area.

Debbie Victor

Uro-Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist (metastatic disease)
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

Debbie became a uro-oncology clinical nurse specialist in 2004, over that time she has introduced supported self-management for men who have had treatment with curative intent, or those with stable disease on active surveillance or on hormone manipulation; started a support group; initially trained to perform TRUS biopsies in 2007 but in 2020 introduced a nurse led LATP clinic; runs a nurse led clinic for men on androgen depravation tablets both for the castrate sensitive and castrate resistant metastatic and non-metastatic disease patients.

In 2021 Debbie won the TUF/BAUN Urology Nurse of the Year, in part for innovation but also for research activities, having been local PI for national studies.

Her project for this is to look at engaging with Practice Nurses more in the care and management of men receiving hormone manipulation. They are well placed to help with encouragement around diet and exercise, which have been shown to reduce side effects and could help reduce the risk of some of the long-term health issues such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. The Practice Nurses see the patients every 3 months so are well placed to make every contact count and meet some of their health promotion activities during the 10-minute allocated appointment. To start this process Debbie has already engaged with a Primary Care Nurse Facilitator who has access to all practice nurses within the county.

Debbie is also an enthusiastic Explorer Scout Leader and has been volunteering for 18 years.

Wissam Abou-Chedid

Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust

Wissam completed his surgical training in Urology in Paris, France and was awarded the certificate of completion of training in 2018. Wissam then undertook two fellowships in robotic pelvic oncology, focusing on both prostate and bladder cancer treatment using minimally invasive robotic assisted surgery.

His first fellowship was at Saint Augustin Clinic, Bordeaux, France, the highest volume urology unit for robotic assisted radical prostatectomies and cystectomies in France. His second fellowship was at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, Guildford, UK, a tertiary referral centre for both prostate and bladder cancer, one of the urology units with the largest experience in minimally invasive robotic assisted surgery in the UK.

At the age of 33, he was appointed as a fixed term consultant at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust making him one of the youngest consultants to have a special interest in managing prostate and bladder cancer. Through the clinical champions programme, Wissam hopes to address the unprecedented pressure that the NHS is currently under with innovative ideas that would protect the NHS and improve patient safety and satisfaction.

Wissam’s improvement project will involve offering same day discharge and self-removal of urinary catheter for patients undergoing robotic assisted radical prostatectomy in the South-East of England.

Both projects would address the difficulties that the NHS is facing, especially regarding bed availability and clinic appointments. It would also minimize viral exposure, improve level of care by reducing nursing staff workload and finally allow for better allocation of resources.

Utsav Reddy

Utsav wants to improve the delivery of information to men with suspected and confirmed prostate cancer; supporting men to make a personalised and informed decision about their management and treatments going forwards.

Utsav is a Consultant Urological Surgeon and an Honorary Associate Professor at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University of East Anglia.  He has a specialist interest in Prostate Cancer and its diagnosis as well as benign prostatic disease.  Having been appointed in 2017, with the excellent Prostate Cancer nurse specialist team - Helen, Rachel, Louise and Sallie - he has set up an outpatient local anaesthetic transperineal prostate biopsy service for men with suspected prostate cancer.

As a Prostate Cancer UK Clinical Champion, Utsav aims to explore new ways to engage and provide information to men and their families at every stage of the Prostate Cancer pathway – ranging from initial referral from their GP with an elevated PSA to being diagnosed with the condition.  He will look to newer technologies and how they can be integrated into the current local IT infrastructure whilst also looking to share and learn from experiences further afield.

Having undertaken an MBA recently, he has developed a further interest in leadership and organisational behaviour and is the Leadership tutor for the Trust. Utsav is married and has 3 young boys who keep him busy! 

Philip Reynolds

Philip qualified as a therapeutic radiographer from the University of Liverpool in 1999 and since then has worked in departments in Australia, New Zealand and across England. Over the last 15 years he has specialised in the care of people having radiotherapy for prostate cancer gaining an MSc in prostate cancer care and is currently a consultant therapeutic radiographer in prostate radiotherapy.

Philip is an honorary lecturer at the University of Liverpool and a current member of the prostate specialist interest group of the European Association of Urological Nurses (EAUN) who he represents as part of an expert group trying to raise awareness of prostate cancer and people living with the consequences of treatment across the EU.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common side-effect for people undergoing hormones and radiotherapy for prostate cancer but may not be at the forefront of anyone’s mind when they are diagnosed.

Philip hopes to explore the current guidance for treating ED in people having hormone therapy and radiotherapy. Phil will primarily look at the use of the vacuum device, as no studies were identified evaluating its use in people having this treatment combination with all the evidence based on those who have had a prostatectomy.

Having seen first-hand the consequences of hormones and radiotherapy for prostate cancer Philip is well placed to explore the current guidance and hopefully improve on this leading to an update in both local and national practice.

Harley Stephens

Harley’s role as Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) and image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) specialist incorporates both clinical and research aspects, with three of her research projects on imaging in prostate radiotherapy being presented at UKIO this year. She is passionate and committed to integrating high quality research into the clinical area for the benefit of patients and was granted a personal research award by National institute for Health Research.

As part of her role Harley has been involved in expanding the number of sites treated with SABR within the department, participating in the SABR Commissioning through Evaluation project, and more recently helping with developing protocols and training to implement the PACE-C trial for prostate SABR

Her research interests lie in prostate cancer IGRT with projects focusing on dose-optimisation of prostate CT scans and evaluating using fiducial markers to localise the prostate vs using non-ionising ultrasound (one of the benefits of Clarity ultrasound imaging).

Achieving the best practice pathway for men with prostate cancer is of particular focus, and as part of the Clinical Champion programme Harley aims to introduce consistent, measurable bowel and bladder function assessment tools as a baseline and throughout the follow up process, to map and manage late effects relating to prostate radiotherapy and aid prevention. As part of the improvement project, Harley also aims to look at the barriers to research and take steps to improve radiographer-led research locally.

Imran Ahmad

Imran is an Academic Surgeon, specialising in Robotic Prostatectomy (RALP) and Cystectomy (RARC). Imran introduced the service to the West of Scotland in 2016, after returning from a fellowship at ULCH. Imran now oversees one of the highest-volume RALP (primary and salvage) services in the U.K.  In addition, Imran is a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, with research focusing on understanding the mechanisms of treatment resistance in advanced prostate cancer.

In Imran’s practice, they are seeing more and more men presenting with advanced prostate cancer.  When questioned the reasons include lack of awareness, issues accessing primary care, and the perception of being a bother. Imran’s project will be to develop novel strategies to try and go back to basics to re-engage with patients and primary care at a grassroots level. 

Benjamin Lamb

Ben is a consultant urologist at Barts Health and UCLH NHS Trusts in London. Ben has a specialist interest in prostate cancer and robotic surgery and is prostate cancer lead at Barts Health.

Ben studied medicine at the University of Cambridge and St George's Hospital Medical School in London and qualified in 2005. He gained a PhD from Imperial College, London in 2011 before starting his specialist urology training. In 2017 Ben undertook a fellowship in urological oncology and robotic surgery at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. He was appointed as a Consultant Urologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge in 2018, before moving to London in 2022.

Ben is a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons Section of Oncology Executive Committee. He is involved in MDT (multidisciplinary cancer teams) research, and has written and presented on leadership, decision-making, and non-technical skills in this area. Ben enjoys teaching students, healthcare professionals and doctors about communication skills, MDT improvement and urological cancers.  

 Ben’s research has demonstrated that MDT meetings can work more effectively and should prioritise discussion of men with complex needs. He would like to see all prostate cancer MDTs using sophisticated risk assessment tools to help patients make more informed decisions, reducing overtreatment, and the consequent side effects. Ben would like to develop opportunities for MDTs across the country to receive training in effective MDT working.

Lucy Simmons

Lucy is a Consultant Urological surgeon at The Royal United Hospital in Bath. Lucy graduated from Newcastle Medical School in 2006.

After graduating she completed her early years medical training in the North-East. Following this, she spent time working in Australia within their Emergency Medicine, Rural Medicine and Intensive care. Lucy then continued her training in the South-West before undertaking research Master’s degree in exploring the use of Imaging for the diagnosis of Prostate Cancer in University College London.

Lucy gained her fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Urology in 2020. Lucy has a specialist interest in Prostate Cancer Diagnostics and Active Surveillance. Lucy’s project will focus on leading improvement in her local active surveillance programme. Lucy would also like to look at improving their pathway so patients can know when to expect repeat MRI’s and what their criteria is for transitioning from active surveillance to treatment for each man.

She also has a keen interest in Surgical training and education, mentoring and staff wellbeing.

Oluwabunmi Olajide

Bunmi is passionate about cancer care. In the past 6 years he has taken steps to develop this passion by supporting local GPs and patients with improvements to cancer services.

Bunmi is a Macmillan GP and the scope of his work has covered commissioning, policy development and education not just in his local area but also across London. As a GP representative on his hospital’s Access Policy Steering Group – Cancer Pathway, he has on a voluntary basis been involved in shaping the Cancer Access Policy of the local NHS Trust in collaboration with other stakeholders and is currently the GP representative on the Transforming Cancer Services (TCST) pan London, Personalised Cancer Care (PCC) and Inequalities Steering Group. Bunmi also happens to be a GP Training Programme Director for the Barking, Dagenham & Havering vocational training scheme.

Bunmi’s improvement project will focus mainly on exploring ways to establish Stratified follow-up of stable prostate cancer patients within the Barking, Havering & Redbridge (BHR) primary care community. 

With the support of PCUK, Bunmi will also work to increase awareness of prostate cancer specifically amongst men within the black ethnic minority group. He will be looking to improve early presentation to a healthcare professional. Bunmi’s focus of interest will be targeting religious bodies and the barber’s shops for men of black African / Caribbean / Afro Caribbean background.

Leann McLaughlin

Leann has been a nurse for 11 years has been a Uro-Oncology CNS for 18 months within this time. Developing cancer twice herself whilst a student nurse provided her with a level of insight as to the challenges and complexities faced by cancer patients and experience first-hand, cancer care ranging from poor to excellent.

Her own experiences have driven her passion for cancer care with a strong desire to improve patient services. She studied MSc Advancing Healthcare Practice in 2012 studying healthcare and quality improvement, change management and healthcare leadership and went on to do non-medical prescribing with the aim of improving her patient care. Leann assisted her local hospice previously in promotion of their services via a media campaign aimed at teaching the public that hospices are not just for end-of-life care as she has accessed their services for lymphoedema management. 

Leann has completed her TRUS prostate biopsy training this year and is in her 2^nd year of an MSc in Prostate Cancer Care to further develop her knowledge. She has also just been appointed as a trustee for the British Association of Urological Nurses.

A lack of operators within her service who can carry out transperineal biopsies means there are increased patient wait times, yet these biopsies allow for accessing difficult to reach tumours in the anterior region of the prostate and are proven to have reduced sepsis rates.

She is extremely proud to have gained a place as a Prostate Cancer UK Clinical Champion and aims to improve patient safety, patient experience and reduce sepsis rates in prostate biopsy through her project to learn to perform transperineal biopsies under local anaesthetic.

In May 2023, Leann was awarded a Bronze Award by the British Institute of Nursing Awards for her commitment and hard work in supporting those with prostate cancer. 

Jaimin Bhatt

Jaimin is a fellowship trained Consultant Pelvic Uro-Oncological Surgeon and honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer working at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and University of Glasgow.

After completing his urology training in Oxford, he attended a 2-year cancer fellowship at the prestigious University of Toronto at one of the top global cancer centres. His clinical and academic interests include prostate cancer and bladder cancer. He is one of a team of 3 robotic surgeons for the prostate cancer regional service in the West of Scotland.

A keen patient advocate, he is involved in several quality improvement projects, including the Scottish National Quality Performance Indicator (QPI) process for both prostate and bladder cancer. He is the lead for enhanced recovery after cystectomy / major urological surgery and has developed a bespoke pathway called ‘Getting Better Faster’.

As a son of a cancer survivor, Jaimin is passionate about best patient-centred and holistic care. A team-player, he values the contribution of every member of his team that provide a strong circle of care for the patient.

Project: Filters and Cascades - Efficient Diagnostic and Treatment Pathways for Prostate Cancer. A smart innovative pathway to ensure that men referred with suspected prostate cancer are filtered to ensure those with cancer sail through an early diagnostic pathway, and to ensure that those confirmed with the highest risk cancers are cascaded through timely staging and treatment pathways without compromising on lesser risky cancers.

At a time when the NHS is facing mammoth challenges of a protracted recovery from the pandemic with reduced resources, he hopes that his project, Filters and Cascades, will build efficiencies and the system’s resilience in the prostate cancer diagnostic and treatment pathways. As a frontline cancer surgeon whose clinical work spans the whole prostate cancer pathway, from initial referral and diagnostics, through results and MDT, and finally treatment and surveillance, Jaimin has already identified areas for improvement.

Sarah Dewhurst

Sarah is a physiotherapist with a master’s degree in rehabilitation and has specialised in oncology rehabilitation for over 10 years. She is currently the living with and beyond cancer service lead for Therapies at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and has a particular interest in developing exercise services to support people with cancer to maintain or improve their physical activity levels.

In 2019 she undertook a Churchill Fellowship to explore how other countries are embedding physical activity into cancer treatment pathways. The notion that an exercise prescription is part of treatment for cancer is gaining traction as the research begins to demonstrate how being active can act as a disease mediator, alongside influencing how people tolerate and recover from treatment. Sarah set up a network of UK based physiotherapists interested in exercise oncology and now leads a group of over 150 members.

In recognition of the fact that men who are at a higher risk of prostate cancer may have unique barriers to being active and engaging with exercise advice and support, Sarah’s project will look at working with men from black and ethnic minority groups to understand their needs and preferences. The findings will feed into MDT education on the provision of personalised exercise prescriptions which we aim to make a core component of routine care. The findings will also be used to identify and address any existing barriers to accessing rehabilitation which might be preventing certain groups from accessing appropriate support.

Taimur Shah

Taimur is a consultant urologist and clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London. He has a sub-specialist interest in prostate cancer diagnostics, imaging, focal therapy, and robotic surgery for prostate cancer and has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals within these fields.

He completed his urological training in the London Deanery and has also undertaken a post-CCT fellowship in robotic surgery at Guys and St Thomas' Hospital. He has a PhD into focal therapy for primary and radio-recurrent prostate cancer from University College London (UCL). He has helped design and deliver multiple clinical trials for primary, metastatic, and radio-recurrent prostate cancer as part of the Imperial Prostate Group at Imperial College London (ICL).

He has been an advocate for collaborative and trainee led research and previously spent 5-years as vice chair of the British Urology Researchers in Surgical Training (BURST) research collaborative.

Taimur’s aim as a Clinical Champion is to work closely with patients and primary health care professionals to ensure assessment and investigations for prostate cancer are made in a timely manner.  He also plans to improve understanding of the diagnostic pathway and provide information on the new treatments available that can reduce treatment related side-effects. He would also like to improve outcomes for men with recurrent prostate cancer after previous prostate radiotherapy by creating a formalised pathway incorporating early PSMA PET in those with a rising PSA, followed by MRI and biopsy, with a subsequent discussion on the benefits of the various salvage modalities such as salvage focal therapy or salvage prostatectomy.

Meedya Sharifpour

Meedya is a consultant radiologist subspecialising in nuclear medicine and urology working in University Hospitals of Leicester. Majority of his work relates to prostate cancer imaging. He has particular interest in service improvement and would like to concentrate on optimising prostate cancer imaging pathway.     

Over the past two years, COVID has impacted on delivery of numerous services within the healthcare system. Delay in imaging can impact management of the patient. Therefore, optimising current services to cope with the increasing healthcare needs has been an area of personal interest. Hopefully, this will also play a part in improving the public satisfaction with the NHS.  

The initial aim of this project is to optimise bone scan appointments within the nuclear medicine department whereby capacity can be increased and therefore, waiting lists can be reduced. This project concentrates on identifying ways to minimise the gap between patients being scanned. 

Esther Appleby

Esther initially began in surgical training and changed to general practice 15 years ago. Since then, Esther has been working in South-East London. Eight years ago, Esther became a Macmillan GP and developed a particular interest in improving cancer services. She was later appointed as a Clinical Director in Lewisham CCG prior to its merger to form South-East London CCG.

Currently a GP Lead for Personalised Care for the South-East London Cancer Alliance and involved in the development of Stratified Follow up pathway for patients after treatment for prostate cancer.

Esther has been involved in several quality improvement projects for patients with prostate cancer and cancer more generally.. 

Esther’s project aims to improve awareness of the benefits of PSA testing amongst GPs and ensure they have the confidence to counsel men appropriately.

Mahmoud Mohamed Elfar

Mahmoud is a Consultant Urological Surgeon at Liverpool University Hospital, Member of the National Institute of Clinical Care Excellence Interventional Procedure Advisory Committee and member of Clatterbridge Cancer Centre Board of Governors. Mahmoud is Interested in renal and prostate cancer and was the previous Chair for the Urology Care Quality group for Cheshire and Merseyside for the past 5 years. As Chair he managed to introduce the Prostate Cancer Pathway for Cheshire and Merseyside, remote PSA follow up scheme, standardise mpMRI prostate reporting and introduced the trans-perineal prostate biopsies under local anaesthetic as a standard technique to replace the trans-rectal approach for prostate biopsy in Cheshire and Merseyside.

Mahmoud’s project is to utilise the remote PSA follow up technological platform to provide a standardised discharge protocol for patients who had negative prostate biopsy for suspected prostate cancer from the secondary to the primary healthcare in the line of NICE guidance.

Nicola Milton

Nicky trained to be a nurse within East Sussex Healthcare Trust and in 2017 worked on the urology ward. In 2019, she became an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery and Survivorship specialist nurse.

She has developed the RARP School (preoperative optimisation) pain protocols, set up dedicated trial without catheter clinics, updating database on quality of life of patients that underwent RARP, ambassador of education of enhanced recovery to ward staff, and setting up of enhanced recovery teach day across Sussex Trusts.

Nicky’s Improvement project is to develop a Living with and Beyond Cancer support programmes for the RARP Patients by:

• Setting up one to one goal directed holistic nurse clinic (GDHNC) with the patients and partners at approx. 16 weeks post-surgery to address unmet needs.
• To set up 6 monthly Health and Well-being programme consisting of sessions discussing treatment, psychology, continence, erections, general wellbeing, partners/loved ones, and fitness.

Uschi Hofmann

Uschi’s project involves improving holistic health (bone health, metabolic health, psychological wellbeing) in patients with advanced prostate cancer by optimising approach to bone protection and physical activity. She is leading on a project which will offer 12 week programs to patients starting long term hormone manipulation. This will involve physiotherapy led exercise sessions, teaching on life style, diet, physical and psychological support networks.

Uschi states “we are hoping to facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to this within our Trust.”

Sian Griffiths

Sian Griffiths graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2010 with a BSc Radiotherapy and Oncology. During her career, Sian has developed a strong interest in urological cancers. In 2016, she gained a MSc radiotherapy qualification, with her dissertation focusing on the information and support available to prostate cancer patients after a course of radiotherapy.

Following this, she completed further training in Non-Medical Prescribing and clinical examination skills. In 2019, she was appointed to the role of Urology Consultant Radiographer with responsibilities including running clinics to consent, review and follow up of patients who are receiving radiotherapy for urological cancers.

Being accepted onto the Prostate Cancer UK Clinical Champions programme will allow Sian to further develop the services for prostate cancer patients within the radiotherapy department by implementing a radiotherapy prehabilitation clinic. The challenge during radiotherapy consent appointments, is giving large amounts of information to patients.

Over the last year due to the pandemic, men are often attending clinic alone or receiving this information over the telephone. Sian endeavours to implement a dedicated radiotherapy prehabilitation clinic to provide access to specialist information and support from a range of professionals on treatments, side effects, sexual wellbeing, fatigue, diet and lifestyle and mental wellbeing.

Outside of work, Sian has two young children and enjoys running. Her latest challenge is to run both Brighton and London marathons later this year!