Dr Kevin Fernando FRCGP FRCP Edin

FAcadMEd MSc Diabetes, GP Partner North Berwick Health Centre, GP with Specialist Interest in CVRM & Medical Education, Content Advisor for WebMD Medscape Global & UK and Honorary Clinical Reader at the University of Dundee

Kevin is a part-time GP Partner working at North Berwick Health Centre, near Edinburgh. Kevin is also Scottish lead of the Primary Care Diabetes Society, Content Advisor for WebMD Medscape Global & UK and a co-founder of GoggleDocs.​

Kevin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2000 and holds both MRCGP and MRCP(UK) qualifications and has completed a Master’s degree in diabetes which he passed with distinction.​

Kevin has been elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and also the Academy of Medical Educators for his work in diabetes and medical education.​

Dr. Patrick Holmes

MB BS, MSc, DipTher, MRCGP​

Dr. Holmes has been a GP Partner at St. George’s Medical Practice, Darlington for 25 years. He is a local clinical commissioner for diabetes.

He is North-East & North Cumbria Diabetes Clinical Network Primary Care Lead, Primary Care Diabetes NIHR Research Lead for the North East and Associate Editor for Diabetic Medicine and member of the UKKA SGLT2i in Chronic Kidney Disease 20212 & 2023 writing group.

He is an active participant of GoggleDocs (www.goggledocs.co.uk), an innovative group of medical educators working in the SoMe space.

His clinical interests are adult type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease prevention and chronic kidney disease.

Twitter: @drpatrickholmes​

Julie Brake

Julie Brake is a Diabetes Nurse Consultant and Advanced Clinical Practice Lead at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust. MSc in Healthcare Management. PGD in Leadership. She is also on the UK editorial board of the Journal of Diabetes Nursing.

Dr Sundhya Raman

Dr Sundhya Raman is the founder and director of My Wellness Doctor - a Lifestyle Medicine Health consultancy. She has a degree in Pharmacology & Physiology, a Medical degree from Guys, King’s and St Thomas’s, London, a PhD (D.Phil) in Genetics & Epigenetics from Oxford University and is a qualified Lifestyle Medicine physician with the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine & British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr Raman has held a variety of both clinical and research roles.  She has worked with well-known scientists in labs around the world including in cancer genetics at Yale University, and Alzheimers’ cellular physiology at the Wolfson Centre, London. 

Dr Raman is the Lifestyle Medicine lead at the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society.  She created and runs a lifestyle to lower cholesterol programme in primary care.  She authored the diet section for JBS4 and co-authored the section on physical activity.  She regularly delivers talks and teaching on lifestyle medicine and healthy ageing to both healthcare professionals as well as to the lay public, including a focus on specific risks and solutions for ethnic minority groups. Her advice on lifestyle shifts for optimum health has been featured in national news publications.

Dr David Hargroves

Dr David Hargroves MB BSc (Hons), MSc FRCP, Consultant Physician and Clinical Lead for Stroke Medicine, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, and South East Coast Strategic Clinical Network and Senate.

Dr David Hargroves graduated from University College London MB BSc (Hons) in 1996.  His postgraduate training was in London undertaking designated stroke fellowship training at St Helier's and St George's Hospitals; gaining his Masters from Kings College London with a research thesis titled 'Effects of position upon cerebral oxygenation in the acute phase post stroke using Near Infrared Spectroscopy'. 

He has been a consultant for over 10 years in East Kent and Clinical Lead for Stroke Medicine for the last 9 years.  He was appointed Clinical Lead for the Strategic Health Authority in October 2010 and now to the South East Coast Strategic Clinical Network and Senate 2013.

The East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) Stroke Service is in the top quartile of services in the country, and uses one of the country’s first examples of horizontal stroke telemedicine, with currently >25% of patients receiving IV thrombolysis, and one of the largest cohorts of patients treated with unknown time of onset (SUTO / wake up stroke) using CT perfusion in the country.

David has personnally assessed, imaged and treated over 3000 patients with transient neurological deficit with same day MRI / CEMRA and a similar number of patients with persistent neurological deficit. He chairs the IV Stroke Thrombolysis governance meeting and has reviewed the clinical histories and neuroradiology for over 1200 cases treated in East Kent.  Dr Foster and Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently ranked it the top performing stroke service in the country and in a recent round of SSNAP the WHH hospital achieved the highest overall rating level A for both patient and team scores.

He has a keen research interest and has acted as local guarantor to stroke related publications submitted from East Kent for the last 8 years.  He has been local Principal Investigator for over 10 international clinical trials.  He has a particular research interest in: Use of advanced imaging in hyper acute stroke care using CT Perfusion for patients with Stroke of Unknown time of onset (SUTO) and MRI / CEMRA for transient neurological deficit; Obstructive Sleep apnea and neurovascular disease; Telemedicine use in Stroke care and medication compliance and adherence in patients with neurovascular disease.

Professor Smeeta Sinha

Professor Smeeta Sinha is a Consultant Nephrologist at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester. She was the Clinical Director for Renal services at Salford Royal between 2014 and 2020 and oversaw the delivery of kidney care centres across the North of Greater Manchester. These kidney care centres have enabled patients to receive kidney care closer to home. In early 2021, Smeeta was appointed as the Northern Care Alliance Research & Innovation Deputy Director and in 2022 was appointed as National Clinical Director for Renal Medicine by NHS England. She is passionate about innovation and improvement and ensuring patients have access to the services they need. Smeeta provides clinical leadership with a focus on innovation and improvement which will further develop systems that enable findings from projects to be translated at pace and scale.

Smeeta’s clinical interests are in CKD, metabolic stone disease and glomerulonephritis. She leads the complex glomerulonephritis service at Salford Royal which is an integrated clinical and research clinic serving a population of 1.3 million. Smeeta is also the Clinical Lead for the North West NHS England Renal Network and the NHS England National Clinical Advisor for Chronic Kidney Disease, which is one of the four work streams that make up the National Renal Service Transformation Programme.

Smeeta’s research interests include chronic kidney disease-mineral bone disorder, in particular vascular calcification, glomerulonephritis and rare renal diseases. She is a recognised international key opinion leader in the field of Calciphylaxis and, despite the challenges of conducting research in the rare disease space, has supported the development of clinical trials including Phase 1-3 studies.

Dr Sofia Ahmed

Dr. Ahmed is a nephrologist, a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta and the University of Alberta Chair in Sex and Gender. She is a clinician-scientist with a focus on sex and gender differences in human kidney/cardiovascular outcomes. Dr. Ahmed is the Chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Gender and Health Advisory Board, Chair of the Canadian Medical Association Journal Governing Council and the President-Elect for the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences.

Dr. Ahmed completed her MD and internal medicine residency at the University of Toronto and a nephrology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston, USA. She completed her Master’s in Medical Sciences at Harvard University. The recipient of the 2022 Hypertension Canada Senior Investigator Award, the 2021 Canadian Medical Association May Cohen Award for Women Mentors and a 2020 American Society of Nephrology Distinguished Mentor Award, Dr. Ahmed is strong proponent of the importance of mentorship and fostering excellence in the next generation of researchers.

Professor Kelvin Lee MRCP PhD

Consultant Interventional Cardiologist

Cardiovascular Research Programme Director

Deputy Clinical Director of Research and Innovation
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine

School of Life Sciences

University of Lincoln

Prof Lee is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at the Lincolnshire Heart Centre with special interests in complex coronary intervention, using invasive intra-coronary imaging, rotational atherectomy, intravascular lithotripsy and the study of coronary physiology by iFR and FFR.  He leads the Cardiovascular Clinical Research Programme and is the Cardio-Metabolic lead at ULHT and is the Deputy Clinical Director of the ULHT Research Department.

Prof Lee previously trained at the Newcastle University and Hospitals, and was a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellow at the Institute of Human Genetics in Newcastle in Cardiovascular Genomics and was a Young Investigator of the British Cardiac Society.

He now leads the Cardiovascular Research Programme in ULHT and has research interests in atherosclerosis and the cardio-renal-metabolic involvement in cardiovascular disease and the inflammasome. He leads the joint cardio-diabetes programme and multi-disciplinary joint cardio-metabolic clinic in ULHT. His team runs research studies in coronary intervention, cardio-diabetes, inflammation, heart failure and hyperlipidaemia.