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new clinical leaders appointed for work streams

June 30, 2010

New clinical leads for a number of regional priority work streams which are looking to improve the quality and productivity of services. They are:

Diabetes: Professor Melanie Davies, professor of diabetes medicine, department of cardiovascular sciences, University of Leicester.

Dementia: Physician lead Professor Rowan Harwood, consultant geriatrician, Nottingham University Hospitals, and psychiatrist lead Dr Richard Prettyman, mental health services for older people, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust

Pathology:  Professor Noor Kalsheker, clinical lead for clinical pathology, Nottingham University Hospitals 

Normalising Birth: Toby Fay, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, Nottingham Univesity Hospitals

The main purpose of these roles is to provide clinical strategic leadership to the strategic health authority and to the clinical workforce across the East Midlands.

Read their biographies below

Professor Davies is Professor of Diabetes Medicine, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester. She is also an Honorary Consultant Physician at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Research Associate, Diabetes Trials Unit, Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM), University of Oxford.

Previously she was Head of Service, Department of Metabolic Medicine (incorporating Diabetes, Endocrinology, Lipids, Clinical Biochemistry and Hypertension), University Hospitals of Leicester.

Professor Davies has a full clinical role and continues to deliver weekly Routine Diabetes Clinics, Diabetic Foot Clinic (Joint Clinical Lead for the Service) and Young Adult Clinic (Joint Clinical Lead across the City). She is a national key opinion leader and led the development of comprehensive web-based district-wide diabetes clinical guidelines in 2004, and helped to revise and update these in 2006.  I was the runner-up in the SHA Outstanding Leadership and Innovation Award from LNR SHA in 2004.

She is also involved in a number of National Initiatives having a significant impact on National Service delivery, including being an advisor to the National Screening Committee (NSC), and an invited member and advisor to the Vascular Board (Department of Health). 

Professor Harwood is consultant geriatrician, Nottingham University Hospitals (QMC). Special professor of geriatric medicine, University of Nottingham.

Professor Harwood is an academically-inclined physician and geriatrician with broad clinical, research and teaching interests. His main current interest is in the management of delirium and dementia in general hospitals and he is dementia lead for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, including leading the national Dementia Audit and developing a Trust dementia strategy.

Clinically, Professor Harwood works as a consultant geriatrician, developing a specialist unit for the management of combined medical and mental health problems. Over recent years he has also worked as a stroke physician, general/acute physician, in continence management and ortho-geriatrics.

He is an enthusiastic teacher, and was until recently Foundation Programme Director at Nottingham City Hospital, devising and delivering an undergraduate neurology teaching programme, a junior doctor induction and training programme in stroke medicine, and has written 4 books, the last 2 being practical guides to management in stroke and dementia aimed at ward level (or other frontline) staff.

Dr  Prettyman is honorary senior lecturer, department of health sciences, University of Leicester, and clinical director, mental health services for older people, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

For nearly 20 years he has been active in a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate educational activities including  organising multidisciplinary special interest group meetings and seminars, teaching on MRCPsych courses and examination practice, teaching on LOROS Palliative Care (Postgraduate Certificate) course, undergraduate psychiatry block, formal teaching.

Past and present research interests and grants include brain imaging in Alzheimer's disease and related conditions, haemodynamic and other physiological changes in Alzheimer's disease, biomarkers and genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, including cFLIP and related molecules, and non-drug interventions for the management of severe dementia.

Professor Noor Kalsheker is clinical lead for clinical pathology, Nottingham University Hospitals.

Professor Kalsheker has been awarded a series of major research grants and published extensive research into biochemical aspects of disease.

He was head of school for clinical laboratory sciences in the University of Nottingham from 1996-2001 and co-director of the Institute of Genetics (2002-2008), one of the five major research institutes in the university, having generated over £3 million of externally funded research income in the last decade.

Professor Kalsheker has provided strategic leadership for the faculty of medicine and health sciences - having chaired committees for developing a successful research strategy for Derby as part of the graduate school entry medical school and in establishing a centre for cancer research in the university. He was a member of Senate and the Universities Space Management Committee (1996-1999) at a time when the university expanded its infrastructure significantly with the building of a new campus.

He was clinical director and previously assistant medical director for the clinical support division of the Trust (2003-2007) and is currently clinical lead for clinical pathology.