'As clinical director, I am delighted to support Wound Care Today, leading the development of the clinical programme and spending time with colleagues who are passionate about improving the life of those with, or at risk of, wounds. The blend of practical and theoretical sessions, personal development and real life experience will stimulate and inspire us all in our day-to-day practice.'
Remote area nursing in the Torres Straits Islands during the mid-1990s fired up Helen's passion for wound care. While there, she cared for locals with infected tropical wounds and many diabetic foot ulcers. On return to the UK, she actively pursued a career within tissue viability, and has had an enjoyable and rewarding career to date. She has held clinical, research and leadership positions within the NHS; and the tissue viability work her teams have undertaken has been recognised through three national awards.
Within wound care, she has worked as a lone TVN across a number of acute hospitals and has also lead tissue viability services. Having held both consultant tissue viability nurse and executive director of nursing roles within the NHS, and worked within the wound care industry, she now provides consultancy within the NHS, private sector and commercial organisations.
Helen holds a substantive position as lead nurse for wound care pathways within an NHS provider organisation in England, maintaining an active role in improving safety, patient and staff experience and clinical outcomes.
Paul Vaughan, RN, MSc
Chair, Wound Care Today
National Deputy Director, Community Nursing and Primary Care Nursing
Paul Vaughan serves as the National Deputy Director for Community Nursing and Primary Care Nursing at NHS England. In this role amongst other work, Paul oversees the implementation of the community nursing safer staffing tool and leads a national initiative focused on supporting individuals with lower limb wounds.
Previously, Paul held the position of Director of Nursing, Transformation at NHS England, where he spearheaded the development and execution of the General Practice Nursing (GPN) Ten Point Plan and the NextGen Nurse initiative, aimed at reshaping public perceptions of nursing. Paul also co-created the national nursing sponsorship programme—an evidence-based framework designed to empower executive leaders in promoting the careers of aspiring Global Majority nurse leaders and midwives. Additionally, during his tenure as the RCN Regional Director for the West Midlands, Paul founded the RCN Cultural Ambassador Programme.
Paul's academic achievements include a Master’s in Management from the University of Liverpool, where his dissertation explored the factors that enable nursing staff to voice concerns in the workplace.
In 2024, Paul served as the Chair of the RCN's governing body, the RCN Council.
Clare Anvar
Clinical massage specialist; clinical therapy advisor, Lipoedema UK
Clare has been a clinical massage and manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) therapist since 2004, specialising in all types of chronic pain, post-surgical recovery and disorders of the lymphatic system.
She is skilled and committed to delivering exemplary care for patients, who remain her inspiration, tutors and guides. Clare works closely with consultants and surgeons to speed recovery or to stabilise and maintain chronic conditions. She has extensive experience with complex cases and from many types of short and long-term surgical recovery; oncology, orthopaedics, reconstructive and cosmetic, and works with all UK insurance companies.
Alongside her private practice, she has studied and worked within different clinical environments. From 2004–2008, she delivered therapies for an HIV charity, where she became a trustee to formulate and deliver HIV awareness training, while studying a foundation degree in complementary approaches to health at Thames Valley University. She also worked for a local cancer charity providing manual lymphatic drainage and complementary therapies. From 2008–2011, she became a complementary therapist in cancer services at University College London hospital (UCLH), while studying a BSc (Hons) Health Sciences; remedial massage and neuromuscular therapy at Westminster University. She then studied an MSc in complementary medicine at Westminster, which was completed in 2015, while working as a clinical massage therapist for Horder Healthcare, who specialise in orthopaedic surgeries.
She presented a poster of her dissertation on lymphoedema management at the British Lymphology Society (BLS) conference in 2015. This narrowed her focus and she began to specialise more closely on lymphoedema and lipoedema. She continued to train in advanced lymphoedema management and three types of MLD. In the last few years, she has developed and teaches a method of kinesiology taping to speed post-surgical recovery. She works part-time from the clinic of a reconstructive and plastic surgeon, looking after post-surgical patients. She also now writes academic articles and presents at international conferences. More recently, in January 2023, she became the clinical therapy advisor to Lipoedema UK and a member of the expert panel for Lymphoedema United in January 2024.
Emma Holly
Educator and clinical scar specialist, Restore Therapy Ltd
Emma Holly is a leading clinical specialist in manual scar tissue treatment. She has been heading a campaign to improve awareness on scar care after injury and surgery. She has a clinical practice at Ten Harley Street — London’s most famous street for health professionals. Emma is a speaker on scar care and scar massage at conferences and symposiums to therapists and medical professionals around the world. She has presented at conferences, including the international Scars2023 in Berlin, the Australasian Lymphology Symposium Auckland, New Zealand in 2023, and the Association of Breast Surgery Conference 2024 in Bournemouth, UK. Emma and her teaching team provide education around the world for health and wellbeing professionals to improve outcomes for people with scarring.
Harriet Beveridge
Harriet brings a unique blend of experience: She is author of the bestselling book: ‘Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? Olympic-Winning Strategies for Everyday Success’ and has over twenty years' experience helping individuals and teams achieve exceptional performance whilst also thriving.
She also brings academic rigour - her current MSc at Kings College London is on the neuroscience and psychology of mental health.
Last, but not least, Harriet is an accomplished stand up comic. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4 and TED.com talking about the power of humour to raise wellbeing and performance; she was a Funny Women Award UK semi-finalist and has taken four shows to the Edinburgh Fringe.
Harriet's keynotes are hugely entertaining and inspiring, but also practical. Delegates will walk away with a spring in their step and a toolkit of strategies they can use immediately.
Jacqui Hughes
Senior healthcare outcomes manager, Smith & Nephew; senior fellow, Higher Education Academy
Jacqui Hughes is a senior healthcare outcomes manager leading higher-level data generation and analytics across the UK, Ireland, and the Nordics, with a particular focus on value-based healthcare, the urgency of wound care, and patient quality of life. Jacqui has worked in the med tech industry for 13 years in a variety of clinically focused roles. Prior to that, Jacqui worked as a registered nurse from 1987 and has held various clinical/leadership/strategic operational roles within the NHS. Jacqui lectures for the Open University and is a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Naseer Ahmad
Consultant vascular sSurgeon, Manchester University Foundation Trust; clinical director, Manchester Amputation Reduction Strategy (MARS) and Greater Manchester Aneurysm Screening Programme; former deputy chief clinical information officer
Naseer is a vascular surgeon based at Manchester University Foundation Trust. He performs the full range of vascular procedures, including carotid, aneurysm and venous surgery but specialises in complex lower limb surgery that prevents an amputation. He is the clinical director of both the Manchester Amputation Reduction Strategy (The MARS Project) and the Greater Manchester & East Cheshire Aneurysm Screening Programme and a former deputy chief clinical information officer of his hospital. His award-winning research interest is the inequality surrounding lower limb amputations which led to developing The MARS Project. This project has resulted in a 46% reduction in amputation prevalence over six years in a pilot site of 220,000 people. This work is currently being scaled up for three million people. His cross-sectoral roles are now enabling him to develop ‘whole systems’ pathways, i.e. those that harmonise public health, community and hospital services for patients with vascular disease. His aim is to bring together and digitise siloed NHS services and is working with leaders across Manchester’s academic, clinical, strategic, financial and digital areas to drive this forward.
Stephanie Lowen
National self-management specialist, director, Self Management Consulting Ltd
I , Stephanie lowen am a self-management specialist, what you ask? Well let me tell you how I got here. Five years ago I developed a team in Leeds focusing on self-management — this was for all clinical tasks in the community, not just wounds. The data soon exceeded all expectations and we were discharging 133+ individuals each month, which was around 3000+ visits saved for our community teams. I didn’t stop there, I then approached our acute trusts who again saw a reduction in bed-stays. As you can imagine this sparked a great deal of interest, and with my clinical and psychological knowledge I created an education package that soon hit 11 NHS organisations who also saw the results we had in Leeds. I have now had my self-management 4-tier model published and hope to support as many organisations as possible to free some capacity and begin to ‘breathe. in this firefighting system we have become.
Heidi Sandoz
independent tissue viability consultant
Heidi has been a tissue viability nurse since 2002. Her interest and passion in the prevention and management of pressure ulcers began in 1987 on registering as a nurse. She has worked in both acute and community care. She has a private consultancy and is also a part time tTissue viability nurse for Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust. She received a Chief Nursing Officer Gold award for services to tissue viability in 2020. She is a past chair of the Tissue Viability Society and an honorary lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. Her passions centre around education, improving services for patients and team development. She is published under the names of both Guy and Sandoz.
Kelly Hutchinson
Clinical science liaison, Flen Health
Kelly is a clinical science liaison manager at Flen Health, where she applies her clinical expertise to support healthcare professionals in wound care and tissue viability. She has a rich nursing background, including roles as a tissue viability nurse, leg ulcer clinic manager, and district nurse. She continues to maintain her clinical knowledge through an honorary contract, ensuring her practice remains aligned with current healthcare advancements.
Kelly is passionate about improving patient outcomes and sharing her knowledge in wound care and tissue viability.
Maria Hughes
Tissue viability nurse consultant, Countess of Chester Hospital; Queen’s Nurse
Maria is a RGN and Queen’s Nurse with 36 years of varied nursing experience in both the acute and community setting, and trained in Glan Clwyd Hospital North Wales. She has worked in tissue viability for 24 years, she is a Queen’s Nurse, a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and an expert witness in civil law.
Maria has worked in a variety of healthcare settings including GP surgeries, patients’ homes, mental health wards and nursing homes liaising with all members of the multidisciplinary team and has been involved in numerous safeguarding cases. Her mantra is ‘Inspire and be inspired’.
She is currently leading the tissue viability team at the Countess of Chester Hospital, appointed as their first nurse consultant tissue viability.
Her expertise is in all aspects of wound management and dermatology, and she has a particular interest in pressure ulcers and has published over 26 clinical papers.
Maria has presented regionally, nationally and internationally at conferences, along with being widely published and has been lucky to attain a number of national awards. Most recently, she was most recently shortlisted for the CIPD awards in London.
Sharon Gardner
Clinical services manager for UK and Ireland, Mediq UK
Sharon has previously worked as a tissue viability specialist nurse for a large oncology trust and still works part time as a nurse practitioner in an urgent care walk in centre. Sharon is an independent nurse prescriber, a Queen’s Nurse, and is currently completing her masters. During the pandemic she commenced an honorary contract as a tissue viability nurse for a local trust and continues to work in the role currently.
Sharon provides clinical insight in all aspects within Mediq UK’s portfolio, including bespoke training and education for a variety of professionals and input to clinical marketing, as well as supporting trusts with clinical decision-making. Throughout her career within the NHS, she has enjoyed supporting and developing staff to enhance their skills and knowledge and continues to do this within her current role, especially in the field of oncology and skin integrity
Jane Mayes
Honorary tissue viability nurse, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust; global clinical education manager, Essity;
Jane has been a nurse for 30 years and feels privileged to have worked in a variety of clinical areas, including the hospice, district nursing, telephone triage and as a community tissue viability nurse within Leeds.
She currently has an honorary tissue viability nurse contract at the Christie Hospital, Manchester. Jane also works as the global clinical education manager at Essity.
Jez Fryer
Account manager, Smith+Nephew
Jez has over 12 years’ experience working within wound care, with a strong reputation for his patient-centric approach and partnership working. Jez has been training clinicians on negative pressure wound therapy for over two years. His previous roles include teaching in higher education, area business management, personal training and sports therapy.
Joanne Handsaker
RGN, PG Dip, independent prescriber
Joanne’s nursing background spans 24 years, including A&E and then tissue viability for 14 years, with a specialist interest in negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT). She has been part of the S+N team for 11 years with a variety of positions, including clinical specialist, European training manager, global training content developer and global clinical strategy.
Joanne now delivers clinical support and training to clinicians and their patients in the role of complex wound specialist.
Patricia (Trish) Idensohn
Independent wound consultant and wound specialist
Trish is director of Comp Consulting Limited, a skin and wound education company, United Kingdom. She is also owner of CliniCare Medical Centre, Ballito, South Africa, providing interdisciplinary wound management in the clinic, hospital, sub-acute and home environments, and CliniCare mom+baby clinic, providing childbirth education and preventative health care services.
She is a research collaborator with Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa.
Currently, Trish is an elected committee member of the International Wound Infection Institute Committee (IWII) and was on the development team for the 2022 International Consensus Update: Wound Infection in clinical practice and is on the development team for the 2024 IWII Wound Cleansing document.
She is also a panel group member of the development team for the 2025 International Pressure Injury guidelines: assessment, and dark skin tone groups; on the international peer review panel for Wound Healing Advances and Management collaborative (WHAM), Curtin University, Australia; and an editorial board member of Wound Masterclass and the International Wound Journal.
Trish combines her clinical practice experience, academia and research to enhance patient care by empowering healthcare practitioners to ‘be the change’ to improve patient outcomes.
Her areas of interest include ‘all things wounds’, encompassing the array of wound types, namely:
Prevention and management of skin integrity concerns
Wound infection
Skin tones
Prevention and management of chronic/hard-to-heal wounds
Overcoming the holistic challenges wound management and wound care present.
Lauren Lynch
Lead clinical nurse specialist, vascular, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW)
As a registered nurse since 2011, Lauren has built an extensive career in vascular nursing, with a particular focus on improving patient care and clinical outcomes. She has recently completed an MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice, and has dedicated over nine years to the vascular field as a clinical nurse specialist (CNS). For the past two years, Lauren has been the lead CNS at UHCW, where they have been instrumental in developing and refining care pathways that enhance treatment times, patient outcomes, and the overall quality of care for individuals with vascular conditions.
As a passionate advocate for patient and public involvement, she has worked to ensure that patients' voices are heard in the design of services and pathways. Her commitment to spreading awareness of vascular conditions and championing best practices has had a significant impact on clinical services at UHCW. Lauren brings both practical expertise and a deep understanding of the latest advancements in vascular care to the Wound Care Today Conference, aiming to inspire and educate others on how to improve patient care in this vital area of healthcare.
Lauren Thorpe
Clinical nurse specialist for wound care, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (community group)
Lauren is a wound care clinical nurse specialist in Coventry University hospitals (Community Group), She has worked within the field of wound care for 10 years and has a passion for wound care within a community setting. In 2015, when first working in wound care, Lauren was awarded a scholarship award by Mölnlycke Health Care, which supported her in achieving her BSc in wound care. Since qualifying as a nurse, she has worked within the community services in community roles providing clinical leadership, giving an opportunity to instil passion into a large wound healing team. She has supported a redesigned workforce to transform the service into the current wound healing service, ensuring the workforce delivers the right level of care regardless of setting. In 2024, Lauren was awarded the title of Queen’s Nurse with the Queen’s Nursing Institute.
Lisa Wood
clinical strategy manager, L&R UK
Lisa is a registered nurse with over 20 years specialist experience within tissue viability, and working within the NHS, private and commercial wound care environments. She maintains her NMC registration with an honorary contract in a NHS trust tissue viability service.
She is passionate about improving patient outcomes and supporting her fellow healthcare professionals. Her role at L&R is to develop, lead and implement the UK clinical strategy to support assisted patient self-care, improve patient outcomes, deliver essential education to healthcare professionals, develop evidence and work with stakeholders across all levels of the NHS.
Katie Bowling
Regional clinical advisor, L&R UK
Katie has been a registered nurse for over five years, with a background in district nursing and tissue viability across both community and acute wound care settings.
She recently joined L&R from tissue viability to support and educate healthcare professionals. She is passionate about optimising patient outcomes, supporting evidence-based change and assisting in delivering best practice and patient-centred care.
Naiomie Lonsdale
Wound healing staff nurse, community wound healing team, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire
Naiomie is a community wound healing nurse who works for University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire. She has been part of the team since October 2022 and has a passion for all types of wound care.
When first qualifying in September 2015, Naiomie worked in an acute setting on the plastics ward and her love for wounds grew from there.
She is proud to be part of such an amazing wound healing service in Coventry and has pride in the service they provide to people in the community who are unable to make it into a clinic setting.
Emily Beldon
Clinical nurse advisor, Medicareplus International
Emily has five years of experience as a sister in intensive care. During this time, she developed a strong passion for tissue viability, leading her to take on the role of a link nurse specialising in this field.
Chloe Lloyd
Clinical nurse advisor, Medicareplus International
Chloe has three years of experience as a nurse, specialising as a surgical nurse within the private health sector. Her expertise spans multiple specialties related to wound care, including burns, plastics, and orthopaedics. Prior to this, she worked as a certified nursing assistant (CNA), gaining valuable experience in the care of patients with rare diseases.
Jennifer Hughes
Tissue viability nurse
Jane Todhunter
Vascular nurse practitioner, North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust
Jane is a vascular nurse practitioner at North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust and lead vascular nurse for the service, running vascular clinics dealing with venous, arterial, lymphatic and complex wound issues, and managing inpatients with vascular disease. She is passionate about improving leg ulcer care and developed the lower limb pathway for Cumbria in conjunction with the multidisciplinary team. She provides training updates in lower limb wounds for community nurses, practice nurses and the wider team. Jane is active in vascular research and is principle investigator for various studies, and has published articles on lower limb issues. She is a part time lecturer at the University of Cumbria and is currently president of the Society of Vascular Nurses.
Georgina is a tissue viability specialist nurse at Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust based in the Northwest of England. Her interest in tissue viability began during her nurse training and she became focused on securing a job as a community staff nurse. After five years working within the community setting as a wound care link nurse, an exciting opportunity became available to join the tissue viability service. Over the last eight years, Georgina has progressed within tissue viability undertaking university modules to enhance her skills and knowledge. During this time, the tissue viability service has been redesigned with acute and community services amalgamating and Georgina co-leads the service.
In her current role, Georgina supports all acute and community services within the trust, striving to improve patient outcomes across the Wigan Borough. She has a passion for leadership, education and supporting the junior workforce. Georgina hopes to undertake the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson programme to continue her development and support patient care.
Lesley Thompson
Year of Care national trainer and facilitator
Lesley is a qualified nurse with a BSc Hons in community health care studies. She worked as a district nursing sister in North Tyneside, before pursuing an interest in the specialist area of diabetes as a diabetes specialist nurse, predominately supporting and facilitating the development of diabetes innovation within Northumberland. Lesley also completed a postgraduate certificate in education in professional practice at Northumbria University. A desire to promote patient involvement and self-management in long-term conditions led to a move to Year of Care Partnerships, where she has been involved in the development and delivery of the national training programme.
Andrew Sharpe
Advanced podiatrist, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust
Andrew works as a podiatrist in wound care for Salford Care Organisation, part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, in the North West of England. He has worked as a podiatrist for over 20 years and his work involves foot ulcer management and prevention in both clinical practice and research. Andrew is also involved in writing clinical practice guidelines, writing articles for peer-reviewed journals, presenting at national and international conferences. He has worked as a university lecturer, he presents and attends international expert panel seminars, and works as a key opinion leader. He is also a panel member of the Foot in Diabetes UK and the Royal College of Podiatry
Justine Hendley
Wound care sister, Community Wound Healing Team, Longford Primary Care Centre
Justine has been a nurse for 22 years She started her nursing career working in hospital ward-based nursing at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, within oncology and general medicine for around 10 years.
She then moved to community services within Coventry as a district nurse. Here she found her love for wound care. She became a tissue viability nurse within the wound healing clinics and community teams and was promoted to wound healing sister. Today, she works with an amazing community team, supporting patients in their own homes.
Justine has a personal passion for personal development and improving wellbeing, something she strives to do every day, both personally and professionally.
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