IBMS Congress 2023

Debra Padgett FIBMS CSci

NENC Pathology Operational Lead, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Debra is passionate about promoting and recognising excellence in all IBMS members. In her eight years as an IBMS Council member, she has advocated, listened, represented and addressed the issues that are most important to our membership at national, regional and local levels.

Debra started her career as a Medical Laboratory Assistant in Microbiology and has successfully worked her way through the career grades to her current role as Clinical Pathology Lead at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This means that she understands the many routes to achieve a senior management position within our profession, and how management decisions affect every member of the laboratory.

Her post encompasses provision of leadership and management with accountability for the delivery of cost effective, high quality, safe and sustainable services across the Northumbria health economy. These responsibilities give her a strategic insight to deliver operational priorities both for her own Trust and those of National programmes.
 

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Maggie Throup MP

Member of Parliament for Erewash,

Maggie was born in Shipley, West Yorkshire and gained a scholarship to Bradford Girls’ Grammar School, before going on to read Biology at the University of Manchester.

Maggie began her career at Calderdale Health Authority as a medical laboratory scientific officer, spending seven years in the role and gaining professional qualifications (Fellowship of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Sciences, now IBMS) in Haematology.

Remaining in the health sector, Maggie moved into medical diagnostics sales and marketing with a pharmaceutical company, gaining a Diploma in Marketing, before establishing her own marketing business in 1996.

Maggie first entered politics through her involvement with a community campaign to save an area of green belt from development and has since gone on to lead successful issue-based campaigns, including the funding of a new train station in her constituency of Erewash.

On becoming an MP in 2015, Maggie was elected to serve on the House of Commons Health Select Committee and re-elected onto the Committee after the 2017 General Election.

 

In Government, Maggie has served as:

1) Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State at The Department for Health and Social Care (January 2018 – September 2019)

2) Government Whip (Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury) (September 2019 – September 2021)

3) Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Vaccines & Public Health, (September 2021 – September 2022) leading on the following policy areas:

• COVID-19 vaccines
• health improvement
• levelling up
• prevention
• immunisation and screening
• UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA):
• Test and Trace
• emergency preparedness
• infectious diseases
• environmental health
• abortion
• global health security
• lead minister for crisis response
•  sponsorship of FSA

Also in Parliament, Maggie has become a passionate advocate for the wider use of diagnostic testing in order to reduce the amount of antibiotics that are wrongly prescribed, as well as establishing and chairing the All Party Parliamentary Group on Diagnostics.

In her limited spare time, Maggie is often found outdoors pursuing her interests of gardening and hill walking.

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Chris Sleight

Chris has over 30 years’ experience in the NHS, starting his career in Pathology in 1988. Chris is proud to have been a Fellow of the IBMS for all of his NHS career.

Chris is renowned for progressing from a basic grade Biomedical Scientist, through the roles of Senior BMS, Chief BMS, Head BMS to a Directorate Manager within 5 years (along the M62 corridor from Hull to Harrogate to York, with a brief detour to Sherwood Forest NHS Foundation Trust)

Chris’s final clinical role was Clinical Director in Pathology in the East Midlands before moving to the North West in 2008 to what he describes as the “dark side” of general management.

Since 2008 Chris has had several senior management roles both in Operations and Strategy, but has never been too far away from Pathology.

He is currently Chief Officer of the GM Imaging and Pathology Networks, is senior responsible officer for the GM Community Diagnostics Centre Programme, Digital Diagnostics, and GM Pharmacy transformation programmes.

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David Wells

Chief Executive, IBMS

In June 2021, David became the IBMS Chief Executive following leading the NHS England and Improvement Pathology consolidation programme as Head of Pathology for NHS England and NHS Improvement. He led England’s pathology services in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that NHS laboratories were able to respond to the national need in standing up the required testing at pace and scale.

For three years running, David was recognised as being one of the top 100 most powerful advocates for pathology in the global community by The Pathologist magazine (2018, 2019 and 2020). 

Previously, as an elected IBMS Council Member for the London region, David was chair of the Membership and Marketing Committee. He has also represented the IBMS on NICE diagnostic advisory panels, and various national forums, including an observer on the Royal College of Pathologist Council and in the Parliamentary and Science committee.

In October 2020, the Royal College of Pathologists awarded David Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to pathology.

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Professor Sandi Deans

Director, GenQA, National Laboratory & Scientific Lead, Genomic Implementation Unit NHS England and Professor of Clinical Genomics, Institute of Genetic and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh

Professor Sandi Deans is the Scientific and Laboratory Deputy Director of the Genomics Unit, NHS England embedding the National Genomic Medicine Service for rare disease and cancer including whole genome sequencing within the NHS. She was Scientific Advisor and directly involved in the delivery of the 100,000 Genomes Project.

She is a Consultant Clinical Scientist and the Director of Genomics Quality Assessment (GenQA) part of the UK National External Quality Assessment Service (UK NEQAS). The EQA Scheme delivers assessment of the standard of the full clinical genomics testing pathway through 120 different schemes. This includes clinical genetics, molecular genetics, molecular pathology, cytogenomic testing, newborn screening, prenatal diagnosis, preimplantation genetic testing and variant interpretation.

Sandi also holds a chair as Professor of Clinical Genomics at the University of Edinburgh.

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Dr Fiona Carragher FRCPath

Executive Director of Research and Influencing, Alzheimer’s Society

Fiona Carragher joined Alzheimer’s Society as Executive Director of Research and Influencing in January 2019. She plays a pivotal role at the Society as we aim to be a leading force for change and improve the lives of people affected by dementia now and in the future.

Fiona is a Clinical Biochemist by background and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. Driving evidence-based policy making and connecting science and research into practise has underpinned her career. Before joining Alzheimer’ Society Fiona was the Deputy Chief Scientific Officer for NHS England providing leadership for the 50,000 healthcare science professionals in the NHS and expert advice to the health system on science, innovation, and diagnostics. She led a broad portfolio of policy responsibilities including establishing the UK Antimicrobial Resistance Diagnostics programme, the system wide Action Plan on Hearing Loss and the CSO Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme. She is a passionate advocate for women in health and led the establishment of the first Women in Science and Engineering fellowship programme in the NHS.

In recent years Fiona has broadened her Board level experience as a Trustee of the world-leading UK Dementia Research Institute and Non-Executive Director as Kent and Medway Health and Social Care Partnership NHS Trust. She is a Member of the National Physical Laboratory Science and Technology Advisory Council and Chair of the Government Chemical and Biological Metrology Programme Expert Group.

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Gordon McNair

Treasurer, Institute of Biomedical Science

Gordon has been the IBMS Treasurer since 2019 and an IBMS Council member from 2007. With 45 years in Health Service, he has worked in pathology laboratories since 2018 developing dissection teams.

Prior to this Gordon was Pathology General Manager 2012 to 2018 and Cellular Pathology Manager from 2002 to 2012.

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Professor Lucy Easthope

Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath

Professor Lucy Easthope is the country’s leading authority on recovering from disaster and the Sunday Times Best Selling author of ‘When The Dust Settles’.

For over two decades she has challenged others to think differently about what comes next, after tragic events. She is a passionate and thought-provoking voice in an area that few know about: emergency planning. However in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, her work became decidedly more mainstream.

She is known globally for her work and holds research positions in the UK and New Zealand. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham and Professor in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath.

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