Isobel works in a department which is proud of its nursing services which involve 13 nurse specialists and practitioners working as part of the multidisciplinary team in all areas of gastroenterology and nutrition nursing. She leads the service, supporting and developing nurses and making strategic decisions about improving and advancing nursing practice.
Her clinical role previously included a busy inflammatory bowel disease nursing service, which is now run day-to-day by two other nurse specialists. She also runs clinics for patients with dyspepsia, coeliac disease, iron deficiency anaemia and a family history of colorectal cancer.
Isobel has been chair of the Crohn’s and Colitis special interest group since January 2009 and in this role represented the RCN in the development of the Quality Care Standards for IBD care. She is now leading the working group developing the national IBD nursing audit which ran for the first time in May 2011. Isobel became chair of the RCN Gastrointestinal Nursing Forum in May 2011.
Kathy is a Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing at the University of Hertfordshire. Her clinical background is in gastrointestinal nursing, and colorectal cancer nursing, when she worked at St Mark’s Hospital from 1999 - 2009. She has been in nursing education since 2005, and worked within the Burdett Institute of Gastrointestinal Nursing, establishing education and research programmes for nurses within this speciality. Her current job involves a variety of roles including teaching on nursing practice, gastrointestinal conditions, long term conditions, cancer and end of life care. She is also involved in research, service user involvement, and is a link lecturer to support learning and mentorship in specialist clinical placements.
She enjoys writing for publication and with colleagues co-edited a book entitled ‘Inflammatory Bowel Disease Nursing’ published in 2011. Within the Burdett Institute, she co-edited the ‘Oxford Handbook of Gastrointestinal Nursing’, published in 2008, and she has also written articles for nursing journals on a variety of nursing topics. Kathy has worked with many different members of gastrointestinal nursing teams and charitable organisations over the last 15 years, on many projects involving topics such as service development, curriculum development, education delivery, and research activity. She joined the RCN Gastrointestinal Nursing Forum committee in 2016 and her role will be to help develop social media for the Forum, and to help map current gastrointestinal nursing educational provision and research activity for the speciality.
Hannah works as an Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Clinical Nurse Specialist. She qualified as a nurse in 2003 with a diploma from King's College London. She started her career in IBD at University College Hospital in 2008 and left to join the team at St Mark's Hospital in 2011. Having recently accepted a job at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, Hannah will start this role in June 2016.
In her current post, Hannah's role is varied; she offers specialist clinical care, is involved in auditing and evaluating services, research and education.
Hannah started her Master's in Advanced Nursing Practice in 2013 and aims to complete this qualification by 2017. She is passionate about service development and hopes to use her qualification to improve care for patients.
Hannah peer reviews articles for Gastrointestinal Nursing and British Journal of Nursing. She has presented posters at the ECCO congress, showcasing original research and has written for publication, including a chapter in 'Inflammatory Bowel Disease Nursing'. Hannah works with Crohn's and Colitis UK as an advisor on publications.
Hannah started her term as a committee member for the Gastrointestinal Nursing Forum in January 2016. She aims to encourage strong links with the IBD network; a well-established and dynamic group of nurses working together to improve care for IBD patients.
Alison Ball has been employed at Milton Keynes University Hospital since 2014. Previous managerial endoscopy posts have been at Bedford Hospital NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and she began her career in Endoscopy at Glenfield Hospital, part of University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Her background prior to endoscopy was in medicine and gastroenterology. Her current role consists of both clinical and operational management within endoscopy.
Alison Ball is also a member of the RCN Education Forum and is passionate about education for nurses. She is currently Deputy Chairperson of the East Anglian Endoscopy Associates Group (EAEAG) planning educational events and supporting GI staff.
She has been part of the GIN (Gastrointestinal Endoscopy for Nurses) Faculty since it was originally introduced in 2008 and teaches regularly on both the GIN and GIN Facilitators courses. Part of her role involves working towards improving and developing GIN and the E Portfolio as part of the faculty.
Alison Ball was a member of the British Society of Gastrointestinal Nurses Association (BSGNA) for 9 years. Her original role was as Regional Group Lead and the last 4 years were spent as Chairperson. This providing an opportunity to work on collaborative projects such as the review of staffing in Endoscopy Units in conjunction with other organisations such as JAG, and colleagues from all of the devolved Nations.
The RCN Gastroenterology Forum is also represented by Alison through attendance at regular meetings with JAG to keep them updated on the work that the Forum is doing and also to feedback any future developments within JAG that may be relevant to the members.
Lynda Greenslade is a liver nurse with long-standing experience in caring for patients and their families affected by liver disease. In her current role is as a clinical nurse specialist in hepatology, Lynda mainly looks after patients with the complications of liver disease, stable cirrhosis, newly diagnosed with liver disease and haemochromatosis. Raising awareness of liver disease both within the profession and to the wider public is also part of her role.
She is currently working on a project with the Marie Curie Palliative Care UCL team looking at ways to improve end of life care for patients with end stage liver disease. She is a committee member of both the British Liver Nurses Forum and the RCN Gastroenterology Forum and enjoys teaching in the clinical area and support nurse new to hepatology. She was recently awarded the Hepatology / Liver Nurse of the year from the British Journal of Nursing which was a great honour but more importantly its excellent to see an award for liver nursing as it recognised the excellent work and care liver nurses are carrying out across the country.
Michelle's interest in hepatology and transplantation started in 1991 when she undertook the ENB A09 course at King's College Hospital, London, where she later worked as a staff nurse. She moved to the liver unit in Leeds in 1993. She became a lecturer and practitioner in liver care in January 2002, having previously been involved in professional development of staff for a number of years. She then became a full time lecturer at the University of Leeds in January 2006 where she run a number of modules focussing on liver care and transplantation. In October 2009, Michelle reverted to part time lecturer so she could take up a Liver Transplant Recipient Co-ordinators post at St James’s in Leeds.
She is an active committee member of the British Liver Nurses Forum, promoting the profile of liver nursing. She is also an active speaker both national and internationally and enjoys publishing on many aspects of liver disease and liver transplantation and has recently been appointed to the editorial board of Frontline Gastroenterology. In May 2010, Michelle was appointed as Chair of the Specialist Nurses group for the National Liver Disease Strategy, Department of Health, and has been leading the development of a competence framework for liver nurses.