Inside Intensive Care: Demystifying the intensive care unit

Sharon Barker

Critical Care Occupational Therapist , The James Cook University Hospital

Sharon Barker is a Critical Care Occupational Therapist at The James Cook University Hospital and one of two elected OT representatives on the Intensive Care Society AHP Professional Advisory Group. With over 15 years' experience, working in critical care since 2020, Sharon is passionate about early rehabilitation, non-pharmacological delirium management, and the humanisation of care. Her professional interests include environmental design to improve patient outcomes, neurosciences and cognitive recovery, and multiprofessional collaboration to improve recovery across the whole patient experience to improve life after critical illness.

Aeron Ginnelly

Clinical Lead Speech and Language Therapist - Critical Care & Neurosciences, Royal Free Hospital, London

Aeron is a clinical lead speech and language therapist from the UK. She has (SLT) over 25 years’ experience of working in both neurosciences and critical care in both the UK and Australia. She has a specialist interest in tracheostomy weaning, one way valve use in line with ventilation and dysphagia. She has conducted research into swallow screening on patients with a tracheostomy and has been a contributing author to a chapter on communication in the ICU population. She is on the committee of the national SLT tracheostomy clinical excellence network and has been a contributing author on the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists critical care position paper and tracheostomy competency framework. She has presented at both national and international events. She currently works at the Royal Free Hospital in London as the Clinical Lead SLT for critical care and neurosciences.

Georgina Linstead

Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner in Critical Care, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

George is an Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner in Critical Care at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust. She trained at the University of Manchester and completed her Masters in Advanced Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy in 2013.  She has 20 years experience as a Physiotherapist, with over 15 years in Intensive Care

Dr Ema Swingwood OBE

Consultant Physiotherapist, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust

Ema is a Consultant Physiotherapist in Critical Care at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. Her area of clinical expertise and interest is ventilation, weaning and complex airway clearance. She has lectured at International conferences over a number of years around these topics.

Her PhD work focused on the use of Mechanical Insufflation-Exsufflation in the intubated population which was funded through the NIHR Clinical Academic Research Fellowship pathway. Post-doctoral work continues to examine the role of airway clearance interventions in the ICU population, which includes recent development of a core outcome set. She is a current Senior Clinical Practitioner Research Award holder (2025-7).

Regarding research capacity and capability building, Ema is passionate about developing others. She is the current Adult Therapies and Division of Diagnostics and Therapies Research Lead.  Most recently she was a co-applicant on a successful NIHR Health and Care Professions Internship Programme for Southwest Central and lead applicant NIHR Undergraduate Internship Placement award.

Education contributions include the Physiotherapy programmes at the University of the West of England and University College London. She sits on the Intensive Care Society (ICS) Physiotherapy Professional Advisory Group (Deputy Chair) and Education Committee, she is the current Programme Director for the ICS annual congress (SOA) and Deputy Chair for Professional Affairs. 

: @emaroids1

Professor Sarah Wallace OBE

Consultant Speech and Language Therapist in Critical Care, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

Sarah Wallace OBE FRCSLT is a Consultant Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Manchester. She specialises in Critical Care and has over 30 years of clinical experience as an SLT. After training in Manchester, Sarah has worked in hospitals and Non-Government Organisations in the UK, Singapore, Grenada (WI) and Cambodia. Whilst working clinically in cardiothoracic, ECMO and general critical care in Manchester, she also teaches and conducts research internationally, focussing on laryngeal injury, dysphagia and communication issues post intubation and tracheostomy. She has over 60 publications, several top cited articles winning awards from the BMJ and the ICS. She holds expert advisor roles with the Intensive Care Society (ICS), the National Tracheostomy Safety Project and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) and has contributed to many policies, guidelines and initiatives including GPICS, FEES, NCEPOD and the ICS National Rehabilitation Collaborative. Sarah is also an Associate Editor for JICS. She has pioneered new treatments for laryngeal recovery in ICU, setting up the first FEES service in Asia and the UK and supports SLT service development in the UK, Sweden and Chile. 

Jessica Zekavica

Dietetic Lead for Critical Care, Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

My name is Jessica (Jess) Zekavica and I currently work as the dietetic lead for critical care at the Royal Surrey Hospital, Guildford.  

I have worked within the ICU setting for over 10years how, having held posts at Canterbury and Basingstoke Hospital and also specialise in parenteral nutrition (PN) provision.  

I am also a member of the ICS AHP PAG.