Airway Clearance - more than just a cough!

Bronwen Connolly

Bronwen Connolly is a critical care physiotherapist, and Senior Lecturer in Critical Care at Queen’s University Belfast.  She is the Chief Investigator of the NIHR HTA-funded MARCH trial, investigating the effectiveness of mucoactive drugs in acute respiratory failure, and leads the development of a core outcome set for trials of physical rehabilitation in critical illness.  Bronwen is the recipient of three previous NIHR Fellowships, and her research interests focus on acute respiratory and rehabilitation physiotherapy, the recovery, long-term outcome and survivorship of post critical illness patients, and clinical trial methodology around complex rehabilitation interventions.  Bronwen sits on the NIHR Critical Care National Specialty Group and the UK Critical Care Research Group.

 

Allaina Eden

Allaina is the Physiotherapy Service Lead at Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge. She trained at the University of Hertfordshire, where she returned to complete her Masters in advanced physiotherapy in 2015.  She has over 20 years’ experience as a Physiotherapist, with over 15 years in Intensive Care. 

Allaina is the Physiotherapy PAG Deputy Chair, Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care (ACPRC) Surgical Champion, ACPRC Editorial Board member, and chair of the UK ECMO Physiotherapy Network.  She presents regularly at national conferences and has led and co-authored many publications including national guidelines, scoping reviews and case series.

Clinical interests include complex rehabilitation and respiratory care following cardiothoracic surgery, transplantation, and long-term patients on Mechanical Circulatory Support.  Her areas of special interest are early rehabilitation, ECMO and physiotherapy, weaning from ventilation and lung ultrasound.  She is passionate about raising the profile of all AHPs working in Intensive Care.

Arun Joseph

Arun is a DPhil in Clinical Neurosciences Student at University of Oxford and a graduate scholar at Jesus College. His research involves ventilator weaning and extubation in Neurocritical Care with focus on primary brain injury. Arun is also a Fellow of Higher Education Academy and is involved in supervising and teaching undergraduate and post graduate physiotherapy students. Arun is also the founder of the International ventilator weaning and extubation in Neurocritical care network affiliated to the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.

Thomas Lunn

Tom is the ECMO Lead Physiotherapist at Bristol Royal Infirmary, a 45 bedded critical care unit in a busy inner-city hospital. Their specialities are SARF, Surgery, Oncology and Cardiac Services. Prior to his current post, he worked at St. Thomas's Hospital in London as a critical care, cardiac and surgery team lead. He is very passionate about early mobilisation, ventilation and the management of SARF patients.

George Ntoumenopoulos

Dr George Ntoumenopoulos is currently Consultant Physiotherapist in Intensive Care at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia.  George has extensive clinical, teaching and research expertise in critical care internationally including in Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA.  He has over 80 research publications in peer-reviewed journals and initiated bespoke ASUM-accredited training courses in lung and diaphragm ultrasound for acute respiratory physiotherapists to develop clinical skills and support the evidence base for physiotherapy in intensive care.  His main areas of research include the investigation of novel outcome measures for secretion retention and the impact of lung ultrasound on clinical decision-making in intensive care.  

Ema Swingwood

Ema is currently a NIHR Clinical Academic Research Fellow at the University of the West of England. Her substantive post is as the Respiratory Pathway Lead Physiotherapist at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. Her area of clinical expertise and interest is ventilation, weaning and complex airway clearance. Having completed the Advanced Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy Msc programme at University College London (UCL) in 2012, Ema has continued her research focusing on the use of Mechanical Insufflation-Exsufflation (MI-E) and other cough augmentation strategies. Her current PhD work focuses on the use of MI-E in the intubated population. 
  
Extra-curricular activities include contributions to the Undergraduate Physiotherapy programme at the University of the West of England, and post-graduate teachings at University College London. She sits on the BTS Education and Training Committee, NHSE/PHE Independent High-Risk Aerosol Generating Procedures Panel, ICS Physiotherapy Professional Advisory Group and the Equity, Diversity and Belonging Committee of the CSP.

Rebecca Vokes

Becky Vokes is a Clinical Lead Physiotherapist on the 31-bed General Intensive Care Unit at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) NHS Foundation Trust. Becky has specialised in critical care for nearly a decade, and in that time has developed a keen interest in ventilation, weaning and rehabilitation. Becky also held the position of AHP education lead for UHS for 7 years and has been able to integrate that experience into critical care. She has written the standard operating procedures for hyperinflation, mechanical insufflation: exsufflation and most recently, for weaning and rehabilitation for use within critical care at UHS. Becky leads on the respiratory on call training for the 80+ physiotherapists at UHS and co-authored a comprehensive competency document, ‘The UHS Respiratory Physiotherapy Acuity Project’, which she has presented at the World Physiotherapy Congress in South Africa.

Sarah Wallace