Dr Julie Highfield

Consultant Clinical Psychologist , Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Julie Highfield is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and the Chief Psychological Professionals Officer for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust. She is the Wellbeing Director for the Intensive Care Society. She 25 years of experience of working in acute healthcare with a decade in intensive care. She has a long experience of working as a psychologist in medical and health care settings and works closely with staff in their experience of working in healthcare, as well as advising managers on matters of workforce wellbeing.

: @DrJulie_H

Professor Natalie Pattison

Professor of Clinical Nursing, University of Hertfordshire

Professor Natalie Pattison is a clinical academic who has worked clinically in cancer, critical care and critical care outreach. She is a Professor of Clinical Nursing with a joint appointment across the University of Hertfordshire and East and North Herts NHS Trust. Natalie also holds a Researcher in Residence (ICU) position at Imperial College London, working in the CATO team, with an honorary contract with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is the clinical lead for critical care follow-up services, combining this with a research role. Her research interests focus on her clinical area of critical care and critically ill ward patients, end of life in critical care, and disability in critical care. She is widely published in critical care supportive care.  She is Chair of the National Outreach Forum, immediate past-Chair of UK Critical Care Research Group, and the UK Critical Care Nursing Alliance. She is also Deputy Lead for the National Institute for Health Research National Specialty Group for Critical Care.

: @drnatpat

Dr Polly Fitch

Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Royal London Hospital

Polly Fitch is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist working in Adult Critical Care at the Royal London Hospital in East London. Working in this role since 2017 she has responsibility for delivering psychological interventions for patients, relatives, and staff in the Intensive Care Unit. She has particular interests in talking about death and dying in acute health settings including how best to facilitate difficult news conversations and support end of life situations. She has specialist experience of facilitating discussions and decision making around complex medical information in the context of a diverse patient population with differing health beliefs. In addition, she is committed to working with colleagues across the Trust to promote reflection and learning in relation to communicating about death and bereavement, including facilitating Schwartz Rounds, Death Cafes and co-organising the Barts Health Annual Bereavement Conference. She has previously held posts in the Tower Hamlets Palliative Care Team (with specialist input to respiratory services) and the Tower Hamlets Community Learning Disability Service. She retains strong links with health psychologists working across the borough. She is a member of PINC-UK (Psychologists working in Intensive Care), the BPS and is HPC registered.

Catherine Plowright

Registered Nurse

Catherine trained in Glasgow and qualified in 1985. She has worked within a variety of critical care settings since 1987 and was a Consultant Nurse in Critical Care until 2017. She then worked as a Consultant Nurse in Acute Care until 2021 in the South East of England.

Catherine has presented at many conferences, has published numerous papers in peer reviewed journals and she has been a member of the Scientific Committee for the British Association of Critical Care Nurses (BACCN) conference since 2013. Catherine is a peer reviewer for numerous journals, including Nursing Times, Nursing in Critical Care and Intensive and Critical Care Nursing (March 2024), and she is on the Editorial Board for Nursing in Critical Care having stepped down from Intensive and Critical Care Nursing in March 2024.

Catherine was on the National Board of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses as a Professional Advisor until September 2023. She took early retirement at the start of 2021 and has worked at a vaccination centre and within a virtual ward team in Staffordshire since January 2021. Catherine has a BACCN Honorary Fellowship and joined ICUSteps in 2023 as a volunteer.

Dr Louise McCallum

Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing at the University of Glasgow

Louise McCallum is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on work-related stress, engagement, resilience, and professional practice in intensive care nursing. With a background in clinical practice and education, she explores how high-acuity environments impact staff wellbeing, decision-making, and patient safety. Louise has a particular interest in the application of theoretical frameworks to understand work-related stress and motivation in complex settings such as the ICU, with the aim of informing evidence-based interventions.

Louise contributed to the NIHR-funded CANDID (Critical Care and re-Deployed Nurses: the impact of COVID-19 on work-related stress) study, a UK-wide study exploring the experiences of registered nurses working in critical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work generated insights into the psychological and professional challenges of high-pressure clinical environments and the resources needed to support workforce resilience during periods of exceptional demand and uncertainty.