Speakers
Professor Andy Higgs
Professor Sarah Wallace OBE
Professor Ellen O’Sullivan
Professor Guri Sandu
Stream 1
This session will provide updates on the latest developments in airway management offering an overview of latest evidence base and safety developments in the field. Organised in collaboration with the Difficult Airway Society (DAS), it will present the delegates with the DAS/ICS Tracheal Intubation Update 2025, and further insights into Prevention of Unrecognised Oesophageal Intubation. The session will then provide updates on intubating patients with airway trauma and suspected c-spine injuries before shifting focus to discuss diagnosis and management of long-term complications of tracheostomies, as well as cutting edge work on above cuff vocalisation to aid communication. The session will have a broad multiprofessional appeal to all ICU clinicians dealing with airways.
Chairperson Andy Higgs
DAS ICS Tracheal intubation update 2025
Speaker 1 Ellen O’Sullivan
Prevention of unrecognised oesophageal intubation
Speaker 2 Guri Sandhu
Diagnosis & management of long term airway complications of tracheostomy
Speaker 3 Fauzia Mir
Intubating airway trauma & C-spine update
Speaker 4 Sarah Wallace
Restoring voice and swallow: innovations in above cuff vocalisation for tracheostomy
Andy Higgs is a Consultant in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine in Warrington Hospitals, Cheshire, having trained in Liverpool, North West England and Melbourne, Australia. He has a long-standing interest in airway management, especially extubation and in the ICU. Andy was Clinical Director of ICU between 2005 and 2007 and joint Clinical Lead Anaesthesia/ICU from 2007 to 2011. He is a faculty member and contributor to the Aintree Difficult Airway Management course. He co-authored the Difficult Airway Society Extubation Guidelines (2012) and chairs the joint Royal College of Anaesthetists/Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine/DAS group, aiming to produce a guideline for Airway Management in the Critically Ill.
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.
Ellen O'Sullivan trained in anaesthesiology and intensive care in UK and USA and is now a consultant anaesthesiologist at St James’s Hospital Dublin, Ireland affiliated to Trinity College Dublin. She specialises in airway management and is director of the Fellowship in Advanced Airway Management and Simulation.
She is past president of the Difficult Airway Society (DAS), and was appointed DAS Professor of Anaesthesia & Airway Management.
Ellen is past president of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland and is now Airway Lead Advisor to the College & runs the CAI national airway training. She has a substantial portfolio of clinically relevant research. She has developed a worldwide reputation in airway management and lectures and teaches workshops internationally. She was a member of the ASA Task Force on Management of the Difficult Airway and also sits on the Project for Universal Airway Guidelines Group (PUMA) guideline group. She is an Executive Director of WAAM (World Alliance for Airway Management) and co-chaired the World Airway Meeting, WAMM1, in Dublin 2015 and WAMM2 in Amsterdam 2019. A particular interest of Prof O’ Sullivan’s is Global Anaesthesia and supporting education and training in low & middle income countries. This has led to her involvement in a number of projects in Malawi & Uganda including the Global Capnography Project (GCAP).
Guri Sandhu is a consultant Laryngologist and Airway Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital in London. He is Professor of Laryngology at Imperial College London. He graduated from the University of London and trained in ENT at The Royal National Throat Nose and Ear, and Great Ormond Street Hospitals. He co-founded, and is the lead, for the National Centre for Airway Reconstruction, and co-founder of the British Laryngological Association. He has 30 years’ experience in the field of Laryngology, with over 150 peer reviewed publications, 20 book chapters and 3 textbooks in Laryngology. He has delivered numerous international presentations, keynote and posthumous lectures.
As well as airway surgery he has large practice managing voice problems, and receives referrals from the music industry, media and stage.
His honours include Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Music, ENT Surgeon to The Royal Society of Musicians, Honorary Fellow to The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, and the only British ENT surgeon to be made fellow of the American Laryngological Association. He is Past-President for the section of Laryngology and Rhinology at the Royal Society of Medicine and Past-President of the British Laryngological Association. He is recipient of the Isshiki prize for ‘outstanding contributions to the field of Laryngology’.
Dr Fauzia Mir is a consultant Anaesthetist at St. George’s Hospital, London. She is lead for Head and Neck anaesthesia at St.George’s and is Treasurer of the Difficult Airway Society, UK.
Dr. Mir completed a Fellowship in Medical Education at Royal London Hospital. Her interest in difficult airway management and anaesthesia for airway surgery began at an early stage in her career. During her post as Treasurer of DAS, she led the organisation of the DAS 2017 meeting in London and co-organized the DAS 2020 webinar. She was also in the organising committee for WAMM in 2019.
She is a regular faculty in advanced airway courses regionally, nationally and internationally, and a co-author of the DAS Awake Tracheal Intubation Guidelines launched in November 2018. She has special interest in HFNO, jet ventilation and airway management in trauma.