Speakers
We’re proud to bring together an exceptional line-up of speakers from across the NHS, national organisations and academia. With a wealth of experience and expertise, they are recognised leaders at the forefront of their fields. Their insights will provide invaluable perspectives, innovative ideas, and practical knowledge to inspire and inform all those attending.
​Confirmed
Roger is a clinical academic pharmacist. His current position provides teaching and research opportunities whilst maintaining regular clinical practice. Roger’s main research interests focus on the appropriate use of analgesic medicines and associated clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization. He aims to promote the importance of pain within pharmacy and the role of pharmacy within pain management. Roger was the inaugural chair of the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association pain management group. He is the current President of the British Pain Society after having been Vice President, Honorary Secretary, a co-opted and elected Council member. In 2019 he was appointed a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (a Scientific Advisory Committee to the UK Government) and is the Chair of their Technical Committee. In addition, he has associations with several other healthcare policy and government organisations in the UK, including the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Care Quality Commission and NICE. Roger has chaired the European Pain Federation (EFIC) COVID-19 taskforce since March 2020.
Benjamin is a Consultant Rheumatologist with a broad interest in public health. He has experience in global and UK policy development, project management, clinical research and programme evaluation. Currently based at Imperial Health Care Trust, Benjamin is pursuing a career combining clinical medicine and public health policy.
Born and bred in Yorkshire, Asim works as a GP Trainer, Pain specialist and Occupational Health Physician in Bradford and Leeds. A graduate of Liverpool University (2000) he explored different specialities before settling in primary care. His interest in pain started 15 years ago when taking over a MSK / Acupuncture clinic from a retiring colleague. A Masters in Pain Management and more than a decade of experience later, he is now exploring alternative holistic methods of helping people manage their pain symptoms. Asim is actively involved in pain research, education and local pathway and guideline development. He works with ARMA and is a MSK Champion for the charity Versus Arthritis. He worked as the Clinical Lead for Rethinking Pain and is now Pain Lead for Bradford S&W Musculoskeletal Team. He is a 2nd Dan in Taekwondo and enjoys running and travelling as time allows.
Cormac is Professor of Clinical Rehabilitation at Teesside University and a Community Pain Champion for the Flippin Pain Campaign. He also co-leads The PETAL (Pain Education Team to Advance Learning) Team, a virtual, multinational, and multidisciplinary organisation, which seeks to improve the delivery of modern pain science education. He has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and delivers public engagement events focussed on helping people better understand pain. He also likes to fish.
Tamar is a chartered psychologist and Professor in Health Psychology. Her research into psychological aspects of chronic pain spans over 30 years, has been cited by guidelines, and has changed practice on the ground. She was the Director of the research centre for the study of pain and well-being at Royal Holloway, and she is a core member of the Consortium to Research Individual, Interpersonal and Social Influences in Pain (CRIISP), which focuses on how people perceive pain and how others affect their pain, as well as considering wider social and environmental influences on pain. Her research includes experiment approaches to explore psychological mechanisms in pain, observation studies to measure risk over time, trials to test effectiveness, and qualitative work, to examine the thoughts and beliefs of people living with pain and those who are part of their life. Examples include investigations of cognitive biases in people living with pain; the psychological predictors for poor outcome in low back pain, and the study of clinicians’ beliefs and behaviours and their effect on patients with pain, especially in reference to effective reassurance and return to work. She has been a core team member of many randomized controlled trials, and regularly provides advice on behavior change. Her practical work has focused on training practitioners in effective communication skills and fostering awareness of patients’ psychological needs and concerns, and her on-line videos have been viewed widely across the world.
Nicole Tang is Professor of Psychology at the University of Warwick, UK, where she directs the Warwick Sleep and Pain Laboratory and serves as Head of the Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Group and Academic Lead of the Health Spotlight on Mental Health and Wellbeing Research. Prior to joining Warwick, she has worked in international research centres at the University of Oxford; Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London; Versus Arthritis Primary Care Research Centre at Keele University. Professor Tang is a registered clinical/health psychologist with extensive research experience in sleep, insomnia, chronic pain and mental health. Her research applies a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to build an all-round evidence-base for treatment innovations.
Dr Tim Williams graduated from Sheffield Medical School in 1996. He developed an interest in pain management early on in his 20-year GP career, working in both secondary care and community-based pain services. It was there that he developed a coaching approach which he found useful in his support of patients living with pain and other long-term conditions. Tim formed ‘Peak Health Coaching’ with a fellow GP, Dr Ollie Hart in 2017, to share these approaches more widely. Together with now 16 Associate Trainers and a dynamic back-office team, they have now trained thousands of health and social care professionals in health coaching skills, including 1/3 of the health coaches currently working in the NHS. Tim believes that empowering people to think really well for themselves about their own health and wellbeing is at the heart of health coaching and the bedrock of supported self-management. Tim left GP in 2022, to focus fully on embedding health coaching in health and social care and workplaces. Peak Health Coaching include modules in pain management to support health coaches and other HCPs. Tim's will make the case for a different approach in pain management and how health coaching approaches can play a significant part, whatever your main role.