Greater Manchester

Claire Howard

Claire is a stroke specialist orthoptist and clinical research fellow at Salford Royal Hospital, part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust.  She completed an NIHR clinical doctorate fellowship in 2020 and re-established the GM CAHPR hub in 2020 along with Prof Chris Nester.  Her research interests are visual impairment after stroke and brain injury.  She has lead / co-lead the hub since that time.  She has a split clinical / research role within the NCA as well as several honorary academic roles.  Her role as clinical research fellow for the NCA Centre for Clinical and care research involves research capacity building for health care professionals including AHP’s, nurses and midwives.

Justine Theaker

Justine is a Consultant AHP and Clinical Academic, working at Manchester University Foundation Trust (MFT). Justine has over 10 years of experience working in research, where she first started as a local collaborator before moving to PI status and completion of her PhD. Justine has worked on a variety of studies, primarily within the musculoskeletal and rehabilitation fields. More recently Justine‘s work has focused on Major Trauma and Orthopaedics. Her work involves UK and international collaborations and dissemination, with presentations of award-winning work at influential conferences.  Her role as a Clinical Academic ensures that her research has maximum impact on patient care and outcomes.
Justine has held several awards including NIHR and Manchester University fellowships. In her clinical academic role at MFT, she is the Lead Research Champion for AHPs across the organisation. This involves building research capability and capacity of all AHP professions, through infrastructure development, education, mentoring and supervision.

Jemma Haines

Jemma (MBE FRCSLT) is a speech and language therapist and specialises in upper airway disorders. She has driven UK national policy to support patients suffering with respiratory upper airway disorders and underpinned this with a commitment to research and evidence based practice. Jemma has published extensively in her field and has presented her work at numerous national and international conferences.  She is a Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists General Board Trustee and sits on the British Thoracic Society Specialist Advisory Group for Cough. Currently, Jemma is completing a Manchester BRC NIHR PhD fellowship, full time, and will return to her substantive role as Chief Allied Health Professional at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust in June 2025.

Siobhan Ludlow

Siobhan is the consultant SLT and service lead for the Manchester Airways Service which is a tertiary referral centre for patients with complex breathlessness. She treats patients with a variety of conditions including; upper airway dysfunction, chronic cough and difficult to control asthma. Siobhan has a specialist interest in Inducible Laryngeal Obstruction (ILO), Exercise Induced Laryngeal Obstruction (EILO) and cough hypersensitivity syndrome and has written several papers in these areas.

Siobhan is currently membership secretary of the Respiratory SLT Clinical Excellence Network and was involved in writing the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist’s position paper, ‘Speech and language therapy in adult respiratory care (2015).

Siobhan is very committed to clinical research; she has attended numerous national and international conferences presenting her work and is currently doing a PhD developing a Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) for upper airway conditions.

Claire Bamber

Claire is a Clinical Lead Specialist Pain Physiotherapist working in the Pain Service at Manchester University Foundation trust (MFT).  Claire’s research interest is in the field of Chronic pain.  Following on from completing her MSc she has been involved in service evaluation projects and multi-centre trials in the chronic pain field. Alongside her clinical work Claire currently has a Research Associate Role at the University of Salford working on a COMPIN chronic neck pain RCT.

Claire’s research career is in the early stages.  She is a Research Champion and keen to promote the role of research for AHP’s.

Katy Boland

Katy is a specialist upper limb physiotherapist, working with people with complex musculoskeletal conditions at Wrightington Hospital, near Wigan. Katy’s clinical academic career is in its early stages. She completed the R&D Northwest Early Career Researcher Programme in 2022 and starts an NIHR PCAF in September 2023. Katy’ research interests include how information can empower people’s decision-making and improve their musculoskeletal health.

Prior to her PCAF, Katy worked two days as a week as a Research Physiotherapist, contributing to set up and delivery of a range of local, national, and international studies with a range of designs and collaborating with NIHR, academic and industry partners.

Sarah Prenton

Sarah is a Physiotherapy Lecturer at the University of Salford. She achieved her PhD by published works in 2018 looking at interventions to help with footdrop of central neurological origin, specifically functional electrical stimulation and ankle foot orthoses. Some of this work now features in national and international guidelines in this field. This research highlighted the need to facilitate people to be more physically active, regardless of the intervention used, and so post-doctorally Sarah’s research is focussing on this for those living with, or at risk of developing, long term conditions. Currently this is around those living with peripheral arterial disease, stroke and Long-Covid alongside wider multi-disciplinary and system-wide research teams. Methodologically this work encompasses quantitative and qualitative methods with a special interest in implementation science approaches.

Sarah primarily teaches undergraduate Physiotherapy students across their curriculum specialising in adult neurological rehabilitation, health & wellbeing promotion and methods of enquiry, including research. She also supervises PhD students. As such she has experience in coaching people through academic research processes

Mark Jayes

Mark is Research Fellow in Communication Disability at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His applied research explores how people with communication disabilities access information, participate in decision-making, and can be involved and participate meaningfully in research. Mark has investigated policy-practice gaps in the implementation of mental capacity legislation within care and research processes for this underserved population and potential ways to address observed inequities. Mark has extensive clinical experience as a speech and language therapist. He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders. In 2022, Mark was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Maria Barrett

Maria is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner/ Dietitian. She has been a CAHPR Research Champion since 2019, involved in local and national peer support and promotion of research engagement. As part of her clinical role, she is actively involved in clinical research and service evaluation in the area of intestinal failure. She also speaks on research related topics at both a local and national level.

Sophie Faulkner

Sophie is a occupational therapist researcher specialising in sleep, circadian rhythm and passive monitoring via wearables.  She has worked on inpatient wards, in community mental health, and as a trials therapist.  Sophie completed her PhD via the NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship, and has held grant funding for small scale research and knowledge mobilisation projects.  Sophie works in central R&I in Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust managing the research delivery workforce, and leading projects to embed research in clinical services and build research capacity in clinical teams, and works in Prof Sandra Bucci’s digital mental health research group (University of Manchester) as a post-doctoral research associate.

Jenna Tilbury

Jenna is an Advanced Podiatrist working for Manchester Local Care Organisation and is the Clinical Lead Podiatrist based at North Manchester General Hospital.  She leads both the inpatient and outpatient podiatry service managing complex high-risk foot conditions.  Her specialist area is Diabetes with her main interest being amputation prevention.  She leads and contributes to diabetic foot research and audit.  She has published in her field and has presented at both local and national conferences.  She is involved in developing a partnership between North Manchester General Hospital Diabetes Centre and the University of Salford to contribute to academic research studies and to improve health and care outcomes for patients in Greater Manchester specifically with the aim of reducing the numbers of ulcers, prevent/reduce time to ulceration and reduce lower limb amputations. Jenna has done an NIHR Associate PI Scheme.