About us

Heather Probert
BACPR President

Heather is a Consultant Physiotherapist / Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation Lead at Harefield and Royal Brompton Hospitals (part of Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust).

Heather has over 17 years’ experience within the field of cardiac rehabilitation, and she has a wide range of expertise rehabilitating patients with more commonly seen cardiac issues to those with more complex problems such as patients with heart failure, implantable devices, ventricular assist devices, total artificial hearts and cardiac transplants.

It is of great importance to Heather for us to support each other and evolve our services to meet the needs of patients in these challenging times. She has experience of developing her service to offer both virtual and face to face options and hopes to be able to use her experience to both help support the membership, as well as have an impact more nationally as our speciality transitions over the coming months/years. Over time, new methods that we incorporate into our services may help us recruit some of the 50% who didn’t attend CR previously.

Outside of work, Heather is the ACPICR treasurer, chaired the last two ACPICR Standards documents and is chairing the current update. She also lectures on the Heart Failure and Part 2 BACPR/ACPICR courses.

BACPRPresident@bcs.com

Helen Alexander

BACPR President Elect

Helen is a Physiotherapist and Rehabilitation Services Lead at Nuffield Health at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in central London.  Helen qualified as a Physiotherapist in 2001, and went on to complete her MSc in Cardiovascular Rehabilitation at The University of Chester.  Helen is co-chair of the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Cardiovascular Rehabilitation and sits on the BACPR Exercise Professionals Group.  She is a visiting lecturer at Kings College London and a BACPR course tutor.

Helen looks forward to championing and supporting. the role of all professionals contributing to cardiovascular rehabilitation and helping to ensure it remains on the national and local healthcare agenda. Helen is passionate about encouraging innovative ways of working to improve access, uptake, and outcomes for our patients. Helen will strive to work with other council members to ensure members continue to receive value from their membership, and benefit from the education and collaboration opportunities that being a member affords them.

Susan Casnello
BACPR Treasurer

Susan worked in the field of coronary care, where she developed an interest and passion for Cardiac Rehabilitation, which she has been involved with since 1992. She has worked in both Liverpool and Salford. She has worked as a clinical specialist nurse in Salford since 2000 and was the project lead for the British Heart Foundation funded menu development project for the service in Salford, between 2005 and 2008. This aimed to improve access, target the hard-to-reach groups and provide a service that meets the needs of the individual and their families.

Following this she returned to clinical practice within the Salford cardiovascular rehabilitation service, promoting individualised multi-modal service delivery, quality improvement and inclusion of PAD patients within the service. She is service lead for patient experience, NACR, policy, documentation, and digitalisation of the service and is a non-medical prescriber.

She brings to the role experience and a passion to raise the profile of cardiovascular rehabilitation. Her goal is to ensure services are able to offer an individualised service, using a range of delivery methods to all those with cardiovascular disease who would benefit.

She enjoys walking, cycling and skiing but especially spending time with her family.

Natalie Graham
BACPR Honorary Secretary

Natalie has over 6 years’ experience of working in Cardiac Rehabilitation setting since graduating with a BSc (Sport and Exercise Science) and MSc (Clinical Exercise Physiology) from Liverpool John Moores University. She currently is an Exercise Specialist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and for the past 2 years has also lead a Phase IV Cardiac Rehabilitation programme, Ealing Cardiac Group Fitness. Natalie hopes that having experience in both the NHS and Phase IV setting will help to bridge the gap between the two services.

Natalie’s passion is around service development, and her main goal is to provide truly individualised programme to patients that are specific to their goals and suit their lifestyle. She hopes that the introduction of bespoke services and the use of technology will increase patient uptake and adherence to the Cardiac Rehabilitation programmes.

BACPRSecretary@bcs.com

Dr Eddie Caldow
BACPR Research Lead/Scientific Officer

Eddie is currently BACPR Exercise Professionals Group chair, and BACPR's scientific officer. Eddie worked as a Clinical Exercise Physiologist in the NHS for 15 years working in two large Cardiovascular Rehabilitation and Prevention programmes. He currently works as a lecturer and researcher in Clinical Exercise Physiology at the University of Salford. Alongside research into exercise rehabilitation, Eddie also supports the long-term Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Programme at the university, a programme that he helped set up back in 2018.  

Over the years, Eddie has also been involved in other areas of clinical rehabilitation including peripheral artery disease (PAD), diabetes, pulmonary, cancer, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). 

Eddie a registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist with both the Academy of Healthcare Science and American College of Sports Medicine. 

Nikki Gardiner

Nikki works as a Clinical Lead for Cardiac & Pulmonary Rehabilitation/COPD and Home Oxygen Service within the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. She has been qualified as a registered nurse since 1990. Her specialisms have been mainly within the field of cardiac nursing, including working in Cardiology, Coronary Care Unit, Cardiac Surgery and Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation departments.

The last 18 years have been spent working within Cardiac Rehabilitation and more recently in a leadership role in Leicester. She recently gained an MSc in Advanced Health & Professional Practice at De Montfort University. She is also involved with many aspects of research, from design to delivery and evaluation, including NIHR funded projects. As part of a specialist nursing position, Nikki is involved in shaping the delivery of rehabilitation which includes the development of the South Asian service, the Breathlessness rehabilitation programme and web-based rehabilitation programmes such as Activate Your Heart ®and SPACE for COPD®. More recently she has been involved with the development of a local Covid Rehabilitation pathway and service which involves leading on an exercise and education and web-based programme.

Nikki’s professional interests are around service development and quality improvement; she has a passion to help improve access to Cardiac Rehabilitation, including offering patients a ‘menu of choice’ for all. Nikki is also an assessor for the Royal College of Physicians Pulmonary Rehabilitation Accreditation Scheme.

Kirsty Hughes

Kirsty is a Specialist Physiotherapist working in NHS Forth Valley in Central Scotland. She has over 10 years’ experience of working in cardiac rehabilitation and recently gained her independent prescribing qualification. This has reinforced her role in the holistic management of a variety of patients with cardiovascular disease.

Her professional interests include heart failure; promoting self-management and highlighting the specialist skills that physiotherapists can offer to achieve positive patient outcomes She is currently seconded to a unique post within the Heart Failure service, working alongside the specialist heart failure nurses with their inpatient and outpatient case load. Developing Advanced Practice Physiotherapy roles in cardiology is an exciting prospect in our profession and will further enhance the 21st century management of cardiac patients.

Maria Glover

My 30-year nursing career led me to my chosen field of nursing, Cardiology. In my current role as the Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) Nurse Manager, I am always exploring ways in which to improve and innovate the service provision through continuous learning and engaging in the nursing research agenda, for which I feel is paramount to ensure we deliver high quality person-centered care. CR enhances the effect of acute treatment actions and to prevent risk factors, thus leading to an improvement in the patient's wellbeing and recovery. Accordingly, all CR activities do not take place at the same time, which is the reason the nurse's role changes in character over time. My multiple roles in CR have a 'spider in the web-like' character and, depending on the phase of the patient's recovery, for which I am required to function as a container, a counsellor, a coach, and an educator. As a senior nurse in CR, my role requires me to have improved evaluation tools in clinical practice as well as to be self-critical and serve as a good role model. Finally, this role requires a four-fold comprehensive perspective of the CR concept: an impact perspective, a timing perspective, a lifespan perspective, and a personal perspective. I thoroughly enjoy my role as CR Nurse Manager, as it offers me such a varied perspective on the patients journey and is extremely rewarding, hence I have been in this fantastic role for 18 years, and still going strong.

Janine O'Rourke

Janine qualified as a Registered Nurse in 2002 and has since worked in cardiology, on the coronary care unit, as a Heart Failure Specialist Nurse and for the past 10 years as Lead of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Service at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust. She is currently on secondment to NHS England as Cardiac Network Delivery Lead in North East and North Cumbria. Janine is a great advocate for Cardiac Rehabilitation in her ICS, and previously chaired the NENC Cardiac Rehabilitation network group as she understands the importance of services supporting and learning from each other.  Over the last two years Janine has completed an apprenticeship in Leadership and Management which she aims to use to ensure that Cardiac Rehabilitation services and workforce remain high on the national agenda.

Stephanie Wright

Qualified from University of Teesside with Advanced Diploma in Nursing in 2003, and went on to complete the BSC in Adult Nursing in 2010 in which her dissertation explored examining reasons for non attendance in Cardiac Rehabilitation.

Steph has worked within the Cardiac speciality for 20 years with the last 13 years in Cardiac rehab and Heart Failure specialist nursing. Her current role is Cardiology Clinical Nurse Specialist for County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust leading on Cardiac Rehab for the south of the locality, and she has spent the last year working with NHS England as part of the Clinical Network as CR delivery lead for North East and North Cumbria.

Steph’s professional interests are Heart Failure and developing rehabilitation for this cohort of patient using a menu based approach advocating integration between HF and CR specialist nursing teams to improve access for HF patients. She has a vision of increasing multicondition rehabilitation that sees Cardiac, Pulmonary, Stroke, PAD rehabilitation services developing and working together and feels that being a member of the BACPR council will help continue to raise this profile

Steph’s most recent work with NENC Clinical network has seen her involved in supporting the CR targeted funding process, this has allowed her to raise the profile of CR with stakeholders and she hopes to continue to be able to do this and support other CR services to be able to do the same through her role on BACPR council.

Marissa Plaza

Marissa is a HCPC-registered Physiotherapist with a MSc in Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation from the University of Chester.

Previously, Marissa has worked in clinical practice and academia as leader and lecturer of the Physiotherapy BSc at PUCESE University in Ecuador. Currently, she is investigating the experiences of people with SCAD in cardiac rehabilitation and the perspectives of healthcare professionals about this condition as part of her PhD at Edge Hill University, where she is also a Graduate teaching assistant in the modules of Biological Science and Applying evidence to Clinical Practice at the Faculty of Health, Social care and Medicine.

Her professional and research interests include SCAD, improving access to cardiac rehabilitation, women’s cardiovascular health, physical activity and behaviour change.

Amye Goddard

Amye is a Senior Specialist Physiotherapist with passion for Cardiac Rehabilitation and has worked within the field since 2005. Originally employed to develop Heart Failure Rehabilitation at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, her role has evolved to include the following initiatives:- Web based Activate Your Heart now I-IMPACT, Fit for Surgery Prehabilitation, Breathlessness and COVID Rehabilitation. Amye was part of the core team developing 2 digital platforms for Your COVID Recovery in conjunction with NHSE and other National Governing Bodies. Active involvement within research alongside clinical duties has facilitated further development around stroke, peripheral vascular disease, heart failure and multi long term conditions rehabilitation.

This year Amye achieved 26 years’ NHS service and her experience has enabled her to build on clinical and leadership skills, currently part of the Chartered Management Institute programme for Strategic management and leadership for the future of healthcare. She co-manages the Cardiac Rehabilitation Service at UHL.

Julie Hinchliffe

Julie graduated with a PGDip in Nutrition and Dietetics at Leeds Met University.  She has over 15 years’ experience working in cardiovascular rehabilitation at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust developing the weight management and dietary component of the service to BACPR standards and national guidelines. She is an active member of the BACPR and BACPR diet working group and enjoys being involved with research and audits.  She strives to promote the role of the dietitian in cardiovascular rehab and the benefits that our profession can bring to the multi-disciplinary team, patients and their families.

• Dr Hayes Dalal - Primary Care Representative

• Lisa Spratt - Northern Ireland Representative

• Claire Dobson - British Heart Foundation (BHF)

• Sarah Brown - Cardiovascular Care Partnership UK/ Patient Representative (CCP UK)

• Vicki Hatch - Exercise Instructor Network (EIN) Chair

• Eddie Caldow - Exercise Professionals Group (EPG) Chair

• Prof Patrick Doherty - National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation (NACR) Representative

• Poppy Brooks - British Society for Heart Failure (BSH)

• Dr Sheona McHale - BHF Clinical Research Collaborative (BHF CRC)

• Esther Arnold & Fang Feng Ting - British Association for Nursing in Cardiovascular Care (BANCC)

• Isabella Salzano
  BCS Affiliate Societies Executive
  bacpr@bcs.com

• Sally Hinton
  BACPR Executive Director
  shinton@bacpr.com

• Vivienne Stockley
  BACPR Education Coordinator
  education@bacpr.com

• Penny Hudson
  BACPR Education Administrator
  accounts@bacpr.com

• Dr Aynsley Cowie
  BACPR Education & Training Lead
  ACowie@bacpr.com

• Dr Hugh Bethell (1993-1995)

• Helen Stokes (1995-1997)

• Dr Jane Flint Bridgewater (1997-1999)

• Dr Andrew McLeod (1999-2000)

• Ann Ross (2000-2003)

• Dr Malcolm Walker (2003 - 2005)

• Bernadette Downey, MBE (2005 - 2007)

• Prof Patrick Doherty (2007 - 2009)

• Prof John Buckley (2009 - 2011)

• Dr Jenni Jones (2011 - 2013)

• Prof Gill Furze (2013 - 2015)

• Dr Joe Mills (2015 - 2017)

• Dr Scott Murray (2017 - 2019)

• Prof Susan Dawkes (2019 - 2021)

• Dr Kathryn Carver (2021 - 2023)