Resuscitation Council UK has an Executive Committee, who have a wide range of clinical expertise that they use to advise the Board of Trustees as well as the wider staff team.
The Executive Committee consists of a maximum of 28 people, 12 of whom are elected from and by Full members of Resuscitation Council UK. We are also driven by the guidance and expertise of our subcommittee members, who use their specialist knowledge to inform our key projects.
Professor Jonathan Wyllie has been a Consultant Neonatologist at the James Cook University Hospital since 1994 and was Clinical Director of Neonatology until May 2017. He is Professor of Neonatology and Paediatrics at Durham University. He has a long-standing interest in resuscitation and neonatal haemodynamics as well as an interest in paediatric cardiology. He was one of the originators of the Newborn Life Support (NLS) course in the UK and Europe. He is Chair of the NLS Subcommittee, a previous Chair and now a member of the Advanced Resuscitation of the Newborn Infant (ARNI) Working Group, and Science Co-chair of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) NLS Science and Education Committee. He is an invited board member of the ERC. He was European Co-chair of the ILCOR neonatal task force for the evidence evaluation process of 2010, 2015 and continues as Vice-Chair of the ILCOR neonatal task force at present. He is co-author of newborn resuscitation Guidelines for Europe and the UK for 2005, 2010 and 2015. In 2010 he was awarded the Fellowship of the European Resuscitation Council for services to resuscitation and in 2015 given honorary membership of Resuscitation Council UK. In 2018 he was elected as an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. In his spare time, he enjoys walking, mountain biking and, more recently, photography.
Dr Andy Lockey is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Trust. He is also an Associate Dean for Health Education England (covering Yorkshire and the Humber). He first became involved with Resuscitation Council UK in 1993, when he became an ALS Instructor, going on to join the ALS Subcommittee as a doctor-in-training representative in 1998. He also acted as Chair of the ALS Subcommittee for seven years, steering the evolution of the ALS course through two guideline changes. Prior to becoming Vice-President, Andy held the post of Honorary Secretary, during which he led a whole-scale review of the membership structure for the Council. He is a vocal advocate for training all children in CPR and defibrillator awareness.
Professor Charles Deakin is Consultant in Cardiac Anaesthesia and Cardiac Intensive Care at University Hospital Southampton, Professor of Resuscitation and Prehospital Emergency Medicine at Southampton University and Divisional Medical Director of South Central Ambulance Service. Charles has been a member of RCUK’s Executive Committee since 2001 and previously chaired the ALS Committee for the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), Co-chairing the ILCOR ALS Committee for the 2005 and 2010 Guidelines revision. His research interests include pre-hospital airway management, drugs and mechanical devices in ALS, defibrillation, and the delivery of bystander resuscitation instructions by telephone.
Dr Ian Maconochie is a Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial Academic Health Sciences Centre. He is Co-chair of the Paediatric Section of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) and Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Ian is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. Ian is Registrar for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the current President of the Paediatric Section of the European Society of Emergency Medicine.
Kevin Mackie has been with Resuscitation Council UK since 1993, first as an ALS Instructor and Course Director, before becoming an Educator in 2003 and a Lead Educator in 2015. As an Educator, Kevin has facilitated many courses and is Educational Adviser to the Advanced Resuscitation of the Newborn Infant (ARNI) course. He is a member of the e-ALS review Working Group and occasional adviser to the Advanced Life Support (ALS) Subcommittee. His particular interest is in debriefing candidates engaged in medical simulation. Now a freelance consultant in medical education and company director, Kevin also spent nearly 25 years in the Royal Air Force.
Dr Joyce Yeung is a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital. She is a NIHR Post-Doctoral Fellow and works at University of Birmingham as a Clinician Scientist and part of the Perioperative, Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Trauma Trials group. Her research interests include resuscitation, non-technical skills and peri-operative outcomes. She is a member of ILS and ALS Subcommittees, and an expert reviewer for International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR).
Dr Jasmeet Soar is a Consultant in Anaesthetics and Intensive Care Medicine at Southmead Hospital, Bristol. He has had numerous roles and responsibilities with RCUK since 2000, including Chair (2009-2012), Vice-Chair (2007-2009, 2012-2013), ILS Subcommittee Chair (2004 to 2016) and Guidelines 2015 Working Group Chair. He currently chairs the Advanced Life Support (ALS) Subcommittee and the Quality Standards Working Group, and is a member of the CARe and Research and Development Subcommittees. Jas helped to develop both the iResus and Lifesaver apps. He also has a number of national and international resuscitation roles. He is an Editor for the journal Resuscitation, ALS Co-chair for the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), and ALS Task Force Chair for the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR).
Dr Sophie Skellett is a Consultant in Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care and the Associate Medical Director for Leadership and Professional Affairs at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). Sophie has been instructing in Paediatric Advanced Life Support since 1998 and supported the development of the RCUK EPALS course. She is committed to constantly improving the course to achieve the best outcomes for the acutely unwell child and infant. Sophie is Chair of the Resuscitation Committee at GOSH and current deputy Chair of the Resuscitation section for the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care. She was the PI for the in-hospital THAPCA trial at GOSH and currently participates in the international quality improvement collaborative PediResQ in conjunction with Children’s Hospital Philadelphia.
Dr Joe Fawke is a Consultant Neonatologist at University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester. Joe was one of the originators of the ARNI course, co-editor of the ARNI course manual and Chair of the ARNI working group. He became chair of the NLS Subcommittee in 2018. As part of a wider interest in medical education, Joe is a Paediatric Training Programme Director for Health Education East Midlands. His clinical interests include resuscitation, simulation based training and neonatal neurodevelopmental follow up. He was a NICE Guideline Committee member for the Developmental Follow up of Children and Infants born Preterm, and he is Chair of the NICE Neonatal Parenteral Nutrition Guideline Committee.
Professor Gavin Perkins is a NIHR Senior Investigator and Professor of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Warwick and leads the emergency and critical care group within Warwick Clinical Trials Unit. Clinically he holds appointments as a Consultant Physician in Critical Care Medicine at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust and MERIT Team Consultant with West Midlands Ambulance Service. Gavin was a member of the ALS Subcommittee (2000-10) and became its Chair in 2011. During his tenure he has developed, evaluated and implemented the e-ALS course. He has served as ERC Co-chair for BLS/AED since 2010 and was appointed ILCOR Co-chair in 2015.
Professor Jerry Nolan is a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, and Honorary Professor of Resuscitation Medicine at the University of Bristol. He trained at Bristol Medical School (MB ChB 1983) and undertook anaesthesia and critical care training in Plymouth, Bristol, Bath and Southampton, and at the Shock Trauma Center, Baltimore. Jerry is Chair of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), and has previously been Chair of Resuscitation Council UK, and Co-chair of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR). In 2016, the American Heart Association gave Jerry a Lifetime Achievement Award in Cardiac Resuscitation Science. Jerry is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Resuscitation and has authored over 300 original papers, reviews and editorials on subjects including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, airway management, and post-cardiac arrest treatment.
Dr Peter-Marc Fortune is currently Associate Head of Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital where he is a Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care. He was re-elected as an RCUK Executive Committee member in 2015 after holding the post in 2008-12. He has been Director of Resuscitation & Simulation Services for Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since 2006. He is the President of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society and Chair of the UK children’s patient safety collaborative, Making it Safer Together (MiST).
Peter-Marc has held a keen interest in resuscitation and end-of-life care throughout his career. Most recently he has represented PICS & the RCPCH on the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) working group. He has been an APLS & GIC Director for over 15 years. He led the development of the Paediatric Acute Illness Management Course and chaired the working groups for the PaNSTaR and the ALSG HF Champions courses.
Dr Carl Gwinnutt is an Emeritus Consultant at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. He has been involved with RCUK for over 20 years. He joined in 1994 when he was appointed Chair of the ALS Subcommittee, remained a member of the Subcommittee until 2017 and has contributed to four Guideline changes. Carl was President of RCUK from June 2015 to November 2017. He was one of the founder members of the National Cardiac Arrest Audit (NCAA), contributed to the development of the e-ALS course, and is a member of the IT Strategy Working Group and the GoodSAM Steering Group. Carl is now closely involved with community CPR training in South Devon where he lives. He has published widely in the field of resuscitation and has authored several textbooks on resuscitation and anaesthesia and contributed to many others.
Dr Richard Lyon is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and a Clinical Lead with Kent, Surrey & Sussex Air Ambulance. Born in Luxembourg, he became a Volunteer Fireman at the age of 15 and developed an early passion for pre-hospital emergency care. He completed a unique doctorate thesis on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) – the TOPCAT study – which has formed the basis of a successful programme of work to improve outcome from OHCA across Scotland. He is active in resuscitation research and, in 2014, was part of the winning British Medical Journal (BMJ) Awards Emergency Medicine Team of the Year – a unique collaboration between resuscitation officers, nurses, paramedics, medical students and doctors - all striving to improve cardiac arrest outcomes.
Professor Matt Griffiths is an accredited British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) Practitioner and has spent over a decade working with local ambulance trusts. Matt also specialises in prescribing & medicines management and has several books on these subjects. He is a member of the Joint Formulary Committee of the British National Formulary, and sits on multiple editorial/advisory boards where he helps to produce national guidelines on behalf of National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
Matt has been on RCUK’s Executive Committee since 2012. He has been involved in several projects and working groups looking at resuscitation standards in primary care, opening up RCUK membership to other professions and chairing a working group reviewing whether independent companies should be allowed run their own RCUK courses. Matt has also been involved in the development of RCUK’s guidelines for the emergency treatment of anaphylactic reactions.
Dr Zoë Fritz is a Consultant Physician at Cambridge University Hospitals and a Wellcome Fellow in Bioethics, based between Warwick and Cambridge Universities. She became interested in the possible negative effects of DNACPR orders while working as a Registrar in Acute Medicine and Intensive Care, and has conducted research on the use, ethics, and understanding of DNACPR orders. She and her colleagues in Cambridge have developed and assessed an alternative approach to DNACPR orders, the Universal Form of Treatment Options (UFTO) which contextualises the resuscitation decision amongst other treatment decisions and is completed for all patients.
Joanna has a background in Intensive Care, Resuscitation and Emergency department as a nurse and a business manager. She has a Masters in Business Administration and, as a company Director, her business delivers resuscitation services to primary care, secondary care and mental health organisations. She is a Senior Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical school where she runs a post graduate module in Debriefing and Feedback. She is fellow of the higher education academy and an Educator for RCUK.
Her educational philosophy the belief that adult learning is facilitative approach that should empower learners. As a qualified coach, she combines her knowledge and beliefs to support her educational work. Her project work includes Project Lead for the feasibility study for setting up CPRO, and the subsequent launch and implementation of the organisation. More recently she has been working with Health Education England on a project looking at the behavioral changes of the multi-disciplinary team in GP practices after undertaking in-situ medical emergency simulation.
Serena Cottrell was a member of the Executive Committee from 2009-2018 and re-joined in 2019. She has a Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training in paediatrics with dual accreditation in both paediatric emergency medicine and paediatric intensive care. She currently works in Portsmouth at the Queen Alexander Hospital as a consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. She was lead for resuscitation for eight years for University Hospitals Southampton from 2004 to 2012, has directed APLS and instructed on ATLS for over a decade, and for five years taught all the consultant staff in Southampton on a local bespoke resuscitation course.
Serena is lead of the Collaborative Child and Young Person’s Advance Care Plan Group. She is a member of the RCUK Patient Advisory Group and the ReSPECT group. She also leads on the Restart a Heart medical student programme at Southampton University.
Joseph De Bono has been a member of the Executive Committee since 2019. He is a consultant cardiologist and electrophysiologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.
Prior to his time at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he trained across the country in Cambridge, Oxford and London. He was awarded the British Heart Rhythm Society Young Investigator award for his research into the cardiovascular consequences of exercise training.
Joe specialises in the treatment of abnormal heart rhythms and has a particular interest in the management of arrhythmias in patients with Adult Congenital Heart Diseases.
Dr Keeble trained in Cardiology within the London Chest Hospital, and performed international fellowships in Australia and Switzerland. He was appointed as a consultant cardiologist (heart expert) in 2014 and is a specialist in heart artery stent implantation both in stable patients with chest pain (angina) and in patients presenting to the Essex cardiothoracic centre with heart attacks (blocked arteries).
He has a strong research interest in heart attack and cardiac arrest medicine, and is a recognized UK and European expert in the field. He is a Senior researcher at the Anglia Ruskin School of medicine and has supervised 7 MD / PhD students in the last 5 years.
He is Chair of the BCIS focus group on Out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), and a founding member of the International Task Force for Cardiac Arrest Recovery (ITCAR), both formed to improve standards of acute care and long term follow up of cardiac arrest survivors and families.
Dr Chris Smith is an Emergency Medicine Trainee. His interest in resuscitation began at Birmingham Medical School where he taught and later chaired the student-led BLS/AED course. Subsequently, he was involved in a number of research projects with the group. He has been a member of the BLS/AED Subcommittee since 2005 and is also an ALS Instructor. His present research interests relate to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and he is developing a PhD proposal with the University of Warwick on improving access to and utilisation of Public Access Defibrillation. Chris was appointed the Doctor Trainee on the Executive Committee in June 2015.
Sheila Turner is currently the Lead for Resuscitation at Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, a specialist cardiothoracic hospital. She has been a Resuscitation Officer for 18 years in both District and Specialist Trusts. Sheila has worked actively with CPRO and Edited the British Journal of Resuscitation alongside the co-ordination on the CPRO conferences. She has been a co-opted member of the Executive Committee since 2012.
