Speakers/Chairs SCaH 2025

Sanjay has been working on reducing the devastating impact of tobacco for many years, mainly due to seeing its profound effect on people and families in lung cancer clinics and intensive care over the past 30 years. As Chair of the  RCP tobacco advisory group and the publication of many tobacco related reports,  numerous recommendations have been made to improve the treatment of tobacco dependency many of which have now been enacted. As former Chair of the British Thoracic Society tobacco advisory group he developed the BTS national tobacco audit and subsequently led the BTS national QI programme for tobacco in 2023 and co-chaired the BTS Clinical Statement on the Management of hospital patients with tobacco dependency in 2024.

Florence is a dedicated general nurse and the lead for the Treating Tobacco Dependency programme at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust (GMMH). With a strong commitment to health promotion and reducing health inequalities, Florence oversees the implementation of smoke-free initiatives across GMMH, striving to create healthier environments within mental health services. Since joining the tobacco dependency program in 2021, Florence has been instrumental in embedding smoke-free policies, delivering smoking cessation interventions, and training staff to support service users in overcoming tobacco dependency. Her role is pivotal in ensuring that all mental health service users have access to effective support and treatment options to help them quit smoking. Holding a master’s degree in international public health, Florence is passionate about closing the gap in healthcare disparities. Her future goal is to expand tobacco dependency support across all mental health services within GMMH, promoting a smoke-free future that addresses the unique needs of mental health patients and tackles health inequalities at the systemic level.

Carla is a proud Adult Nurse and Midwife, working as Public Health Matron – Maternity, Children and Young People, at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.  She leads on all areas of public health in maternity with a particular focus on reducing health inequalities, through equity and inclusion projects.  Her favourite part of her role is leading the Maternity Best Start in Life and Acute Tobacco Dependency Treatment Team.  She established the Best Start in Life pathway in 2022 with a small team who are committed to providing a truly holistic, high-quality service to women who have a tobacco dependency and who work hard to reduce the stigma surrounding this condition in pregnancy.     

Richard Boden is Deputy Director for Tobacco and Vapes Policy and Legislation within the Department for Health and Social Care. Richard has led on the design and development of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, and prior to this led on the independent Khan Review. Before joining DHSC, he worked at the Department for International Development for over a decade covering a range of international policy and programme issues.

Hazel Cheeseman was appointed chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in October 2024.  Hazel has worked in senior roles at ASH for over 10 years before becoming deputy chief executive in 2021 and has played a key role in the development of the organisation. Prior to joining ASH, Hazel worked in the palliative care, homelessness, and housing sectors in the UK and abroad. As Chief Executive, she will build on the charity’s many achievements to date while steering ASH through an evolving political landscape.

After completing the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme, Paul worked for 10 years in acute Trusts managing a range of services, including Women and Children’s and Trauma & Orthopaedics.  These roles focussed on delivering quality services to patients, operational priorities including acute patient flows, capacity & demand planning and the delivery of performance targets. They also provided the opportunity to act as a patient advocate and work with clinical teams to positively change ways of working. More recently Paul has moved to NHS England, working on national policy for Patient Choice, Elective Care Transformation and currently on Prevention.  In the latter role Paul has been working to develop and deliver the NHS Long Term Plan commitments on prevention with a particular focus on tobacco and alcohol dependence.

Jane is a senior midwife and lead for Tobacco Dependency programme for NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care and is leading the new National Smokefree Pregnancy Incentive scheme alongside colleagues within Accenture.  Jane is responsible for implementing and embedding this complex programme that’s pioneering in its work, taking a system-wide approach in the implementation of the Long Term Plan, across maternity, acute and mental health services, across local and national footprints. Jane is passionate about ensuring all those who are pregnant and smoking receive quality stop smoking support, that supports the embedding of saving babies lives, to reduce rates of smoking at the time of delivery. Her goal for the future is that these programmes support tackling the inequalities created by smoking, whilst working towards the national ambition of a smokefree 2030.

David earned his PhD in app-delivered behaviour change at UCL after 20 years creating a variety of socially-orientated technology companies. He now runs Smoke Free, a smoking cessation app which follows NCSCT guidance, has been found effective in three randomised control trials and has been downloaded 6.5m times worldwide.  

Scott Crosby is the Associate Director of the Humber and North Yorkshire Centre for Excellence in Tobacco Control. Scott has worked in Tobacco Control for over 20 years, working for the NHS, DHSC and PHE. Scott is Chair of the Yorkshire and the Humber Tobacco Community of Improvement and regional tobacco control collaboration 'Breathe'. He is a Visiting Lecturer at the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, with an interest in the Commercial Determinants of Health.

Andrea is currently leading the development and delivery of the All Together Smokefree Cheshire and Merseyside programme to deliver a Smokefree 2030 with the bold vision to end smoking. She is also providing public health leadership to the Accenture/NHS Greater Manchester Team delivering the National Smoke-Free Pregnancy Incentive Scheme on behalf of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Previously, Andrea led initiatives to create fair chances for people to live good lives in Greater Manchester and enjoy better health. This included leading the region’s ambitious Make Smoking History strategy which has provided a blueprint for programmes to tackle tobacco dependency, for delivering smokefree pregnancies and empowering population level behaviour change through multimedia campaigns. With a career long commitment to tackling health inequalities, Andrea was previously CEO at Healthier Futures. She has extensive experience in local government and at director level in the NHS and VCSE sectors at local, regional and national levels.  

Heidi is the Founder and Lead Convenor of SCAH – this annual national conference that brings professionals together with an interest in smoking cessation to share the latest evidence based research and practices. Heidi has worked in tobacco control since 2015, running learning events and networking opportunities is what brought SCAH into fruition in 2019. Heidi has lead a number of smokefree pregnancy projects, and treating tobacco dependency programmes across the region’s Integrated Care System. In 2023, Heidi joined the national prevention team supporting the implementation of the Long Term Plan.

Lynne Dawkins is Professor of Nicotine and Tobacco Studies and leads the Nicotine, Tobacco, and Vaping Research Group (NTVRG) in the School of Applied Sciences at London South Bank University, UK. She joined LSBU in 2016 having previously worked in the Psychology Division at the University of East London where she led the Drugs and Addictive Behaviours Research Group. She has over 80 publications on nicotine, tobacco and vaping and her work is funded by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute of Health Research.

Martin was formerly the  Tobacco Lead for Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Martin has worked in Public Health since the mid 1980’s when he was involved in HIV prevention work.

Hanna has worked in the prevention team in NHS England since September 2021, both within a regional and national capacity and is currently focussing on delivering the Long Term Plan ambition around tobacco. Hanna has had a wide range of experience from a variety of roles at regional and local levels in the NHS over the last 15 years including roles in Public Health, Commissioning, Planned Care and Operational Management.

Joanna Feeney has worked in smoking cessation in the North East for over 18 years in a variety of roles from Specialist Stop Smoking Advisor, Stop Smoking Service Manager and Commissioner, and Smokefree NHS Strategic Manager. Joanna has also worked in both a regional and national capacity with OHID and North East & Yorkshire regional NHSE Prevention team supporting the implementation of the NHS Long Term Plan across the North East & Yorkshire. Joanna is currently the Stop Smoking Systems Strategic Manager with Fresh in the North East providing strategic leadership and expertise on a multi-strand programme of work to increase the number of people who make an annual quit attempt and their overall success.

I have a Masters in Risk Taking Behaviour and am a qualified trainer. My main areas of interest are developing NHS services to meet emerging public health concerns. In the past, this has included HIV and teenage pregnancy. Following this, I lead on a major project implementing a whole systems approach to reducing the number of women who smoke during pregnancy within the context of meeting NICE guidance and implementing evidence-based practices. Currently, I project manage a very successful, whole systems approach to reducing the number of babies born to mothers who smoke and supporting pregnant women to quit across Greater Manchester. Included in this, is the implementation of a successful incentive scheme to support women to quit during pregnancy. I designed the scheme over 10 years ago, which has since been successfully rolled out across the North-West and other regions of England

Andrew has been the Regional Director for OHID North West (previously Public Health England) and Regional Director of Public Health for NHS NW since May 2020 and Honorary Professor of Public Health Practice at the University of Manchester. He was previously Centre Director for Public Health England (PHE) in Yorkshire and Humber. He originally trained as a General Practitioner and is now a Public Health specialist with international experience. He has a longstanding interest in tobacco control and leads on behalf of Regional Directors in England on addictions. He worked for seven years in Nepal at all levels of the health system and has taken short term assignments in several other countries. In the UK he has worked as a Director of Public Health from 2007 to 2018 and is a past President of the Association of Directors of Public Health UK (ADPH). He was awarded an OBE for services to public health in the Jubilee Birthday Honours List in 2022.

Mandy is Programme Manager for Treating Tobacco Dependency at NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care. Mandy has been involved in tobacco work since 2011 following a keen interest in health prevention and the completion of a master's degree in health psychology. Mandy has been involved in various roles including the provision and the commissioning of stop smoking interventions and training, and the implementation of policy at local system level. Mandy is responsible for managing the complex programme of Treating Tobacco Dependency in Greater Manchester, taking a system-wide approach working with various partners across acute secondary care, tertiary care, mental health, together with local authority, primary care and third sector organisations.

Rob is a National Pharmacy Integration Lead at NHSE and is leading on Smoking Cessation Services. Prior to his role with the national team, Rob had worked at Midlands & Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (MLCSU). During his time with MLCSU, Rob supported the Wirral CCG Medicines Management and Optimisation team as the Lead Pharmacist and has also had the opportunity to support NHSE with a number of Pharmacy Integration Fund projects, including the lead role for the national implementation of the NHS Smoking Cessation Service.

I trained and worked in Bradford initially, moving to Calderdale in 2009 to work in a community case loading team looking after women with complex social issues. Appointed as Lead Public Health Midwife in 2015 managing a small team with a portfolio covering smoking in pregnancy, maternal obesity, vaccinations, parent education and health promotion. Outside of work I enjoy looking after my grandchildren and volunteer for a local charity My Mito Mission – Powering Awareness of Mitochondrial Disease

Sarah has worked in tobacco control for over 24 years, in various roles and is passionate about implementing genuine system-wide, comprehensive tobacco control at a population level, to drive down smoking prevalence and reduce health inequalities. Sarah has led the Sheffield Tobacco Control Partnership since 2017, achieving significant reductions in adult smoking prevalence which have reduced by 30%, with prevalence dropping from 17.6% to 10.3% in 2024. She has significant experience in working in local government and the NHS and Voluntary sector at a senior level locally, regionally, and nationally to influence and shape policy on tobacco control.  In June 2023, the Sheffield Tobacco Control programme won the National Local Government Chronicle award in the Public Health Category, in recognition of the innovative and collaborative approach.

Sarah has also led the development of a range of evidenced based educational vaping resources for schools, parents and children and young people in collaboration with ASH and local, regional, and national colleagues, which were published in Feb 2022, and these are currently being utilised Local Authorities across the country. In March 2024 Sarah became the Associate Director of South Yorkshire Tobacco Alliance and is heading up the development of this regional programme. Sarah also has a keen interest in commercial determinants of health.

Emily Hollins is the Publishing Manager for the charity Beyond Words, which co-creates word-free picture stories for people with learning disabilities. She has worked for Beyond Words since 2009, on many books including ‘Sonia’s Feeling Sad’, ‘Looking After My Eyes’, ‘Loving Babies’ and ‘Joe and Julie Stop Smoking’. The most recent book, ‘Joe and Julie Stop Smoking’, will be a very helpful picture resource for smoking cessation teams to use with those who don’t speak English, or find pictures easier to read than words.

Respiratory consultant at Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust. I am Clinical Lead for the Hub and Spoke inpatient smoking cessation service (CURE Liverpool) which provides support to patients admitted to 5 different hospitals in the City.  I am a former Chair of the Tobacco Specialist Advisory Group of the British Thoracic Society & currently Clinical Lead for Tobacco Control at the Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance helping with projects across the region as well as a Dad to 3 boys & avid supporter of the best football team in the world

Jasmine Khouja is a Senior Research Associate in smoking studies at the University of Bristol. Her work focuses on the causes and consequences of e-cigarette use as well as the potential impact that e-cigarette policy changes could have on adult smokers, adult vapers and young people. Using a range of methods (including novel methods in genetic epidemiology), she has explored a wide variety of topics, including the gateway hypothesis, possible health effects of vaping, and the potential impact of hypothetical e-liquid flavour bans. The overall aims of Jasmine’s research are to reduce health inequalities and to provide supporting evidence for policies and regulations which protect young people from harm and discourage smoking.

Martin is the SCaH Joint Lead Convenor. He has worked in tobacco control since 2006, designing and managing acute, community and mental health programmes. Presently, he is the Tobacco Control Lead at Birmingham City Council. A behaviour change clinical specialist, Martin has a strong interest in evolving the frontiers of smoking cessation practice and interventions, particularly when working with marginalised and deeply entrenched smokers. A freelance trainer, Martin has delivered smoking cessation training for practitioners on behalf of national organisations, including NHS England South West and the National Centre for Smoking Cessation Training (NCSCT).

  Tom led the Early Implementer Site for the Treating Tobacco Dependency community model for individuals with Severe Mental Illness at Healthy Cornwall. He is an experienced Smoking cessation practitioner and has supported a variety of health improvement interventions across children & young people and Adult life stages. Tom has worked within health and wellbeing settings for ten years supporting healthy lifestyle behaviour change across various topics such as physical activity, nutrition and tobacco dependency. More recently actively participated the QuITT Collaborative focused on quality improvement for mental health within tobacco dependency. Tom is currently undertaking a Doctorate in Public Health and has a Master of Public Health (MPH).

Rebecca is the lead midwife for smoking in pregnancy at Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust. In 2021 Rebecca implemented Risk Perception Intervention Clinics which have been highly successful in reducing the smoking at time of delivery. Following the long term plan in 2024 Rebecca implemented an inhouse maternity smoking service at Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust. Rebecca is passionate and committed to supporting women with a caring approach to stop smoking and to make informed decisions in pregnancy.

Andy has been with the Programme since 2008. Formerly a journalist, he also worked in local government communications for five years leading on PR, internal and corporate communications.  A qualified CIM marketeer, he takes the lead on the development, delivery and evaluation of all our award winning media campaigns, has supported the development of Smokefree NHS comms, and leads on year round mass media, digital and social communications, as well as news and PR activities on both tobacco and alcohol around behaviour change and advocacy.

Keri-Michèle Lodge is a Consultant in Learning Disability Psychiatry at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. She is the author of the Beyond Words book ‘Joe and Julie Stop Smoking’, a word-free picture story for people with learning disabilities, and others who find pictures easier to read than words. Keri is passionate about the health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities and autistic people and has published several articles about this. Before becoming a doctor, Keri worked as a community support assistant, supporting adults with a learning disability to live in their own homes. She is also a sibling carer.  

Rachel McIlvenna is the Smokefree NHS Strategic Manager for the North East and North Cumbria ICB. In her role Rachel is leading the system wide implementation of the NHS Long Term Plan smoking ambitions in the regions’ 10 NHS Foundation Trusts and providing strategic leadership across multiple tobacco programmes. Prior to joining the NHS, Rachel worked in local government for over 11 years in multiple public health roles including on tobacco control and smoking cessation programmes and led on a number of long term conditions portfolios. Rachel is a UKPHR registered public health practitioner and in 2019 was the first recipient of the UKPHR Alison Thorpe Award for ‘Translating Evidence into Practice’.  

Sue Mountain is a smokefree campaigner from South Shields.  She became involved in the smokefree campaign after being diagnosed with cancer of the larynx 3 times because of smoking.  Sue started smoking at the age of 11 because she wanted to fit in and feel grown up.  Sue never thought about cancer when she began smoking, however as she matured and had a family, cancer was a worry especially when the pictures on packets began.  Sue found quitting really difficult and tried to do this a number of times but each time the smoking addiction won.  Following her third diagnosis of cancer, Sue needed radiotherapy and after which she couldn’t eat, drink, swallow or talk - the last thing on her mind was a cigarette.  Sue began campaigning because she don’t want another child to begin smoking and any more families to go through the hell that her family went through as they went through the cancer journey with her.

Rachael Murray is a Professor of Population Health at the University of Nottingham and specialises in tobacco control research in multiple health settings.  She is currently the Principal Investigator on a trial investigating the addition of a personalised smoking cessation intervention to a lung cancer screening programme (the Yorkshire Enhanced Stop Smoking Study, YESS; delivered as part of the Yorkshire Lung Screening Trial, YLST) and the upcoming trial comparing the use of a digital app, telephone support and telephone support plus financial incentives within a lung cancer screening setting. Rachael is also Co-Investigator on a number of other research projects focussed around lung cancer screening, particularly delivering smoking cessation and lifestyle interventions within screening and lung cancer treatment. In addition, Rachael is a member of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group and the Tobacco Control and Smoking Cessation Committee for the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Professor Caitlin Notley leads the Lifespan Health Research Centre and the Addiction Research Group at the University of East Anglia. She is a social scientist, with research expertise in clinical trials and applied mixed methods. Her particular areas of expertise are tobacco smoking cessation, relapse prevention and harm reduction, with a focus on vulnerable populations. She currently leads the NIHR funded Babybreathe smoking relapse prevention trial, and is Editor-in-Chief for the journal ‘Nicotine and Tobacco Research’. She also co-chairs the Cancer Research UK E-Cigarette Research Forum, and is an author of the Cochrane ‘E-cigarettes for smoking cessation’ living systematic review.

Sophia Papadakis is the Academic and Health System Consultant with the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) where her portfolio includes development of national guidance and training with a focus on embedding latest evidence into practice. Sophia is lead author of the newly published (2024) NHS Standard Treatment Program for Inpatient Tobacco Dependence and the Stop Smoking Service Delivery and Monitoring Guidance (2024) for England. Sophia has worked in tobacco control since 2004 and is interested in the design, delivery and evaluation of stop smoking interventions in clinical and community settings. Prior to joining NCSCT was Programme Director for the “Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation” in Primary Care and Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa. Her work has included the development and scale-up of the “Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation” in primary care; a Canadian and international best practice. Sophia has published more than 85 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on tobacco dependence treatment and disease prevention.

Extensive experience of embedding Smokefree Policies and Tobacco Treatment Programmes in secondary care for the last 7 years in Acute, Mental Health and Paediatric hospital settings.  

Debbie Robson RMN, PhD. Senior Lecturer on Tobacco Harm Reduction & Mental Health Nurse, King’s College London Debbie works with the Nicotine Research Group in the National Addiction Centre.  Her work involves evaluating tobacco dependence treatment pathways in mental health, substance use and acute settings, and also assessing the effectiveness and harms of vaping in young people and those with mental health problems. She is a co-author of several annual evidence reviews about vaping, commissioned by PHE/OHID and is a Trustee of ASH.

With a background as a certified lawyer in Brazil and Portugal and over ten years in the legal sector, I began a new career in England in 2021 within the smoking cessation department, initially as an administrative clerk. Since then, I have developed expertise in project management, data analysis, and smoking cessation strategies, becoming a certified smoking cessation advisor in 2022. I have gained extensive experience working in inpatient settings, assessing hundreds of patients, staff members, attending smoking cessation and health promotion events, and collaborating on new projects, such as establishing the preoperative smoking cessation service at LUHFT.

Twenty years of working with those who find themselves on the fringes of our communities. Working in areas such health inclusion, homelessness, and targeted outreach in the UK and beyond. Most recently based in the Public Health Dorset Team with a portfolio that covers NHS Health Checks, Tier 2 weight services, smoking cessation, workforce training and other prevention pathways in the ICS. Responsible for ensuring that people can access equitable, effective and efficient health improvement and behaviour change services.

Ailsa originally trained as a nurse and has worked in tobacco control since 1998. Her early work included heading up the Queensland Quit Campaign in Australia, managing Gateshead and South Tyneside NHS Stop Smoking Service and being Regional Tobacco Policy Manager for the North East. In 2005 Ailsa working with others launched Fresh the UK’s first regional tobacco control programme and has been its Director ever since. In 2014 Ailsa was awarded a World No Tobacco Day Medal by the WHO, an OBE in the New Year’s Honours 2017 for ‘services to tobacco control’. She is passionate about this work, having prematurely lost her father and auntie to COPD. She has also been closely involved in the running of Balance, the North East alcohol programme launched in 2009 in April 2021 became Director of Fresh and Balance, and is proud of the brilliant dedicated small team who work with so many committed partners.  

Mim has built an extensive public health career in smoking cessation and tobacco control, with over 23 years’ experience. Starting with The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, where she led on workplace initiatives, focusing particularly on routine and manual enterprises. Through the Look After Your Lungs project, Mim engaged with employees to raise awareness about lung health and provide support for quitting smoking. Her efforts extended both locally and regionally. Her work in Tower Hamlets and North Staffordshire served as a model for similar initiatives. Mim moved to City Health Care Partnership CIC, where she served as the North-West Health Improvement Operations Manager for Knowsley, St Helens and Wigan. In this role, Mim played a key part in re-shaping and improving various public health services including smoking cessation, Tier 2 weight management, mental wellbeing, alcohol reduction, and physical activity programmes. Mim’s portfolio also includes social prescribing link workers. A presentation on how the Smoke Free Wigan Partnership wanted to expand the smoking cessation offer to make it more accessible to population groups with high smoking prevalence such as people in recovery, people being supported by homelessness services. Targeting those who rarely use community smoking cessation services by working in collaboration with local Voluntary, Community, Faith & Social Enterprise Sector (VCFSE) organisations. The VCFSE organisations included BAC O’Connor, Rebuild with Hope, Well Women, The Brick and the PaSH Partnership. PaSH is a collaboration between BHA for Equality, George House Trust, and LGBT Foundation. The Local Authority Stop Smoking Service is supporting the local organisations by upskilling staff, best placed to work with the target populations on smoking cessation as they have existing relationships and work from places where people are already being supported.

Dr Kirstie Soar is a researcher and Trial Manager of the NIHR funded project SCeTCH (Smoking Cessation Trial in Centres for Homelessness), in the Nicotine, Tobacco and Vaping Research Group, London South Bank University (LSBU).   Current research interests include  smoking cessation and vaping (both nicotine and cannabis).  Her work is widely published and cited and has directly feed into the National Centre for Smoking Cessation Training (NCSCT), Public Health England (PH) training guidelines and numerous Government consultations.  She has consulted  for the NCSCT, PharmaStrat (a health care consulting company), several local authorities and stop smoking services, and the Royal Society of Medicine.    

Katie is a resident doctor, currently working as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. She divides her time between undergraduate medical education, and working clinically in both the Respiratory and Care of the Elderly departments. Over the past year she has worked on a project to improve nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) prescribing in the trust.

Hilary has a background in health service research and management as well as a clinical background in general nursing, midwifery and health visiting. She is particularly interested in using asset-based approaches in the development and implementation of public health initiatives and supporting organisations to implement evidence-based practice. Hilary has a long history of working in tobacco control. Work she is currently involved in includes vape and tobacco use in young people, reducing the availability of illicit vapes, system wide approaches to reducing smoking in pregnancy and the implementation of the national incentives scheme, and leading CLeaR peer reviews to support evidence based system wide action.    

Martyn has worked in tobacco control since 2008. Initially as part of the Fresh North East regional office, and more recently as Senior Programme Manager within the national Public Health England/OHID tobacco control teams. He has led on projects varying from smoking in pregnancy (including the current national smoke-free pregnancy incentive scheme), the NHS Long Term Plan commitments on smoking, as well as experience around Stop Smoking Services and Swap to Stop. Martyn currently works for the Centre for Excellence in Tobacco Control, hosted by for the Humber and North Yorkshire ICB