The Committee
Chair: Lou Tisdale
Lou qualified in 1992. She worked at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust for 17 years where she was both amputee rehabilitation specialist Physiotherapist and Physio manager for T &O. Lou finds her musculoskeletal skills invaluable to her current post; Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist at the Maltings Mobility Centre in Wolverhampton which she moved to in 2009. Since working at the Maltings Lou has also trained in acupuncture and has become the Kinetic Control Tutor for the course “Indentifying and Retraining Uncontrollable Movement in People with Amputations.” Lou is also West Midlands regional rep.
Vice Chair: Julia Earle
Julia has worked with amputees since 1995 initially on the acute vascular wards at Medway Maritime Hospital and now at Gillingham Disablement Services Centre which is the Regional Limb Fitting Centre for Kent. She now works with upper and lower limb amputees at all stages of rehabilitation and offers support and teaching to all members of the MDT throughout Kent. Within BACPAR she has held the posts of South Thames Regional Representative, Membership Secretary, Public Relations Officer and Chair.
Education Officers: Kimberley Fairer / Grace Ferguson
As an education officers Kim and Grace will be BACPAR's link with the amputee masters course at the University of Southampton, of which BACPAR is an initiating stakeholder. They will also responsible to update the pre-registration physiotherapy education guidelines and liaise with external groups on teaching events and materials relating to amputee rehabilitation.
Kimberley qualified in 2015 and started her career working in Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust. In 2017, she moved to the John Radcliffe, Oxford University Hospitals, where she is now the Team Lead Physiotherapist for Vascular & Emergency Surgery. She is also currently undertaking an MSc in Amputation & Prosthetic rehabilitation at the University of Southampton.
Kimberley has previously been a CSP steward and has an interest in research, development and education of students and colleagues. Mostly in all things vascular, pre-habilitation, health education & prevention. The main focus of her work and development is in acute vascular surgery, including developing wider roles of therapists in the MDT.
Grace has been working as a Physiotherapist in the NHS since 2013. She has always had a passion for rehabilitating those with an amputation or limb absence; and currently works at WestMARC, the largest limb-fitting centre in Scotland. At present Grace is developing her role in the upper limb prosthetic service and is collaborating with prosthetists and OTs to ensure users of multi articulating hands and other devices are optimising their function and posture. As a dynamic member of the team Grace has brought her love and knowledge of Pilates into the prosthetic service and completed all 3 levels of the APPI Pilates Course and has embedded this work into her daily treatments. She not only teaches better posture to the patients, but also the staff.
Secretary: Wendy Leonard
Wendy trained in Cardiff and has worked in Essex, Wolverhampton and Lincoln. She has always had general posts and when she came to Lincoln took over the amputees both in and out patient. Now semi retired Wendy continues with her outpatient work as there is no longer a vascular unit on site. Out side of work she sings with several groups and enjoys her garden.
Membership Secretary: Shaun Fryett
Shaun works as the Clinical Lead Physiotherapist in Surgery and Amputee Rehabilitation. He has worked at Royal Devon University Hospital (Formerly Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital) for the past 13 years and with amputees for the past 10 years. His job role is currently split between the acute vascular surgery ward and outpatient prosthetic rehabilitation. He is also the South West Regional Rep looking to link the region closer for the past few years. He is married, has two children and enjoys cricket and trail running.
Journal Officers: Sue Lein / Carolyn Wilson
Sue Lein also holds the Treasurer post - see below for Bio.
Carolyn Wilson is a specialist physiotherapist working in amputee rehabilitation at Musgrave Park Hospital for the past 18 years. She has a
special interest in prosthetic rehabilitation.
Carolyn was the BACPAR Regional Representative for Ireland and a member of executive committee for 10 years and has been on the BACPAR Conference planning committee for several years. She was a co-author of the 2021 Prosthetic Guidelines.
Carolyn has also been involved in teaching therapists working with amputees in Cambodia in association with EXCEED Worldwide.
For any queries about the journal or to submit content please email me at: bacparjournal@gmail.com
Treasurer: Sue Lein
Sue qualified in 1983 and became the first physiotherapist at the Gillingham DSC when the prosthetic services came into the NHS in 1989. She was a founder member of BACPAR and worked in acute amputee care and at the DSC. Her career later moved more into leadership in an acute hospital setting but she has kept close links with the DSC, its physiotherapy staff and the amputee rehabilitation specialty.
Sue retired from her management role in in 2017 and is currently volunteering with Citizens Advice.
Research Officers: Miranda Asher and Lauren Young
Miranda’s first work with people with amputation was in Mexico at a community clinic in Merida during 2004, sparking a passion for this field of rehabilitation. Since then, Miranda has worked in a number of countries, including NHS clinics in the UK.
An enthusiasm for evidence-based practice lead to a MSc in Biomedical engineering at Strathclyde University and work with Ottobock EU as they developed their client care ‘sail’ (sector). Returning to the UK allowed the completion of a PhD in increasing physical activity levels of people with amputation. Miranda now works privately and closely supports a number of “limb-difference” charities facilitating further patient-lead research in the field.
Since qualifying from the University of East Anglia in 2008 with a BSc in Physiotherapy, I have been fortunate enough to carve out a career working in amputee rehabilitation and vascular surgery. It was whilst undertaking my junior physiotherapy rotations at Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford that I first gained exposure to amputee rehabilitation and prosthetic rehabilitation, helping to run the mixed inpatient/outpatient amputee classes. I was then inspired to undertake a dual specialism in amputee rehabilitation and critical care at Frimley Park hospital, which progressed into a Clinical Specialism in Amputee Rehabilitation and Vascular Surgery.
At the beginning of 2021, I commenced work as a Specialist Physiotherapist in Amputee and Prosthetic Rehabiltiation at the Dorset Orthopaedic London Clinic and remain in this role to date. I have also recently completed my MSc in Amputee Rehabilitation at the University of Southampton, undertaken guest lecturing roles at the University of Southampton and University of Winchester and been part of the working party for the BACPAR Guidelines Group, helping to update the pre prosthetic and prosthetic guidelines. I also undertake expert witness work and have a special interest in upper limb amputation rehabilitation and the management of phantom limb pain.
Guidelines Co-ordinator: Rachel Humpherson
Vice Guidelines Co-ordinator: Karen Clark
Rachel qualified as a Physiotherapist from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2011, and has worked full time in amputee rehab since 2013. Having developed a keen interest for amputee rehabilitation straight away, she continued to gain experience in this area whilst working in the community, hospital and private clinics.
Rachel began working at the SMRC Preston in 2013, in a new role of Sports Physiotherapist in Amputee Rehabilitation. This involved a mixed caseload of NHS and Military Veteran amputee outpatients, providing experience of treating patients with a wide variety of Microprocessor Knees. The role also involved treating MSK issues in amputee patients, as well as an emphasis on getting amputees to engage with Physical activity and Exercise, treating both upper and lower limb patients. During this time she held the role of BACPAR North West regional rep for several years, created the initial publication of “So your Patient has an Amputation” and was part of the organising committee for several BACPAR Annual National Conferences.
Rachel has been working at Össur since 2017, and is the Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist for the North Europe Regional Academy. Her role involves training Physiotherapists in North Europe on using Össur products with patients and developing resources for both lower and upper limb amputations. Rachel has delivered seminars both in the UK and internationally, and organised a joint study day with BACPAR in 2017 with Bob Gailey as keynote speaker.
Karen works as a Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist in Derby's Amputee Rehabilitation Centre. She havs been in post for 16 years and, prior to this, worked at large teaching hospitals in Leicester and London, gaining a variety of experience within vascular, trauma and intensive care settings. She has a passion for functional and vocational prosthetic rehabilitation and also input into the vascular teaching module delivered to Undergraduate medical students based at the University of Nottingham.
This will be her second time of holding BACPAR's Guideline Co-Ordinator role. She previously worked alongside Tim Randell to complete the 2nd update of BACPAR's prosthetic guidelines and CSP endorsement. It has now been a decade (and another child) since then; She says: I feel I am recovered enough to get back in the game and assist Rachel as best I can in this important role.
In her free time she mostly like to drive my children around to their various sporting activities and walk the dog. She loves to travel (a recent high point being driving past the Ossur headquarters whilst in Iceland!) and have recently started to play Padel - with varying degrees of success on the court. She is also a qualified RLSS Rookie Lifesaving Instructor and recently, through sponsorship from the charity LimbPower, has become an accredited British Nordic Walking Instructor - so is planning spring outings with patients already.
Social Media Officer: Gemma Boam
Gemma graduated in 2016 from Nottingham Trent University with a BSc Hons Sport and Exercise Science. In 2017, she completed her masters (MRes) in Sport and Exercise Science, with her project investigating the biomechanics of sit-to-stand, stair climbing and limits of stability when using an ankle-foot orthosis, simulating a transtibial amputation. The following year in 2018, Gemma began her PhD in surgical and rehabilitation outcomes following through-knee versus above-knee amputations at Hull York Medical School. Additionally in 2018, Gemma commenced her service within the NHS as a physiotherapy assistant at Hull.
Public Relations Officer: Jodie Spyrou
Jodie is an Advanced Practitioner in Amputee Rehabilitation and now PRO. she has held two positions previously in BACPAR; South Thames Regional Rep and Journal Officer.
Originally a physiotherapist she now leads the Amputee Rehabilitation Unit, a 12 bedded specialist unit for primary amputee rehabilitation at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. As with lots of Advanced Practice positions, her role now sees her working across the MDT with blurred boundary’s across Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Nursing, Counselling and Prosthetics. As part of her role, she has completed an MSc in Advanced Physiotherapy where many of my modules were leadership focused as well as three modules on wound management and skin integrity. She has also completed an accredited sharp debridement course and associated competencies and now leads an MDT wound ward round weekly with the aim of expediting wound care, providing gold standard wound care alongside prosthetic rehabilitation to optimise patient outcomes and QoL as quickly as possible. She is passionate about specialist inpatient rehabilitation pathways for primary’s, something that she feels should be more available within the NHS. She is also passionate about improving the equality of amputee rehabilitation provision nationally.
Jodie is also the Research lead for Specialist Regional Rehabilitation at Guys and ST Thomas, and an advocate for clinical research to help evidence base our field of amputee rehabilitation to support prosthetic and rehabilitation developments. Jodie has published one qualitative article to date exploring clinicians experiences and beliefs about specialist amputee inpatient rehabilitation and look to continue to develop my research skills and publications in the future.
She says: thank you all for this opportunity to again support BACPAR, any PRO queries please do email on me @ bacparpro@gmail.com