RED Faculty

Dr. Doug MacMahon is now appointed as a Consultant Physician in the Department of Neurology in Coventry having retired from his NHS post as in Cornwall in 2010. He has particular interests in Parkinson's disease (PD), Dementia, community care and rehabilitation. He has previously been chair of the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) Policy Committee, Inter-disciplinary Committee, - Parkinson’s Section, and PDS Nurse steering group. He is a member of steering groups for Non-motor symptoms, PD Life (quality of life) studies. He is also a member of several editorial boards (including Geriatric Medicine, Progress in Neurology & Psychiatry, PD Forum) and was a member of the NICE PD Guidelines Development Group. Dr MacMahon has written over 100 publications and 25 book chapters, predominantly on PD and its management and on health care policy for older people. He has researched most of the drugs used in PD and Dementia, presented at numerous national and international meetings, and pioneered PD specialist nursing and the Academy of Masterclasses in PD for the BGS PD Section.  He has chaired and spoken at many National meetings and is a regular contributor to ‘Medicine for Old Age Psychiatrists’ and Parkinson’s Disease Academy Masterclasses and is a Trustee of Parkinson’s UK and recently established their Clinical Advisory Panel.

Dr Peter Fletcher is a Consultant Physician in the Department of Old Age Medicine at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He specializes in Movement Disorders and shares service delivery with colleagues in Medicine for the Elderly, Neurology, Psychiatry as well as nursing and the allied health professions. He runs clinics on 5 sites across a very rural county and leads a special interest group. He is a founder member of and educational advisor to the Pd Academy and has contributed to all Masterclasses from their inception in 2002 to date. He is immediate past chair of the British Geriatrics Society Movement Disorders Section and president of the Cheltenham branch of the Parkinson’s Disease Society. He is the local principal investigator for the PDMED (Pd medicines) and the PDGEN (Pd genetics) studies and will lead locally for the PDREHAB (Pd rehabilitation) study. He is also a Senior Lecturer and an Undergraduate Medical Dean at the University of Bristol. He has an MSc in Medical Education and leads for the Medical School on inter-professional learning and personal and professional development in the curriculum. He examines for

Dr Graeme JA Macphee is Consultant and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine for the Elderly at Southern General Hospital Glasgow. He runs a joint tertiary referral Movement Disorders Clinic in the Institute of Neurological Sciences with Dr Donald Grosset, Consultant Neurologist as well as local PD services. He is a past Chairman of the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) Movement Disorders Section and faculty member of the PD Academy. During his tenure he led on the formation of BRIT MODIS – a collaborative organisation of neurologists, geriatricians and nurse specialists affiliated to the Movement Disorder Society.  Among other publications, Dr Macphee contributed the chapter on Diagnosis and differential diagnosis in Parkinson’s disease in ‘ Parkinson’s disease in the Older Patient’ ed Hindle and Playfer.   Current interests include the use of FP CIT SPECT scanning in early diagnosis of clinically uncertain parkinsonism, impulse control disorders in PD and evaluation and management of non motor features of Parkinson’s disease. He was a Faculty member of the international PD Non Motor group which was responsible for the development of NMS QUEST. He was Secretary to the SIGN guideline group on Diagnosis and Pharmacological management of Parkinson’s Disease which published in early 2010. Dr Macphee is a past Chairman of the Geriatric Advisory Committee at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

Dr David Stewart is a Consultant Physician in Medicine for the Elderly at the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow, and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow. He has a longstanding interest in Parkinson’s disease and established a multidisciplinary PD clinic in 1993. In 2000, the clinic achieved Chartermark status which it has maintained ever since. His interests include audit and database development. He has developed a Parkinson’s disease database, which is now in use in a number of centres throughout the country. He is a founder member of the Glasgow Movement Disorders Group and an advisor to Greater Glasgow Health Board on PD services. He is a past chairman of the BGS Movement Disorders Section.  He is a member of the Guideline Development Group for the SIGN Guideline on Parkinson's Disease, due to be published in late 2009. In addition to his interest in movement disorders he has a strong input to medical management as Associate Medical Director for emergency care and medical services in Greater Glasgow & Clyde.

Sue Thomas’ clinical background is nursing and the main part of her post registration clinical career was in primary care.  Since 1991 she worked nationally in a policy and practice role for Long Term Conditions, mainly for the Royal College of Nursing. During her time at the College she took a 2 year career break with a Health Foundation award to develop commissioning expertise and evaluate how Primary Care Trusts were turning national policy into commissioning intent. This developed her on going interest in service commissioning.For the last 2 years she has been employed as Chief Executive in an innovative post established by Parkinson’s UK, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Motor Neurone Disease Association - Neurological Commissioning Support (NCS).NCS provides commissioning support to Primary Care Trusts and GP Consortia with a view to bringing patients right to the centre of commissioning. Over the years, Sue has been nurse adviser to numerous Department of Health (England) work streams for example the Expert Patients Programme, DH Risk sharing programme for MS and the National Service Framework Long Term Neurological Conditions (NSF LTNC).  She is currently a member of the NSF LTNC Leadership group. Sue is also a current member of the National Council for Palliative Care Neurology Policy Group. Other roles have included expert advisory roles for NICE Guidelines and Health Technology appraisals, and board member of the Royal College of Physicians National Council for Chronic Conditions until it dissolved last year. Sue is a Florence Nightingale Scholar and Winston Churchill Fellow and has over 150 published articles and 12 book chapters to her name and writes a monthly policy column in the British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing.

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Dr Richard Walker has been a consultant physician with an interest in healthcare of the elderly at North Tyneside General Hospital since 1995.  He is the clinical lead for the Northumbria Parkinson’s disease service, which had 3 mentions in the Good Practice Guidelines for the National Service Framework on Chronic Neurological Conditions (March 2005), and was runner up for the Hospital Service Journal Awards 2005 (patient access category) and the Hospital Doctor Awards 2007(PD team category).  His research interests in Parkinson’s disease include epidemiology, falls, service development, psychiatric symptoms, palliative care, bladder problems and Africa.  In relation to DeNDRoN he is on the National Clinical Studies Group for PD, and is the north-east Local Research Network NHS representative for PD.  He is also secondary care representative on the Northumberland and Tyne and Wear Comprehensive Local Research Network.

He also has a research interest in stroke in sub-Saharan Africa and was awarded his MD Thesis , “The risk factors and outcome for stroke in The Gambia, West Africa”, in 2002.   He is the clinical lead for the Northumbria/Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre health link.

Dr Dorothy Robertson MBChB, FRCP, DM, Qualified Glasgow University 1976, DM Southampton University 1993.  Has worked in Bath as Consultant Geriatrician in the Older People’s Unit since 1991.  Committee member for the PD Section of the British Geriatric Society (BGS) with particular remit for multidisciplinary liaison and clinical audit. Since 1997 has organised the yearly BGS Multidisciplinary “Science to Practice” PD meeting in London.   Particular interests include rehabilitation and non-motor aspects of PD care.

Alan Whone is consultant neurologist to Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. Prior to training in neurology in the South West Alan undertook a PhD in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders at the Cyclotron Unit, Hammersmith Hospital , London with Professor D J Brooks.  Alan runs a regional movement disorders clinic at Frenchay where a significant part of his clinical role is to support the functional neurosurgery for movement disorders programme. His current research projects include: clinical investigations of novel target sights for DBS in PD; GDNF infusions in PD (both of which he is investigating with Professor Steve Gill); clinical investigations into cognitive and axial symptoms in PD and lab based investigations with Professor Neil Scolding into novel neuroprotective approaches including assessing the potential utility of bone marrow stromal cells as a cell based therapy in Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Gordon has been a Consultant Physician, Medicine and Elderly Care, Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester, since 1995. He trained in London at The Westminster Medical School before training rotations at Bart's and Charing Cross and Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals. His interests are in cardiovascular disease and autonomic problems in the elderly and Parkinson's disease. His research interests are in the management of falls in the elderly.

Dr Paul Worth is a consultant in neurology and lead clinician in Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.  He trained in medicine at Cambridge and Oxford universities. He trained in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, and at St Mary’s and Atkinson Morley’s hospitals in London.  He has undertaken his main research as a Medical Research Council Clinical Training Fellow at the Institute of Neurology, London, in the genetics of movement disorders including Parkinson’s disease and the inherited cerebellar ataxias for which he was awarded a PhD. He has developed the local clinical service for patients with a multidisciplinary Parkinson’s disease service.  His team was shortlisted for the Hospital Doctor Parkinson’s Team of the Year award in 2006.  He is interested in ways of improving the delivery of health care services to patients with PD, including the appropriate use of coordinated community services. He is also interested in ways of improving diagnostic accuracy in Parkinson’s disease and in the use of screening tests for pre-clinical PD. He is research director for Parkinson’s Disease in the Dementia and Neurodegenerative Disease Research Network (DeNDRoN) East Anglia, and is a member of the DeNDRoN Parkinson’s Disease Clinical Studies Group.

Dr Roberts is a senior lecturer and honorary consultant in geriatric medicine at the University of Southampton, and runs a movement disorder service in and around Southampton. She graduated in medicine from the University of Birmingham and was appointed in 1994 as a consultant in geriatric medicine in Southampton, moving to her current post in 2002. Dr Roberts is chair of the Movement Disorders Section of the British Geriatrics Society, and director of the DeNDRoN South Coast local research network. Current projects include the role of olfactory testing in the diagnosis of PD, and establishing reference values for DaTSCAN in healthy volunteers, as well as PD MED and PD GEN.

Dr Leroi has been a consultant for Lancashire Care Foundation Trust and an Honorary Senior Lecturer with the University of Manchester since 2002. Her special interest lies in the psychiatric aspects of neurodegenerative movement disorders. In particular, she has done research in the neuropsychiatry of Huntington’s disease and published seminal papers on the neuropsychiatry of spinocerebellar ataxias. Her main interest now is in the mental health aspects of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and she is doing a trial of memantine in PD dementia. She was the lead author on the first RCT of donepezil in PDD and participated in the recently published NICE guidelines for the diagnosis and management of PD. She has also served on the guidelines’ committees for the psychiatric treatment of Huntington’s disease and the American Medical Directors’ Association’s PD guidelines for nursing homes. Dr Leroi received her medical and psychiatric training in Canada and undertook fellowship training in neuropsychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. She joined the psychiatry faculty at Johns Hopkins as Assistant Professor before moving to the UK. In 2000 she was awarded the American Neuropsychiatric Association’s Young Investigators’ Award. Dr Leroi was recently appointed a Senior Research Fellow with the Parkinson’s Disease Society and has been funded to study motivation disorders in PD.  She has also been awarded, in 2006 - selected to participate in NESTA's Crucible program for early career researchers and in 2007 awarded a TRAM mentorship award for research proposal development.