Sally was a licensed Advanced Emergency Medical Technician and worked as a paramedic prior to and during nursing school.

In 1985 aged 22, Sally diagnosed herself with vitamin B12 deficiency, after her doctors had failed to identify her condition. Over the past two decades, she has frequently found untreated B12 deficiency in the patients she cares for and has campaigned to raise awareness of this all too common debilitating neurological condition.

During her presentation Sally will be using case studies to show how b12 deficiency affects people of all ages, including babies and children. She will also be reviewing the pathophysiology, signs, symptoms, risk factors, causes, diagnosis, differential diagnosis and treatment.

Sally’s book inspired Emmy winning film producer Elissa Leonard to produce a documentary on misdiagnosed B12 deficiency in 2011 click to watch. Elissa then went on to produce a feature film based on Sally’s life click to watch.

Anne is now the Course Director on the MSc in Nutritional Therapy at the Northern College of Acupuncture in York. She also runs a busy international clinic, with special interest in CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) and autism.

Anne uses nutrigenomics data from 23andme.com alongside appropriate functional testing, in order to establish each person’s individual health requirements. She has co-written the first UK based practitioner nutrigenomics course in the UK which is delivered twice yearly in York and London. Anne has also co-authored a book with Dr Damien Downing ‘The vitamin Cure for Digestive Disease’.

Development for Vaccine Research Trust, a charity established in 1982 which supports research into why a group of people present with signs and symptoms of hypothyroidism but continue to have blood tests within the reference range. She co-founded Vaccine Research International Plc and helped Dr Gordon Skinner in his thyroid clinic in Birmingham, working closely with him in his dealings with the GMC. In 2000, they published a paper on the effect of thyroid replacement in patients with ‘normal’ thyroid chemistry and clinical signs and symptoms of hypothyroidism.

Afshan qualified with a BSc degree in Immunology and Microbiology from London University in 1983 and joined Dr Gordon Skinner’s vaccine research group at the Medical School, University of Birmingham in 1985, she completed her PhD in Medical Microbiology in 1999.

Joanne graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast, in 1996 and is an Associate Specialist Old Age Psychiatrist in an NHS Trust.

Joanne is a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Clinical Lecturer at Queen’s University in Northern Ireland. Her main interest is improving care for patients, either through quality improvement initiatives, using Institute for Healthcare Improvement methodology, or audit.

She co-authored ‘CBT for mild to moderate depression and anxiety’ in 2014 and an audit on improving patient safety, ‘The impact of introducing a Lithium care pathway’, was published as an example of shared learning on the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) website in 2015.

The introduction of an electronic care record, with better access to blood results, and improved insight into the potential impact of deficiencies prompted an audit into B12 and folate deficiency in the elderly patients referred to the local service. She is hopeful that the audit, presented at the conference, will have an impact on improving patient care in the future.

_______________________________________________________

To book your place click here

To read more please visit the conference page.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Best wishes, Tracey