Paula Bavetta – Physiotherapist and Frailty Lead at St Clare Hospice
Paula is a physiotherapist with broad experience over several decades specialising in general rehabilitation and spinal cord injury. She has worked in palliative care since 2010, bringing her knowledge of rehabilitative principles to palliative care at St Francis Hospice, Isabel Hospice and, most recently, St Clare Hospice. She developed and led Living Well services at Isabel Hospice and has experience in Quality Assurance and practice development. She strives to spread the word that palliative care is about optimising quality of life and living as well as possible with life-limiting conditions. She gains solace from music, being outside in nature and her garden. At this moment, she is living the experience of caring for several elderly, frail relatives.
Janice Bernardo – Frailty Lead Practitioner at Princess Alexandra Hospital
Janice is the Frailty Lead Practitioner and a physiotherapist at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex. She has wide experience of working in Older People’s Care for more than 20 years, in both acute hospital and community settings. Janice has led numerous multi-organisation transformational projects related to hospital admission avoidance and pathways optimisation for better patient outcomes at Herts & West Essex ICS. She is a member of the NHS England Clinical Advisory Group supporting policy and procedure reviews and mentoring frailty and UEC transformation projects in the country.
Christine Chaffin – Physiotherapist
Christine is a qualified physiotherapist and has worked in the voluntary sector and NHS since 2010. She specialised in admission avoidance and community frailty when working clinically. She now has a senior ICB role and has worked to implement various projects and services in Hertfordshire and West Essex relating to systems around frailty and end-of-life transformation.
Dr Mimi Henderson – Clinical psychologist, Tower Hamlets Community Psychology: Palliative and End-of-Life Care
Mimi has previously worked in clinical research in emotional regulation and psychosis and has been a clinician in the NHS for five years, with experience of face-to-face and remote assessment of distress and risk in both inpatient and community mental health settings. She has worked for Barts Health in community palliative and end-of-life care at St Joseph’s Hospice, in inner London, and in a community neuro team since qualifying as a clinical psychologist in 2024.
Dr Lianne Hovell – Lead Psychologist, Tower Hamlets Community Psychology: Palliative and End-of-Life Care
Prior to clinical training, Lianne worked in psychiatric rehab and in clinical research for both the Department of Health and Cancer Research UK. She has worked as a clinical psychologist in the NHS for 20 years in occupational health, complex substance misuse and community respiratory teams. She has been in Barts Health community palliative and end-of-life care, based at St Joseph’s Hospice in inner London, for the last seven years.
Dr Arjun Kingdon – Consultant in Palliative Medicine and Research Lead at St Clare Hospice
Arjun is a consultant in Palliative Medicine and the Research Lead at St Clare Hospice. His time is split between undertaking MD research with the University of Cambridge on personalised care near the end of life, and providing clinical and education input in hospital, hospice and community settings across West Essex. He is passionate about educating colleagues to provide an expert balance between evidence-based medicine and individualised care.
Dr Ros Marvin – Consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Clare Hospice
Ros has worked in palliative care in the East of England for the past 13 years and has been a consultant on the Inpatient Unit at St Clare Hospice since 2022. She is an experienced educator, with roles including Associate Speciality Director in Palliative Medicine at the University of Cambridge, as well as being a facilitator for Advanced Communication Skills Training and for the European Certificate in Essential Palliative Care. Ros trained as clinical lead for Schwartz Rounds at Garden House Hospice in 2018 and has really enjoyed bringing her experience as a facilitator to St Clare. She has a keen interest in lifestyle medicine and is a strong advocate for the benefits of self-care for her patients, colleagues and trainees.
Rose Morris – Relaxation therapist
Rose is a volunteer relaxation therapist at St Clare Hospice, where she has been volunteering for more than 10 years. She now solely focuses on relaxation for patients and relatives in the Inpatient Unit and therapy groups as well as offering relaxation for staff. In the past, Rose has served in the Army and been both a bus and lorry driver. Then 16 years before retirement chose to join the NHS working in mental health, where she developed a passion for relaxation after seeing how patients reacted. She trained and reached diploma level in 2011 and has brought her skills and passion to St Clare.
Christine Novelli – Community Development Manager & Compassionate Communities Lead at Isabel Hospice
Christine is the Community Development Manager and Compassionate Communities Lead at Isabel Hospice based in Welwyn Garden City, Herts. Joining in 2018 as one of the early adopters of Compassionate Neighbours, Christine has gone onto develop their Compassionate Communities approach, including Compassionate Cafes and social meet ups, Grief Encounters peer support bereavement course and Start the Conversation workshops, helping to initiate earlier conversations about Advance Care Planning. With nearly 30 years’ development experience, and a strong belief in ‘the power of community’, Christine brings her experience as one of the 11 Hospice UK Extending Frailty Care Programme project leads.
Dr Ellie Sharp – Specialist Registrar in Palliative Medicine
Ellie is an ST7 Specialist Registrar in Palliative Medicine training in the East of England. Alongside her clinical work, she is passionate about leadership and medical education and holds a number of additional roles in these areas. On the life side of work/life balance, she is a keen gardener, sourdough baker and amateur photographer.
Sam Taylor – Community Clinical Nurse Specialist
Sam Taylor is a Community Clinical Nurse Specialist at St Peter and St James Hospice in Sussex. She has previously worked at St Clare Hospice, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Sobell House Hospice in Oxford, across both hospital and community specialist teams, including roles in leadership and education. Sam is a qualified Professional Nurse Advocate and an Advanced Communication Skills Facilitator. Her current focus is on the concept of collusion in palliative care (how patients and families manage truth-telling and emotional protection). She aims to deepen understanding and enhance communication within multidisciplinary teams.
Jamie Thunder – Senior Policy Manager (Financial Security) at Marie Curie
Jamie leads on Marie Curie’s policy work around financial security at the end-of-life, including work on the benefits system and on energy and related costs. He joined Marie Curie in 2024 from the anti-poverty charity Z2K and has previously worked as a frontline debt advisor, as well as in senior policy roles in the private and third sector, and at the Financial Conduct Authority.
Dr Beth Williams – Medical Team lead at Isabel Hospice
Beth is the Medical Team lead at Isabel Hospice. She has extensive experience of providing specialist palliative care and of leading a medical team.
