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Members of the HCS Registration Council

Biographies of the members of the HCS Registration Council

Chair

Professor Barry Hirst (Chair – Lay member)

Barry is a Professor of Physiology at Newcastle University with research interests in gastrointestinal and epithelial physiology. He was Dean of Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of Medical Sciences for ten years to 2014. Barry has a well-established commitment to Healthcare Scientist education, leading Newcastle University’s successful bids for Scientist Training Programmes (STP) in Medical Physics and Physiological Sciences. He has supported the National School of Healthcare Science through chairing accreditation panels. Barry championed Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) in Healthcare Scientist courses, leading the development of guidance for educational providers on embedding PPI in courses. From 2017 to 2020, Barry chaired the Education, Training and Professional Standards Committee of AHCS and in 2020 joined the HCS Registration Council as a lay member. As of 2021, Barry chairs the Academy’s Education Standing Panel that reports to the Regulation Board.

HCS Registration Council Members

Lucy Tinniswood (Professional member)

Lucy is a senior medical photographer at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.  She started as a trainee at the Royal Bolton Hospital Medical Illustration department, and gradually worked her way up to becoming the senior photographer. She studied for the BSc in Medical Illustration with the Glasgow Caledonian University, finishing the course in 2003.

Lucy has been a registered member of the Institute of Medical Illustrators (IMI) since completion of the BSc joining the CAMIP register once qualified, and has been a member of the Academy since the transfer of the register in 2017.

She joined the IMI CPD team in 2013 and took over as team lead in 2016, overseeing the first CPD audit with the AHCS in 2018.  Since becoming the team lead she has been an active member of the IMI Education team helping promote the need and understanding of CPD and registration within the profession.

Lee Wickham (Lay member)

Lee has legal training in medical law (Cardiff 2019) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Governance (USW 2011) and 18 years of clinical experience in private practise. Lee’s original degree was a BSc with Honours in Chiropractic (USW 2001). He has an interest in Regulation that lifts and supports standards that improve and or underpin public safety.

Lee believes that opting for voluntary registration is a gesture that improves trust, between clinician and the public at large, the foundation upon which medicine is built. The honest and decent clinician wants only to help those who they can in their area of medicinal knowledge, skills and competencies. Medicine is not an exact science and thus guarantees are not forthcoming when treatments are offered, and test results given.

Mishaps can bring undue misapprehension into the public sphere about the intentions of their clinician. Looking forward the wider medical team will step into a more chaotic structure of who interacts with who in the new and innovative delivery of healthcare interventions. It will be the individual who does what they can to show their honest and decent intent, regardless of their hierarchical position, who can show a, socially acceptable, true meaning behind their actions.

The reasoning presented here is what led Lee to seek a regulatory role alongside his clinical practise.

Dr Vishakha Tripathi (Professional member)

Vishakha is the Chair of the Genetic Counsellor Registration Board (GCRB) and also a Consultant Genetic Counsellor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. She has worked in the fields of medicine, special needs teaching and genetic counselling through her career of 18 years. She has held several national consultancy and leadership positions having worked with the National Screening Committee, Genomics Clinical Reference Group and with the Professional Standards Authority as GCRB Chair.

Having worked in the health sector for some years, Vishakha has led on several service implementation initiatives and has experience of project management, clinical governance leadership as well as the handling of complaints and disciplinary investigations. She is also a Principal Investigator for research studies in the arena of cancer genetics and genomics.

Part of Vishakha’s clinical role involves education and she leads the delivery of a successful annual cancer genetics course which has a track record both within the U.K and abroad over the last 10 years. She is currently working on the development of an online education platform in cancer genomics with colleagues within the service. She also held the position of Education Lead for Guy’s and St Thomas’ as part of the South West London Genomic Medicine Centre in the past.

Vishakha is a GCRB sign off mentor, Lead station writer for genomic counselling through the National School of Healthcare Science and an AHCS equivalence assessor.

Yvonne Mackenzie BA Econ (Hons) (Lay member)

Yvonne joined Rolls-Royce plc (RR) in 1976 as a graduate trainee, having gained a degree in Economics from Nottingham.  In the main she worked in the Finance function, having responsibility for many years for Group Finance policies and procedures. Her father became ill with Dementia and she decided to help care for him at home and made the decision to leave RR after working there for some twenty-five years.

As a result of her father’s illness she wrote several papers, on the support available to him within Derbyshire Healthcare Trust, and the Trust approached her to undertake presentations to service users and Trust staff. At this time the Department of Health were launching the Patient and Public Involvement in Health (PPI) Forums and the Carers Federation was awarded the contract to support the Forums. Yvonne had worked with the Carers Federation in launching the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS), and then became responsible for the day to day operations of the PPI forums within the East Midlands and Yorkshire.

Yvonne has been involved with several community projects working with community groups, MHA Care Group and Derby University, and joined the AHCS in 2016 as a Lay assessor for the STPE programme.

Professor Barry Hirst (Lay member)

Barry is a Professor of Physiology at Newcastle University with research interests in gastrointestinal and epithelial physiology. He was Dean of Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of Medical Sciences for ten years to 2014. Barry has a well-established commitment to Healthcare Scientist education, leading Newcastle University’s successful bids for Scientist Training Programmes (STP) in Medical Physics and Physiological Sciences. He has supported the National School of Healthcare Science through chairing accreditation panels. Barry championed Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) in Healthcare Scientist courses, leading the development of guidance for educational providers on embedding PPI in courses. From 2017 to 2020, Barry chaired the Education, Training and Professional Standards Committee of AHCS and in 2020 joined the HCS Registration Council as a lay member. As of 2021, Barry chairs the Academy’s Education Standing Panel that reports to the Regulation Board.

Carol Graham (Professional member)

Carol is a cardio-respiratory service manager at Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

She started as a trainee in The Victoria Hospital Glasgow in 1998 and has gradually worked her way up.  She studied for the BSc in Cardiac Physiology at Manchester Metropolitan University graduating in 2005.

Carol continues to maintain a clinical role with 18 years’ experience in echocardiography and is registered with the British Society of Echocardiography. Specials interests are in stress echocardiography, cardio-oncology and supporting our future workforce.