Executive Committee
UKAPTB’s executive committee functions as the main creative and operational forum for the group. The committee’s regular meetings and calls are open to any member of the network if they’d like to participate. Further information can be found in our Terms of Reference.
Dr Kerry Millington is co-Chair of UKAPTB. Kerry has worked in academia for nearly 20 years, starting at the University of Oxford and then at Imperial College London researching the immunological response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. She recently returned to the field of tuberculosis at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, working to maximise the impact of research by the LIGHT programme, funded with UK aid, to transform gendered pathways to health for tuberculosis. She has also worked on the K4D and HEART programmes supporting the use of learning and evidence to improve the impact of development policy and programmes.
Dr Kerry Millington
Co-Chair
Dr Jessica Potter is a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine and Clinical Lead of the TB Service at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust in London.
Jess has worked in some of the busiest TB services in London over the past decade. In response to the experiences of TB survivors she spear-headed the website www.tbdrugmonographs.co.uk – a resource used to aid the prescription and monitoring of drugs used in all forms of TB. It is regularly accessed from countries across the world.
In 2019, she completed a PhD funded by the Medical Research Council UK in 2019 which used qualitative research methods to explore how migrants with TB access healthcare in a UK context from their own perspectives. More broadly her research explores how structural conditions shape peoples' experiences of healthcare access.
In addition, Jess is passionate about advocacy and campaigns to raise awareness about TB and to protect the healthcare rights of migrants with a range of grassroots organisations. In 2019 she was presented with the Champion award by Migrants Organise and UNHCR for some of this work.
Dr Jessica Potter
Co-Chair
Marc is Professor of Medicine at University College London, and Consultant in Respiratory and HIV Medicine at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
He is Lead for TB Services at the Royal Free and Director of UCL-TB, UCL’s cross-disciplinary TB research grouping. He chairs the British Thoracic Society TB Advisory Group, and has served on national and international committees, including UK NICE TB Guideline Group and British HIV Association HIV/TB co-infection Working Party.
His research focuses on mycobacterial disease, respiratory infection and HIV.
Marc Lipman
Clinical Lead
Jessica is the Lead TB nurse at St Georges Hospital in London and is a Nurse Rep on the London TB Control Board.
She has worked in the field of TB for 7 years, encompassing a variety of nursing roles in London hospitals, including working on the TB pathway for prisoners at HMP Wormword Scrubs. She has also spent time working abroad in Nepal and Malawi.
She is “keen to bring the nursing voice to the table!” – a key role in the fight against TB.
Jessica Townsend
Nurse Co-Lead
Kate Bradfield originally graduated from Birmingham City University with a Degree in Government, specialising in International Politics. Following several years volunteering in a Hospice, Kate embarked on her nurse training and went on to graduate from Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) with a Dip HE in Nursing in 2008. Following a number of years Community Nursing and with 4 years working at the Well-Travelled clinic, a subsidiary of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) Kate went on to work as a TB Specialist Nurse based in the Liverpool City Region. Kate is passionate about equitable care amongst all groups within our communities but especially our most vulnerable such as migrants and has a specialist interest in developing innovative approaches to education for health care professionals and the wider community to work towards eradicating TB.
Kate is passionate about evidence-based practice and is continuing her post-graduate studies at LJMU, supporting her philosophy of lifelong learning.
Kate Bradfield
Nurse Co-Lead
Vinny Wooding
Advocacy Officer and Treasurer
Vinny is our Senior Parliamentary Advocacy Officer for TB and also serves as the coordinator of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tuberculosis.
Before joining RESULTS UK, Vinny worked for the Chair of the International Development Select Committee, Homes England and the Labour Party. Alongside his full-time role, Vinny is also studying for an MSc in Political Thought at SOAS.
Fatima Karmadwala
Affected Community Co-Lead
Fatima Karmadwala has been an ally and advocate for all TB patients since being diagnosed with Multi-Drug Resistant TB in 2018. She has participated in numerous meetings including the international Social Protection Action Research and Knowledge Sharing group (SPARKS) conference and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Annual General Meetings sharing her lived experience of TB.
She is passionate about making a difference and ensuring the voices of the patient and their families are heard to ensure a patient-centred approach to all TB activities.
Her personal journey motivated her to study International Public Health MSc at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine focussing on research into catastrophic costs for TB patients in the UK.
Samara Barnes
Affected Community Co-Lead
Samara Barnes was diagnosed with active pulmonary TB in late 2015 and it was discovered she was also drug resistant a little while into her treatment. Until that point, Samara knew little about the illness apart from the fact that her Grandad had died of TB many years previously.
Samara has raised money for TB Alert and has been part of their peer supporter programme too. She has also studied and written papers on the Global disparities in TB treatment.
It is important for Samara to raise awareness of this illness, be an advocate for reducing the stigma surrounding it and to encourage decision makers in the UK to ensure they keep to their commitment of a year on year reduction of TB and contribute to the WHO's commitment to eliminate TB by 2035.
Samara works for a national children's charity and is also a borough and county councillor.
Paul Sommerfeld
Executive Trustee, TB Alert
From 1998 to 2019, Paul Sommerfeld was Chair, and since then Executive Trustee, of TB Alert, a United Kingdom-based NGO with programmes in India and the UK, primarily focussed on community engagement in TB.
Also, since September 2019 he has been Chair of TB Europe Coalition (TBEC) a network of civil society TB activists across Europe and Central Asia (i.e. The WHO Europe region). In its early years, he led on building links between activists in Western Europe and those in the East. Then, using his original career skills in facilitation, he led numerous advocacy and capacity-building workshops.
Paul has been deeply involved in global health for 35 years – first leprosy, then TB, and also influenza; with a focus on community engagement, advocacy, and governance.
Also, he was once Chair of the then Advocacy, Communication & Social Mobilization Working Group of the global Stop TB Partnership.
He has had a long career in international not-for-profit organisations; and has also held several UK public appointments – Chair of a National Health Service trust for mental health services in two London boroughs, and as a lay member in the regulatory bodies for judges, barristers, osteopaths, and pharmacists.
Roo is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh working on Tuberculosis treatments patterns and the impact on patient outcome using mixed methods, experimental work, epidemiology and mathematical modelling.
Roo is passionate about health advocacy particularly for women and children in resource limited settings. She hopes to further understanding of treatment to support better outcomes for patients globally.
