Speaker Profiles
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This conference took place on 22nd June 2005. If you would like to order copies of the speaker's slide presentations, you can still do this using the booking page here.
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Chairs and speakers include: (Click on name to jump to profile)
- John Manos
Editor, Occupational Health Review
- Lord Hunt OBE
Minister of State, Department for Work & Pensions
- Ben Willmott
Chartered Institute of Personnel Development
- Rebecca Kettell
Associate, Shadbolt & Co LLP
- Elizabeth Gyngell OBE
Head of Better Working Division & Programme Director, HSE
- Dr Peter Wright
Medical Policy Manager, Department of Work & Pensions
- Dr Peter Holden
British Medical Association
- Dr Jenny Leeser
Clinical Director of Occupational Health, BUPA
- Sue Sneddon
Employee Benefits Technical Manager, Scottish Equitable
- Richard Exell OBE
Senior Policy Advisor, TUC
- Christine Owen
Mercer Human Resource Consulting
- Colin Patterson
Integrated Health Services Manager, Accenture
- Chris Sharp
Head of Corporate Health and Support Services, Thames Valley Police
Profiles:
Elizabeth Gyngell OBE, Head of Better Working Division & Programme Director, HSE
 Elizabeth has had a varied career spanning over 36 years with HSE and its predecessors. She has spent time "on the beat" which included HSE's field operations in the South West and she has had spells working in HQ policy teams.
Elizabeth now heads the Better Health at Work Division with responsibility for workplace health in its widest sense. This involves developing ways of effecting the gear change needed for implementing the HSC's Strategy in relation to health, taking forward the development of Workplace Health Direct, a support service for small firms, implementing the recently published work on return to work and managing HSC's programmes on MSD and stress.
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Dr Jenny Leeser, Clinical Director of Occupational Health, BUPA
 Dr Jenny Leeser MB BS MRCP FFOM is Clinical Director of Occupational Health for BUPA Wellness. Having trained in hospital medicine, she now has 20 years experience of working in Occupational Medicine. She previously worked for some of the major chemical and pharmaceutical companies and has been with BUPA since 1998.
Dr Leeser specialises in 'Quality in Occupational Health' focusing on the importance of high clinical standards whilst developing innovative OH delivery processes. Recently she has been working on ways to refresh communication approaches between Occupational Health and management. She remains clinically active and is also lead doctor for major clients covering the financial and other sectors.
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Colin Patterson, Integrated Health Services Manager, Accenture
 Colin joined Accenture HR Services in 2000 and is Manager of Integrated Health Services. Colin has responsibility for the business development and strategic direction of occupational health services, absence management, and capability, discipline and grievance management.
During his time at HR Services, Colin has been responsible for the creation and introduction of the Total Health Management Programme. An innovative approach to managing absence, which has now been accepted and implemented by several clients, the largest of which, BT, has seen absence reduce by over 20%.
Before joining HR Services, Colin held numerous engineering and health and safety posts at BT, most latterly as Manager of Health and Safety Services. Prior to this, Colin was an Engineering Designer at Kellogs International Corporation and Vickers Zimmer Ltd.
Colin has over twelve years experience in health and safety and his areas of expertise cover the management of health services and sickness absence.
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Chris Sharp, Head of Corporate Health and Support Services, Thames Valley Police
 Chris has been a police officer with Thames Valley Police for 22 years having previously worked in the hotel and leisure industry. During a varied career he has undertaken many roles within the police service; in the early days, 'walking the beat' at Oxford and Reading to being part of and leading specialised teams.
Currently he heads the Corporate Health and Support Services within Thames Valley Police which consists of several units that address sickness management, medical reviews and treatment, also providing welfare and financial support to staff. Following poor performance, new strategies and policies have turned the force from being one of the worst performing to being one of the best.
Before his current role, Chris dealt with the medical treatment and assessment issues of those persons who were mostly unwilling guests of the police, spending time in police cells as suspected offenders. Many of these persons were high risk with diverse illnesses from drug dependency to mental health and self harm.
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Ben Willmott, Chartered Institute of Personnel Development
 Ben Willmott joined the institute in October 2003. He is responsible for ensuring the CIPD's interests are represented across a wide range of public policy areas including stress, data protection, health and safety and statutory dispute resolution.
His others areas of interest include absence management, working time and the Information and Consultation directive.
Prior to joining the institute he was news editor and employment law editor at Personnel Today magazine.
He started his career in regional journalism where his roles included chief reporter at the Daily Echo in Bournemouth, and crime reporter on the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
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Richard Exell OBE, Senior Policy Advisor, TUC
 Richard Exell OBE works for the Trades Union Congress, where he is a Senior Policy Officer, responsible for work on the labour market, social security and welfare-to-work issues. Richard writes TUC guides, briefings and reports such as the recent publications Sicknote Britain? and Defending Incapacity Benefit, and co-ordinates the TUC's network of Unemployed Workers' Centres.
Richard was a member of the trade union team that negotiated the European Directive on parental leave and is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee, the Disability Rights Commission and the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty. He is 48 years old, a graduate of Bristol University, and is married with a daughter, Madeleine, aged 11.
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Rebecca Kettell, Associate, Shadbolt & Co LLP
 Rebecca is an Associate in Shadbolt & Co's Employment Group, providing a full service employment law practice for employers and employees. Since qualifying in 1998 Rebecca has been involved in all aspects of contentious and non contentious employment work including drafting employment documentation, advising on termination of employment, redundancy and post termination issues, developments in Employment legislation, and TUPE.
Rebecca advises on and negotiates severance packages for senior executives on behalf of either the employer or the employee. She has extensive contentious experience including representing employers and employees in the Employment Tribunal and County Court in relation to unfair dismissals, breach of contract claims and claims for race, sex and disability discrimination. She conducts her own advocacy in the Employment Tribunal where appropriate. Rebecca also has experience advising in relation to employment issues arising out of commercial transactions.
Rebecca works closely with Human Resources departments as an extension of the in-house team, drafting employment contracts, disciplinary and grievance procedures, and handbooks, advising on employment relations, implementation of policies and procedures, consultation issues and managing change in the workplace including restructuring and reorganisation.
Rebecca speaks regularly at conferences and seminars and is a contributor to various publications.
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Dr Peter Wright, Medical Policy Manager, Department of Work & Pensions
 Peter Wright is a Senior Medical Policy Adviser at the Department for Work and Pensions. He is also Honorary Consultant Occupational Physician to St Thomas' Hospital, and was previously Senior Lecturer in Occupational Medicine at the TUC Centenary Institute of Occupational Health of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Originally a Consultant Chest Physician, he now deals with a range of policy issues around disability, rehabilitation, sickness absence and health and safety.
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Christine Owen, Mercer Human Resource Consulting
 Christine is a European Partner and the Head of Mercer's Health Management Consulting Team. She has established and operated occupational health and integrated healthcare services for major employers including The Metropolitan Police, Philips Electronics and Cunard Line. In these roles she developed considerable experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams, negotiating external contracts and managing provision from a variety of providers.
She is currently responsible for leading projects to develop strategic approaches to organisational healthcare to reduce lost time through sickness absence and ill health.
She has a strong interest on the management of stress and work-life balance within the workplace and has expertise in working with clients to develop organisational approaches which align cultural and behavioural attitudes with healthcare management.
She had developed a number of audits and evaluation tools to assess the effectiveness of all aspects of healthcare provision including Occupational Health, Employee Assistance Programmes and Private Medical and Income Protection schemes. She works extensively with both the public and private sector to align healthcare to business need. In doing so she has implemented programmes that have demonstrably reduced employee health risk and improved the quality of services whilst containing or reducing healthcare costs.
She is a registered nurse with a post graduate qualification in Occupational Health.
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Dr Peter Holden, British Medical Association
 Dr Peter Holden MB ChB FIMCRCSEd T(GP) is a General Medical Practitioner and senior partner in a 5 doctor rural teaching practice in Derbyshire. His day to day work not only encompasses ordinary general practice but the operation of his local community hospital. He is also Medical Aircrew on his local air ambulance. For the past 25 years he has been an elected member of the GPC and for the past six years part of the small negotiating team which secured the new NHS General Practice contract.
He is a former deputy police surgeon and a former part time examining medical officer for the DWP. Peter has been the chairman of the BMA's Professional Fees Committee since 1997 and an elected member of the Council of the BMA since 1990. He has led for the BMA on sickness certification since 1993 following his public challenge to the then Prime Minister John Major who had accused GPs of being in league with patients over sickness certification with the riposte "I am not the SS of the DSS". He has appeared before the House of Commons Social Security Select Committee on a number of occasions. He can therefore fairly claim to be the voice of British General Practice on the subject by virtue of both his experience and his mandate.
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Sue Sneddon, Employee Benefits Technical Manager, Scottish Equitable
 Sue Sneddon has worked in the pension and group risk market for over 30 years. She began her career with Guardian Royal Exchange, gaining a wealth of experience in all aspects of group business, representing the Association of British Insurers during discussions with the DSS on the Pensions Act between 1996 and 1997.
Since moving to focus more on group risk, Sue has been instrumental in the development of the employee benefits division which Scottish Equitable acquired from Guardian and re-launched in April 2000. In her current role, Sue is charged with exploring the wider issues within the group risk market and assessing how changing employment legislation will impact on the development of group protection products. Sue is an active member of the group risk industry body (GRiD), helping develop GRiD responses to government consultation. Sue is a regular guest speaker at industry events, is a corporate spokesperson and regularly contributes to the financial trade press.
Sue is married with two children. In her spare time she enjoys aromatherapy, Indian cookery and gardening.
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John Manos, Editor, Occupational Health Review
John is editor, Occupational Health Review (OHR), and has had comprehensive experience of journalism relating to occupational health and safety health over 25 years. He was a senior editor at Industrial Relations Services/Eclipse throughout the 1980s, editing Health and Safety Information Bulletin and founding OHR.
During the 1990s he worked as a freelance editor and journalist, including publishing and editing European Safety Newsletter and subsequently working on a number of contracts for EU institutions and publishers. These recently included work for the Bilbao Agency, for the Swedish Joint Programme for Working Life Research in Europe and for the Dublin Foundation.
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Lord Hunt OBE, Minister of State, Department for Work & Pensions
Philip Hunt is Parliamentary Under Secretary (Lords) for the Department of Work and Pensions. He was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health (Lords) from July 1999 until 2003.
He was appointed a life peer in July 1997 and in 1998 became a Government Whip and spokesperson in the House of Lords on Education, Employment and Health. He was joint chair of the All Party Primary Care and Public Health Group from 1997 to 1998 and Vice-Chair of the All Party Group on AIDS from 1997 to 1998.
He was the first Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, and previously Director of the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts (NAHAT) from its formation in 1990. Before that he was Director of its predecessor organisation, the National Association of Health Authorities (NAHA) from 1984 to 1990.
Lord Hunt's NHS career began in 1972 when he joined Oxford Regional Hospital Board as a works study officer, moving to Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre as hospital administrator in 1974. Between 1975 and 1978 he was Secretary to Edgware/Hendon Community Health Council before joining NAHAT in 1979 as Assistant Secretary.
He was President of the Family Planning Association from 1997 to 1998 and Co-Chair of the Association for Public Health from 1994 - 1998. From 1980 - 1982 he was a member of Birmingham City Council and a member of Oxford City Council from 1973 - 1979.
Philip Hunt is married with five children and lives in Birmingham . His hobbies include swimming, Birmingham City FC, Warwickshire County Cricket Club and cycling. He was awarded the OBE in June 1993.
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