Iain Wheatley
Chair of Diagnosis & Therapy Sub Committee
Sleep and Ventilation Lead
Iain qualified as a nurse in 1996 after a short career in the military and worked in general medicine before becoming a critical care nurse and developing the role as part of what was then the new critical care outreach team. With critical care skills Iain set up the Medical Acute Dependency Unit and later set up the Sleep and ventilation service. In 2005 he achieved an MSc with Merit in advanced Nursing Practice and subsequently published research on level one patient observations. In 2007 Iain completed his V300 Non-medical prescribing qualification, and has other qualifications including a Dip in management, sleep and ventilation and spirometry. Iain is the non-medical prescribing lead, as well as the lead for the level 6 and 7 degree respiratory course for his Trust. He has published and presented papers on various aspects of sleep and ventilation. Currently Iain is a Nurse Consultant for acute and respiratory care managing teams including, Sleep and Ventilation, Health Improvement (alcohol and smoking cessation), Tuberculosis specialist nurses and the Respiratory Specialist nurses.
Iain is the Sub Committee member lead for sleep and ventilation for the Therapy committee for the Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists (ARNS). He is a committee member of the local respiratory network Kent Surrey and Sussex allied health Science, as well as a member of the Clinical Reference group for Respiratory specialist commissioning, a member of the NICE sleep disordered breathing committee, and has worked with NCEPOD on the Non-invasive Ventilation Inspiring Change (2017).
Ruth Thomas
Pulmonary Rehabilitation Lead
Ruth Thomas is a respiratory nurse in Milton Keynes, dividing her time between practice nursing, lead for community pulmonary rehabilitation and as a nurse specialist in a primary care outpatient respiratory service. She runs a local respiratory interest group affiliated to PCRS-UK and has also developed training on behalf of the International primary Care Respiratory Group as well as Education for Health. She is on the editorial board for the PCRU journal as well as having a voluntary role as BLF nurse, Milton Keynes.
Ruth has been involved in many local respiratory projects and is passionate about patients receiving an accurate diagnosis, evidence –based education and management and loves her job so much in pulmonary rehabilitation she is now a qualified level 2 fitness instructor. Another interested is functional breathing and is a Buteyko Breathing Practitioner as well as being on the committee for the Buteyko Breathing Association.
Yvonne MacNicol
Smoking Cessation Lead
Yvonne MacNicol is a fully qualified nurse who has worked in the field of Smoking Cessation and Tobacco Prevention and Protection since 2005. During this time Yvonne has worked in both the hospital and the community supporting patients to stop smoking. In the last six years, while working for the NHS, her focus was on partnership working, community development and capacity building using asset-based approaches to deliver tobacco prevention and protection. Working in collaboration with key partners in the public, private and third sector, has provided vital experience when aiming to lessen health inequalities through locality working. Yvonne has over 12 years’ experience promoting health and wellbeing in areas of deprivation, with a hard to reach client group. Following the completion of her MSc in Public Health and Health Promotion, Yvonne was invited to attend the British Thoracic Society Winter conference to deliver a poster presentation of her abstract entitled ‘Investigating changes in parents’ perceptions and attitudes of smoking in the home after a second-hand smoke educational intervention in nurseries.’
Currently Yvonne holds the position of lecturer in adult nursing at the University of the West of Scotland but is still involved in tobacco as a current a member of the Scottish Tobacco-free Alliance Council. The Scottish Tobacco-free Alliance Council is a forum allowing for the exchange of information, discussion and collaboration on all aspects of tobacco and Scotland’s Public Health Priority 4 and its impact on health and inequalities. It also allows those working in tobacco a platform to influence the development of policy across Scotland.
Louise Lomas
Diagnostic Lead
Louise qualified as a RGN in 1992 from Manchester Royal Infirmary and worked in various roles in secondary care before moving into primary care and community work in late 2001. Louise worked in a remote rural Community Hospital as sister/manager while she undertook her BSc(hons) as a nurse practitioner and prescriber. Louise then moved into GP practise working within a federated model of 14 GP practices. She became respiratory lead for the federation. During this time, Louise undertook a 2-year service improvement project, which changed how we delivered care to our COPD population. The project was submitted to the BMJ future for health journal and conference where she presented a poster. This two-year project formed the basis of her MSc in clinical research and leadership. The results of which Louise presented at PCRS conference research and the abstract was published. The presentation and poster has been delivered at several local research forums and events.
During this time, Louise was also the primary care representative for the respiratory research specialist group for the North East and Cumbria; and served two years as long-term conditions lead for West Northumberland along with being Diabetes lead for Northumberland CCG.
Following 10 years in primary care as respiratory lead Louise wanted to focus on broadening her experience specialising in respiratory care. She then took the role as a respiratory specialist nurse providing bespoke asthma and COPD clinics across the North East and up into Scotland working very closely with secondary care asthma clinics to provide biologics injections supporting the specialist nurses in secondary care. After 2 years, Louise moved to work in primary care Gateshead, providing respiratory clinics for a group of practices alongside other ANP work. Louise was specifically asked to design and develop the Gateshead spirometry service. This was commissioned by the CCG to provide periopertectic diagnostic spirometry for the Gateshead population in 2019. The service model was selected as a finalist in the HSJ quality awards 2020.
As well as being the clinical lead for that service Louise also served as the chair for the diagnostic subgroup for North East and Cumbria respiratory network. She recently had the pleasure of representing the region at the task and finish group for clinical policy England with regards to restarting spirometry.
"I am honoured to be given the opportunity to promote delivery of respiratory diagnostics on behalf of ARNS."
Kerry Woodward
Prescribing Lead
Kerry qualified as a RN in 2001 and worked in emergency care for a short time before moving to primary care. She initially completing the Asthma and COPD diplomas with the support of some exceptional Respiratory Nurses who sparked her passion for this field of nursing. After gaining experience in respiratory and completing further diplomas and certificates such as her ARTP Spirometry and leadership modules, Kerry went on to complete a Respiratory specific BSc and her PGCert, which included the non-medical prescribing module.
Kerry now works as a Respiratory Nurse Specialist in primary care and is a Primary Care Network lead, as well as providing support to the CCG. She provides respiratory education, regularly running courses in the local area for healthcare professionals and has recently been involved in projects such as a local long-term conditions hub, working in collaboration with secondary care, looking at diagnosis and management of complex respiratory patients. Kerry also supports the running of her local PCRS peer support network.
Kerry has always been committed to delivering patient-centred, evidence-based care to her patients and is an advocate for improving standards in respiratory care. Kerry has been a member of ARNS for many years and became a committee member in 2021.
Sara Mason
Oxygen Lead
Sara has been nursing since 1990 and has had a varied career in acute and community settings working for the NHS and the private sector. To name a few she was a theatre sister, worked in private education and experienced life as a clinical sales rep. She is currently the Senior Oxygen nurse and Team lead of the home Oxygen service, for North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation trust.
She began working as a Specialist Respiratory nurse in 2014 within the community respiratory team. Her main role was to develop the limited service on offer to home Oxygen patients in West Cumbria. Sara developed a passion for all things Oxygen, expanding this initial service, writing local guidelines and procedures to ensure patients were receiving evidenced based therapy whilst embedding a culture of safety and risk mitigation. She was successful in petitioning for further funding to expand the service to cover the whole of North Cumbria recruiting and training a small team of nurses and an administrator to form North Cumbria Home Oxygen service. The team are responsible for the safe and effective assessment, prescribing and review of home Oxygen for over 500 patients.
She is a member of the North West Service review group, NW Quality and Performance group and the NW Steering group and co-wrote the North West Quality standards. Sara also works closely with colleagues in the North East as part of North East North Cumbria Integrated care system and is currently on a committee developing ILD Oxygen Guidelines. She was one of the evaluators in 2019 for the procurement bids against the new NHS England Oxygen contract which brought her into contact with many people for home Oxygen services around the country. Locally she community and hospital trusts has merged and she runs an Oxygen best practise group and continues to work very closely with the community respirtory teams and her respiratory colleagues in the acute hospitals. Sara has developed and implemented a streamlined pathway for patients with Cluster headaches in North Cumbria to reduce waiting times for treatment with Oxygen. She also provides an advisory and support service to paediatric colleagues.
During the COVID 19 pandemic, Sara developed protocols and pathways and lead on many initiatives. In the first wave she managed an Oxygen weaning programme to facilitate rapid discharge. In the second wave she set up the COVID virtual ward. She also developed pathways for the Oxygen monitoring and education in care homes and advised on the implementation of the [email protected] initiative.
Sara wants to use this opportunity to be a champion for patients and staff in the Oxygen world challenging, influencing and promoting best practise in our field.
Our Team
Executive Committee
Respiratory Disease
Sub Committee
Research and Education
Sub Committee