Speaker Bios

Brief speaker biographies for our 2026 conference faculty will be added here as we receive them.

Caroline Southgate
Chartered Physiotherapist and Managing Director of Doris Jones Ltd
Leading physiotherapy in social care in south end.

Having trained as a Chartered Physiotherapist at University of East London, Caroline graduated in 1997 with a BSc (Hons). She returned to her local NHS hospital in Southend, which had supported her learning when she progressed from physiotherapy assistant to undergraduate. Her career then took her across other NHS hospitals, the private sector, her own private practice, and employing other physiotherapists, before making the biggest step of all in 2011.

Caroline brings energy and enthusiasm to both business and clinical challenges, offering fresh, positive perspectives that inspire people to move forward feeling revitalised. A strong business leader in the home care sector, Caroline supports physiotherapists who feel fed up in traditional roles or stuck in private practice to think more broadly about the scope of physiotherapy. She believes physiotherapy is ideally suited to social care, including elderly care, running teams, and earning a good living as a business owner, and is passionate about integrating health and social care to be a force for positive change, helping people live well at home. Caroline Southgate.

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Joseph Russell
Associate Clinical Director Allied Health Professionals Suffolk CIC
Leadership in transformation

Joe qualified as a physiotherapist in 2015 from the University of East Anglia, Norwich and has worked in musculoskeletal settings since this time. He has an interest in digital healthcare and acts as the digital lead for AHP Suffolk alongside his clinical leadership role. He is a keen promoter of service improvement and data driven change. He continues to hold clinical sessions supporting GPs in West Suffolk. Joseph Russell | AHPS

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Joshua Poole
Transformation Lead (ESNEFT)
Leadership on EPIC

Joshua shares his journey from physiotherapy training at the University of Essex to leading system improvement, digital readiness and large‑scale change programmes. His session explores how curiosity, compassion and evidence‑based practice have shaped his leadership approach, with reflections from work on preventing hospital‑acquired deconditioning, patient flow redesign and the EpicEPR implementation. He offers practical insights for emerging AHP leaders looking to influence change across teams and systems.

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Tyler Dunning
Y3 Bsc Physiotherapy Apprentice

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Ashleigh Ryan
Bsc Physiotherapy Apprentice
Skills required in leadership

Ashleigh is a physiotherapy apprentice studying at the University of Essex and has worked in healthcare for 17 years. She began her career as a carer for elderly patients on a rehabilitation ward, before spending four years as an elderly care assistant specialising in dementia and end-of-life care. She then moved into acquired brain injury rehabilitation within a slow-stream rehabilitation unit, working with younger patients, some as young as 21. After a further four years, Ashleigh joined the NHS, where she has worked for the past nine years.

She currently works on the stroke and neuro rehabilitation ward at St Margaret’s Hospital in Epping, as part of a team of over 20 therapists and assistants, alongside ward staff and other hospital colleagues. Ashleigh is passionate about her role and is always looking for ways to improve practice and ensure patients receive the highest quality of care possible. She hopes this commitment is reflected in her talk on leading by example, which is something she strives to do at all times.

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Ollie Needham
Bsc Physiotherapy Apprentice
Leadership and dignity in practice.

Oliver Needham is a 30-year-old BSc Physiotherapy student at the University of Essex with extensive experience across healthcare and voluntary emergency services. He brings over 11 years of experience working within the NHS, alongside 14 years of service with St John Ambulance, where he has held a range of leadership and operational roles.

Notably, Oliver has served as a County Lead for stadium and event delivery, including overseeing healthcare provision at large-scale events such as Norwich City Football Club fixtures. These roles have strengthened his leadership, coordination, and clinical decision-making skills in high-pressure environments.

Oliver is particularly passionate about working with community-dwelling older adults, focusing on promoting independence, mobility, and quality of life through patient-centred physiotherapy interventions. His leadership approach is inspired by Frank Lampard, valuing resilience, teamwork, and continuous development.

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Rajesh Kumar
Advanced Practice Physiotherapist

Leading in Providing Physiotherapy Services to the Homeless Community

Rajesh Kumar (Raj) graduated with a BSc in Physiotherapy in India in 1996 and later completed an MSc in Physiotherapy at Keele University, Staffordshire, in 2012. He is a qualified non-medical prescriber (University of the Highlands and Islands, UK) and has completed postgraduate training in soft tissue and joint injection therapy at the University of Essex.

Raj has worked extensively as both a musculoskeletal (MSK) clinician and tutor across educational institutions, NHS services, and private practice in India and the UK. He currently works as a First Contact Physiotherapist / Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner at Spitalfields Medical Centre and Health E1 Homeless Practice in East London.

He has contributed to the profession as an abstract reviewer for the World Physiotherapy Congress (Dubai, 2023), volunteered as a sports physiotherapist at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games (2022), and represented the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) at the TUC Black Workers’ Conference (UK, 2021).

In 2010, Raj received a Significant Achievement Award from the Indian Association of Physiotherapists in recognition of his outstanding contribution to promoting the physiotherapy profession. His research interests lie in experimental research, and he has developed a method to evaluate the morphological features of the gastrocnemius muscle using dynamic ultrasound imaging.

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Zoe Clift

Independent Emergency Rehabilitation Consultant

Leading in Extreme Situations around the world

Zoe is a burns and plastics physiotherapist who has worked in clinical and leadership positions within the NHS, global health and the charity sector over the course of her career.  Her global health work has seen her act as the rehabilitation lead for the UK Emergency Medical Team, develop WHO Minimum Standards for emergency response, lead MDTs working on preparedness for emergency in a variety of countries, and coordinate WHO responses in specific emergency settings around the world.  She now works as a freelance emergency rehabilitation consultant, currently with WHO Ukraine.