Committee Members

Oonagh GriffinPhD, RD (President)  Senior Pancreatic Cancer Dietitian St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin

Oonagh has worked as Senior Pancreatic Dietitian at the National Surgical Centre for Pancreatic Cancer at St Vincent’s University Hospital since 2011, establishing a specialist dietetic service for people with pancreatic cancer.  Prior to taking up this role she spent over 7 years working in the NHS from 2003 to 2010, including Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s in London. Her final role in the NHS was as Dietetic Team Leader at the Royal Marsden Hospital where she was selected for the National Cancer Leadership Programme. In 2015 she received a Health Research Board Research Training Fellowship, allowing her to complete her PhD at Trinity College Dublin.  She has also been appointed as Adjunct Lecturer/Assistant Professor in University College Dublin where she is undertaking her post-doctoral work alongside her clinical role. Having previously served as vice-chair of the Nutrition Interest Group of the Pancreatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (PSGBI), Oonagh is currently President for PSGBI and will host the annual scientific congress in Dublin in 2024.

Professor Andy Hopper (Past President) is a Gastroenterology Consultant and Honorary Professor at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and Sheffield University.  After an initial MD investigating the endoscopic diagnosis of small bowel disease, Prof Hopper went on to perform a 18 month advanced endoscopy fellowship at Westmead University Hospital, Sydney, Australia in endoscopic luminal mucosal resection coupled with diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic ultrasound (EUS).  Prof Hopper currently provides specialist therapeutic endoscopy and EUS services to the pancreatic and upper gastrointestinal networks (benign and cancer) for the South Yorkshire region.

Professor Hopper became the chair for the Pancreas section of the British Society of Gastroenterology (Sept 2017-20) and has active research and fellow program with over 80 peer review publications including chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, endoscopic giant ampullary adenoma removal and complications of acute pancreatitis. 

Dr John Leeds (Secretary) Dr John Leeds is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and Pancreaticobiliary Physician at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle Upon Tyne with experience in advanced endoscopy including EUS guided sampling and therapeutics, biliary RFA and Spyglass. He was also part of the team that set up and ran the multidisciplinary chronic pancreatitis clinic. He has published over 60 papers and continues to contribute to the area of pancreaticobiliary medicine. His main areas of interest are advanced EUS/ERCP, exocrine pancreatic disease and endoscopic resection techniques.

Professor Chris Halloran (Treasurer) is Professor of Pancreatic Surgery, clinical lead, and impact lead at the University of Liverpool. He has an extensive clinical practice in all aspects of surgical pancreatology at the Liverpool University Hospitals Trust and at Alderhey Children’s Hospital. 

Clinically he covers the whole depth and breadth of pancreatology and provides a National left-sided portal hypertension service. He is a chief investigator in many pancreas surgery trials, leads the European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatic Diseases (EUROPAC) and clinical lead on the Early Diagnosis Initiative for pancreatic cancer and will responsible for the UK-UK-NOD trial within this CRUK program. 

Mr Sanjay Pandanaboyana (Research Lead) is a consultant HPB and Transplant surgeon at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle. His main areas of research interests are acute pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer and had published more than 175 papers.

He has led several Multicentre international studies including COVID pancreatitis study and pain management in acute pancreatitis study(PAINAP study) . He is the Vice Chair of the Surgical Specialty Board of the Royal College of surgeons of Edinburgh and Committee member of the pancreas clinical research group of BSG. He is currently chairing the European Guideline development work on Pain management of pancreatitis which is funded by United European Gastroenterology (UEG) and European Pancreas Club (EPC). 

Chris Briggs is a Consultant HPB and Sarcoma surgeon at University Hospitals Plymouth. He qualified from the University of Sheffield medical school at the turn of the millennium and trained in general surgery in the South Yorkshire region. He spent two years in Leicester studying for a research MD and then sub-specialised in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic surgery, working on the Sheffield liver and pancreatic unit for two and a half years and a year at the Leeds liver transplantation centre. He completed his training in Plymouth. He is now the Clinical Director of the Plymouth HPB unit and a Pancreatic Society council member.

Simon Mark EVERETT  - MbChB, MD, FRCP  Born and raised in the South of England, I trained in Leeds and was appointed as Consultant Gastroenterologist in Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust in 2002.  I have held various clinical leadership roles including Clinical Lead for Endoscopy since 2007 - 2018 and Clinical Director roles from 2009 - 2015. My clinical interests include IBD and interventional endoscopy, particularly ERCP, EUS and management of stricturing diseases. I sat on the BSG endoscopy committee between 2012-2015, during which I was first author on the BSG guidelines for informed consent, and am a current active participant in the ESGE guidelines committee. The rest of my time is spent on bicycles, fell running with my dog, skiing or with my family.

Lynne McCallum Clinical Nurse Specialist Lynne currently is the nurse specialist for the north of England for Pancreatic Cancer UK, prior to this appointment she was the HPB and NET CNS at the Christie in Manchester and has supported those affected with a pancreatic malignancy since she qualified at a nurse in 2003. Her interests lie in nutritional well-being in pancreatic cancer & in 2014 presented work she had undertaken in this field at ESMO. She has particular interest in raising the profile of the CNS whilst supporting & developing the role of the HPB CNS across the UK. She helped to set up the National Hpb Nurse Group which was founded in 2017 and was developed to offer a platform for the HPB CNS community to meet, have peer to peer support, share nurse research & practice innovation and provides professional development for this group of senior nurses.

Professor Giuseppe Garcea is a consultant HPB surgeon at the University Hospitals of Leicester appointed in 2011. He is the clinical director for Cancer, Palliative Care, Haematology, Urology, Gastroenterology and GI surgery and holds an honorary chair with the University of Leicester in Cancer Studies

Manu Nayar Co opted EUS user group is a full time Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne since 2008. His subspecialty area of interest is hepatobiliary and pancreatic medicine. This includes endoscopic management i.e. therapeutic ERCP and endoscopic ultrasound and also management of benign & malignant pancreaticobiliary diseases. He is well published in peer reviewed journals in this area. He has been the director of endoscopy and the training centre lead for Newcastle upon Tyne Hospital. He is the President of the UK & Ireland EUS society. He is a committee member of the pancreatic society of GB & Ireland, the BSG endoscopy section & the European EUS organisation. He organises an annual national course for ERCP and EUS for nurses and is the course director the JAG EUS basic skills course. He is a course director of various national meetings & is a faculty on multiple national live endoscopy events.  He is involved in national trials relating to pancreaticobiliary (PB) endoscopy and is well published in this field.

BSG Committee members

 Elected Chair of the BSG Pancreas Committee and PSGB&I Secretary Dr Matthew Huggett is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and HPB Physician at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. He has a major interest in pancreaticobiliary disease and performs advanced endoscopy including EUS and ERCP. His training involved experience at major centres in London including the Royal Free Hospital, King’s Liver Unit and St Mary’s Hospital; followed by a fellowship in HPB endoscopy at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. His ongoing clinical and research interests include interventional EUS/ERCP, pancreatic neoplasia, chronic pancreatitis, autoimmune pancreatitis and sphincter of oddi dysfunction. He was awarded a PhD from University College London in 2014 following his work into DNA replication in pancreatic cancer. He is involved in training UK and overseas doctors in advanced endoscopy. He was appointed Honorary Secretary of the Pancreatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 2017.

Dr Bharat Paranandi is a Gastroenterologist with a sub-specialist interest in HPB medicine and interventional endoscopy - Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS), Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and enteral stenting. He completed his GI training in North East London and Nottingham and then undertook a series of advanced subspecialty fellowships at Addenbrookes Cambridge (Hepatology/ Transplant), UCLH London (ERCP) and Freeman Hospital Newcastle (EUS/ERCP). His main clinical interests include acute, chronic and autoimmune pancreatitis, Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction and interventional EUS/ERCP. He is involved in a number of active clinical trials and is also passionate about endoscopy training, postgraduate medical education and educational course development. He a core member of the Yorkshire school of endoscopy training (YSET), sits on the pancreas section of the BSG, is a core member of the PSGBI and is Secretary for the UK and Ireland EUS users group (UKIEUS).

Dr John Leeds is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and Pancreaticobiliary Physician at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle Upon Tyne with experience in advanced endoscopy including EUS guided sampling and therapeutics, biliary manometry, biliary RFA and Spyglass. He was also part of the team that set up and ran the multidisciplinary chronic pancreatitis clinic. He has published over 40 papers and continues to contribute to the area of pancreaticobiliary medicine. His main areas of interest are advanced EUS/ERCP, exocrine pancreatic disease and endoscopic resection techniques.

Sharan Shetty Dr Shetty is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and Interventional endoscopist at Dudley group of hospitals NHS foundation trust. He trained both in India (Mumbai) and UK (Gloucester/Bristol). During his training he has worked on the research projects on focal active colitis and interleukins in acute pancreatitis. He leads Upper GI and Hepatobiliary MDT at the trust and also a national Bowel cancer screening colonoscopist. His main interests are interventional endoscopy (ERCP,EUS and EMR etc) and pancreatico-biliary diseases. 

Nadeem Tehami is a Consultant Hepatologist and and HPB Physician at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. He trained in major teaching hospitals of London, Glasgow and Midlands. He completed a HPB endoscopy fellowship and a liver transplant module from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundations trust. He is interested in the clinical and research aspects of hepatopancreaticobiliary diseases and advanced endoscopy (EUS and ERCP). 

Dr Vikramjit Mitra (MBBS, FRCP, PG Cert. Clinical Education) is a consultant gastroenterologist with special interest in pancreatico-biliary (PB) medicine and advanced endoscopy (EUS, ERCP, EMR and enteral stenting) at University Hospital of North Tees. He completed gastroenterology training in the Northern Deanery followed by a fellowship in PB endoscopy at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. He has been involved in the development of HPB services in Teesside (based on hub & spoke model of care). His interests include medical education, development of educational courses, endoscopy training and research in pancreatico-biliary medicine. He is a core member of the Northern School of Endoscopy and has been a faculty in JAG approved training courses. In 2018, he joined as a member of the Pancreas Section of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) and chairs the Pancreas Research Group in the BSG

Dr Noor Bekkali completed her training for Gastroenterologist in 2016 at the Academic Medical Centre (AMC) in Amsterdam after completing her doctorate (PhD). Her training incorporated dedicated training in pancreatobiliary (PB) medicine at AMC and subsequent PB-endoscopy fellowships at the University College London Hospitals and the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. She is now holding a consultant Gastroenterologist post at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford since 2018. She is participating in the European Society for Gastroenterology (ESGE) working subgroup to develop minimal standards and training for EUS and ERCP and is part of a UK Delphi EUS-user group. She is involved in national & international trials relating to PB endoscopy and co-organised annual EUS/ERCP and Live Endoscopy courses. Research interests include cholangioscopy, EUS-diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and endoscopic management of severe pancreatitis.

Dr Wafaa Ahmed BSG Trainee Representative 

Dr Wafaa Ahmed is a Gastroenterologist with a sub-specialist interest in HPB medicine and interventional endoscopy. She trained in the KSS deanery and completed a fellowship at Kings College hospital (ERCP & EUS). She is now a post CCT fellow in PB medicine at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. Her main clinical interests are chronic pancreatitis, autoimmune pancreatitis and therapeutic EUS. She is passionate about medical education and has launched a symposium for trainees interested in HPB medicine. She has also has been involved in the organisation of live endoscopy courses.   

Andrew Hart Co opted APPG is Professor of Gastroenterology at Norwich Medical School. His research interests are investigating the aetiology of pancreatic cancer in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort study, focusing on the role of diet.  Professor Hart is the chief investigator of the BAC-PAC Study - Best Analgesia Control in Patients with Pancreatic AdenoCarcinoma. The first stage of this research is an NIHR funded feasibility study of the early use of EUS-CPN for early pain relief, which will inform the development of a future randomised controlled trial of its use. This work is endorsed and supported by both the PSGBI and British Society of Gastroenterology. Professor Hart has contributed to compiling a series of articles on many aspects of medical pancreatology, published in Gut's sister clinical journal - Frontline Gastroenterology. He was President of the PSGBI in 2015, and currently represents the Society at the All Party Parliamentary Committee on Pancreatic Cancer in Westminster.     

Past Presidents

Past Presidents of the Pancreatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland