Allen Knight - Trustee

Allen was first diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2010, aged 49, having never smoked or worked with industrial chemicals.  He was lucky in that it hadn't gone too far and he was successfully treated. But bladder cancer can come back and it returned after 9 months. Allen is still under surveillance.  

This was a real wake up call.  Allen decided to get involved with Action Bladder Cancer UK and also sold his business shortly after. Although he had trained as a rocket scientist, Allen had set up and been running a successful management consultancy business for nearly 20 years.  It is these skills and a passion to improve bladder cancer diagnosis and treatment that he brings to ABCUK.

Allen is also a patient representative on a number of bladder cancer clinical trials and a board member for the National Institute for Health Research, reviewing which research applications should be funded.

In his spare time Allen loves to fly light aircraft, walk and travel.

Jeremy Crew - Trustee

Consultant urologist and honorary senior lecturer-  Oxford University Foundation Hospital Trusts

Qualified from Cambridge University in 1989 (MA, MB, BChir) Jeremy undertook his surgical and urological training in London, Oxford & Reading achieving his FRCS in 1993 and his FRCS (Urol) in 1999.

During his training he undertook a period in full time research with a Royal College of Surgeons Fellowship at Oxford University 1995-1997. His MD thesis (‘Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Bladder Cancer') was awarded the Sir Walter Langdon Browne Prize (Cambridge University) 1998 and the European Association of Urology thesis Award 1999.  He continues to have an active role in research locally in Oxford and nationally.

Appointed as Consultant Urologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Oxford University Foundation Hospitals Trust in 2001 and remains in this post to date. Within the Trust he has led and developed the bladder cancer service from both clinical and managerial perspectives.

Jeremy's clinical experience has been supplemented by Bladder Cancer Fellowships at: the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; the Urology Department, Berne, Switzerland; and the Urology Department, Mansoura, Egypt.

Actively involved in management, teaching and training both locally and nationally, he has held the following positions:

• Executive committee BAUS section of oncology
• National Cancer Peer Review team
• Chair of the Thames Valley Strategic Cancer Network Urology Provider Based Operational Group
• Chair of the Specialist Urology MDT
• FRCS(Urol) Court of Examiners
• Royal College of Surgeons Appointments & Advisory Committee
• Urology Specialist Clinical Reference Group
• Urology Bladder Cancer Clinical Studies Group

Roger Kockelbergh - Chair

Honorary Professor of Urology  (Cancer Studies ) University of Leicester, Consultant Urologist and lead clinician in Uro-oncology, Leicester General Hospital

Roger qualified in 1983 from Birmingham University - MB ChB.  He trained in general surgery then urology in the East Midlands and Norfolk.  FRCS1987.   Research fellow in Urology, University of Nottingham 1990.  DM thesis "Monoclonal antibodies to bladder cancer" in 1994.  

He was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne in renal transplantation and urology - 1991 - 1992.  Higher urological training Norwich and Leicester.  FRCS(Urol) 1995.

He has been a Consultant Urologist and lead clinician in Uro-Oncology in Leicester General Hospital since 1996.  Honorary Professor of Urology  (Cancer Studies ) University of Leicester since 2017.

He has been Clinical Director, Secretary and Chairman of the BAUS Section of Oncology, National Clinical Lead for Urological Cancer and Chairman of the NCINSSCRG and has held the following posts:

Executive committee BAUS (The British Association of Urological Surgeons) section of oncology 2001-2011
National lead in urology for the Cancer Services Collaborative
Secretary BAUS section of oncology 2005 - 2007
Chairman BAUS section of oncology 2008 - 2010

His outside interests include skiing, hill walking and cycling.

Paula Allchorne - Trustee

Senior Cancer Nursing Specialist

During her career Paula has held a variety of nursing posts including a senior nursing post at Central London Teaching Hospital and was chosen to be Nursing Chair for NE London Urological Cancer Network. 

Having completed a fast track executive MBA in Health Care, attaining a distinction, this led Paula's career change into management to fulfil her particular interest in innovation and service improvement.  She has been involved in several change management projects; the most recent being implementing ‘A New Survivorship Pathway' for cancer patients in one of the largest and busiest tertiary urology departments in the UK. This has proven to be very successful for both patients and primary/secondary care by providing patients with a more seamless and efficient cancer pathway and overall improvement to patient experience and outcome.  Paula has also run education events for GPs on survivorship - looking at how best to work in collaboration with primary care to discharge patients safely by embedding their recovery support into their wider treatment package. 

Paula founded NaBC (Nurses Against Bladder Cancer) as she wanted to provide nurses with a platform to share their experiences and best practice, and has instigated and organised a yearly teaching and networking event for nurses across the UK. 

She has won several awards for her work on Understanding the Barriers to Presentation and Treatment of Bladder Cancer, and was also the lead nurse on a community-based health clinic for which the team won national awards from the Civil Service Diversity and Equality Awards 2013 and Quality in Care Programme. She is also a  qualified psychosexual nurse specialist in Klinefelter & andrology, and has a special interest in survivorship.

She is currently the President of EAUN, standardising nursing care in Europe and globally.  She was awarded the Gold Award for Outstanding Service to Nursing in 2023.

Professor Richard T Bryan MBChB PhD MRCS FAcadTM - Trustee

Professor of Urothelial Cancer Research, Director - Bladder Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Cancer & Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham

Rik qualified in Medicine at the University of Birmingham and subsequently entered surgical training. After completing a PhDin bladder cancer biology he became a Specialist Registrar in Urology.  After 4 years as a Specialist Registrar, Rik left clinical urology to assist with the set-up of the Bladder Cancer Prognosis Programme (BCPP) at the University of Birmingham, and was subsequently appointed as a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Cancer Sciences. 

Rik is now the Chief Investigator of BCPP which incorporates the SELENIB clinical trial, and is also a member of the Trial Management Group for the POUT trial with responsibility for bio specimen collection and translational research.

Rik sits on the Council of The Royal Society of Medicine Section of Urology, and has been elected as Section Secretary for the2015-16 session.

He has an interest in all aspects of bladder cancer, from optical technologies and endoscopic surgical techniques to biomarker discovery and molecular pathways. His particular interests are narrow band imaging cystoscopy, urinary biomarkers, and genomics, and he has a track record of publication in these specific areas.

Peter Harper - Vice Chair

Consultant Medical Oncologist - Guys, Kings and St Thomas Hospital 1997-2011, Consultant Medical Oncologist and Founder - Leaders in Oncology Care

 Peter trained at University College and University College Hospital (MB BS 1970) and has been a leading consultant at Guy's and St Thomas Hospital, London for over 25 years. He is both an accredited physician and a medical oncologist. One of the four founder partners of the London Oncology Clinic, Peter's vision was of a clinic dedicated solely to cancer treatment offering the highest international standards of care in a state-of-the-art supportive environment, also providing the support including all the ancillary care required by patients and their families.

Author of more than 400 papers and chapters in peer reviewed publications, he is acknowledged globally for his work in researching new drugs and developing improved forms of cancer treatment. Peter has been the chair, or a member of, many international executive committees investigating new approaches to cancer treatment, editorial boards for professional publications and is currently a member of eight pharmaceutical company advisory boards and a member of sixteen professional bodies from around the world, including board membership of a committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO).

In 2002 Peter was awarded the prestigious Cino del Duca Medal in 2004 in recognition of his work in developing new anti-cancer and vaccine therapies. For his role in advising the French Government in strategic cancer care (Board Member French National Cancer Institute) he was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion D'Honneur, a rare distinction for a foreign national. He remains on the board of INCA, the strategic committee for cancer treatment in France, and is currently the Chairman of the Toulouse Cancer Centre and holds the Medaille D'Or of that city.

Phil Kelly

Bladder cancer patient

Phil retired from a career in Children's Social Services when he received his confirmed Grade 3 NMIBC diagnosis in August 2010. He was originally treated via the local District Hospital Urology Service but (post TURBT and failed BCG treatment) opted to pursue a second opinion and transferred to another Trust - and a Specialist Urology Service.  Very soon thereafter, at the first cystoscopic check, a recurrence and confirmed CIS quickly led to radical surgery and a cystectomy in December 2011.

Post cystectomy, Phil considers himself to have been very lucky indeed; a survivor keen to live life to the full and, as importantly, to give something back.  He became something of a bladder cancer 'man on a mission' through the course of his various treatments and procedures and, post recovery from surgery, has gone on to become involved in a number of (mostly) bladder cancer related health projects, including:

• Membership and more recently Chairing the Yorkshire Cancer Network User
  Partnership Group - now the Yorkshire Cancer Patient Forum
• Patient rep (Lay Member) of the NICE Clinical Guideline Development Group
  that published the new Bladder Cancer Guideline in 2015
• Patient rep (Specialist Lay Member) of the NICE Safe Nurse Staffing Committee that developed the new Guideline relating to Acute Hospital Inpatient Nursing
• Working with NHS England (2015-2016) on the development of an updated Patient Decision Aid for Bladder Cancer
• Patient Member of the Team that in 2015 had funding agreed for a Clinical Trial relating to comparing the effectiveness of BCG treatment with Cystectomy for High Risk NMIBC (one of the key recommendations of the NICE Bladder Cancer Guideline)
• Consumer Rep (Lay Member) on the National Cancer Intelligence Network Urology Site Specific Clinical Reference Group.

Mark Page - Trustee

Bladder cancer patient

At 65, I am about to retire from part-time research and lecturing at University College London.  I specialise in the management of projects in the construction sector and my research experience includes two research projects concerning the planning and design of hospital buildings.  However, I never expected to become a participant observer of the hospital built environment until I was diagnosed with HRNMI bladder cancer in June 2015 and became a patient at St James's Hospital, in Leeds, where I live with my wife Karen.

At the time of my diagnosis and first surgery, I became aware of the problems around the shortage of BCG, which was the recommended treatment for me.  St James's have been consistently committed to offering complete courses of BCG to patients, where appropriate, and I have benefitted from this.  But the unfairness and arbitrary nature of the post-code lottery for BCG therapy made me concerned to try and do something about making this problem more visible.  

Around this time, Phil Kelly from ABC UK very kindly got in touch with me and his support and friendship has been most valuable personally. I realised the importance of such contact with other patients to share the experience of living with bladder cancer.  There was no bladder cancer patient support group in Leeds, despite the fact that over 900 bladder cancer patients receive treatment every year in St James's and I have been involved, with ABC UK, in setting up a new group.  I have also become a member of the BRAVO Trial patient advisory group, which is being led from Leeds University.

I was born in Lincolnshire and grew up in and around Birmingham.  I went to grammar school in Aston (still an Aston Villa supporter) and won a place at St John's College, Cambridge, where I studied social and political science.  After leaving university, I moved to London where I spent the next twenty years in local government working in housing development in urban renewal areas and eventually moved into managing a design and build organisation within Haringey Council's direct labour organisation.  In the early 1990's, I took a year out of work to complete a PhD at the Bartlett School, University College London, and then moved into academic work, first at London South Bank University and then at UCL. I moved from full-time into part-time work in 2005 after deciding to move to Leeds from London.

I like developing projects, enjoy working in teams and my working life has been varied and interesting.  Amongst other interests outside work, I am a singer with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus.

Caroline Raw - Trustee

Bladder cancer patient 

Caroline Raw, was diagnosed at 51 with bladder cancer after noticing small amounts of blood in her urine. Caroline has two grown-up children and now helps care for her partner Jonny's teenage son, and works for a charity in Leeds.

Caroline has spoken at many events for ABC UK. 

Alexandra Colquhoun MD, FRCS (Urol) Eng - Trustee

Consultant Urologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge

Alex studied medicine at the University of Leicester before subsequently training in Urology in the East Midlands. She then headed to Toronto for two years to undertake further specialist training in urological oncology obtaining membership of the American Society of Urologic Oncology.

She was appointed as a Consultant Urologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge in 2011 and has a specialist interest in the treatment of bladder cancer. 

Jenny Akins

 Urology Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

Jenny Akins is an urology Advanced Nurse Practitioner at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. Jenny qualified in 1999 with her first posting on a urology ward. Jenny started a secondment post with the urology Advanced Nurse Practitioner's in 2003, she has subsequently completed a BSc Degree and Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Nursing Practice. She is trained in stoma care and stoma siting and has been a nurse cystoscopist for over 10 years. The central component to her role is in diagnosing, supporting and treating patients with bladder and prostate cancer. Jenny is also a nurse prescriber and is the lead for teaching and education of intravesical agents for bladder cancer within her Trust.

She has facilitated a very successful bladder cancer support group in Wolverhampton since 2012. She is passionate about improving the provision of care for bladder cancer patients locally and nationally.