Mr Brian Sommerlad, Consultant Plastic Surgeon and Chair of Trustees For over 40 years, I have been involved in operating on babies, children and adults who have been born with cleft lip and/or palate. Expand Although I have now retired from the National Health Service, I continued to operate both in the UK and in many countries abroad. As a plastic surgeon, I have been involved in many aspects of surgical reconstruction. However, I have increasingly focused on the challenge of trying to improve results in surgery for clefts. I have been aware of the lack of good quality data on techniques and outcomes and have tried to make some contributions in these areas. Travelling to many countries has convinced me of the need to try to help in improving care for children born with clefts in resource-poor countries. Most efforts by charities rely on flying in western teams for short visits or paying local surgeons to carry out the operations in private hospitals. Neither of these approaches builds for the future. If these NGOs disappeared, they would have had a negative impact in the long-term. In 2007, with Maddie Holmes (grandmother of a patient) and inspired by John Kettleborough (an ex-patient) we set up the charity CLEFT, with the aim of funding research to be carried out by the North Thames Cleft Team in Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the St Andrew’s Centre, Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, and also to support cleft lip and palate teams in resource-poor countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Egypt and Kurdistan. We have achieved a lot but there is much more to be done – helping to bridge the gaps in knowledge about the causes and treatment of clefts and trying to bridge the gaps between treatment in countries like the UK and countries like Bangladesh. In addition to being the current chairman of CLEFT, I am currently trying to split my time between looking after my own patients, regularly visiting the centres that we support overseas, and also keeping in touch with my own family of five children and currently fourteen grandchildren. It would be better if there were more hours in the day and more days in the year! http://www.sommerlad.co.uk/
Richard Allan I became aware of CLEFT through discussion with Brian Sommerlad and was invited to become a trustee. Expand I am particularly interested in the work that our charity does overseas and have travelled to Bangladesh five times. It has been enormously satisfying to see the comprehensive cleft care centre in Dhaka developing and to get to know the key people involved. Much has been achieved, but there is so much more to do.There is the prospect of establishing other centres along similar lines. Sustainability is of paramount importance and this cannot be achieved overnight. Our charity sets itself long term goals so we need to continually plan ahead. I come from a business background and have wide experience in several industries. I hold a masters degree in business administration and have chaired audit committees in a number of major organizations. Helpful when producing action plans and budgets for our overseas projects.
Dr Debbie Sell, Senior Research Fellow/ Speech and Language Therapist Dr Debbie Sell is a Senior Research Fellow at Great Ormond Street Hospital and until 2018, Speech and Language Therapist in the North Thames Regional Cleft Service. Expand Previously in managerial and leadership roles in GOSH, Debbie now focuses on research, mentoring, supervision, teaching and independent clinical practice. Her PhD study in Sri Lanka (speech in patients with unoperated and late operated cleft palate) led to its Speech and Language Therapy training course. She has led on developing and testing speech outcome tools in cleft palate/VPI, setting standards for measuring speech outcomes and has participated in several multicentre national and international studies of speech outcome. Debbie’s current interests are parents undertaking articulation therapy in children with cleft palate supported by therapists and technology and is a Founder and co-Director with Dr Triona Sweeney of Speech at Home. CLEFT - Bridging the Gap funded the GOSH arm of the P.L.A.T. randomised controlled trial and was really fantastic at helping secure funding for the devlopment of the [email protected] website. [email protected]; [email protected] Twitter @debbie_sell
Dr Raouf Chorbachi, Consultant Audio-Vestibular Physician Dr Chorbachi is Consultant Audio-Vestibular Physician for the North Thames Cleft Services at Great Ormond Street Hospital and St Andrew's Centre, Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford. Expand
Matt Fell I am excited to work with the CLEFT charity team, as part of the UK’s collaborative effort, to help improve cleft care in the UK and overseas. Expand I am excited to work with the CLEFT charity team, as part of the UK’s collaborative effort, to help improve cleft care in the UK and overseas. I am a Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery training registrar in the Southwest of England, based in Bristol with my wife and two children. I have been fascinated in cleft lip and palate since being a medical student and have steered my surgical training towards achieving my goal of becoming a cleft surgeon. I have an honorary fellowship position to perform epidemiological cleft research with the Cleft Collective at the University of Bristol. I have been passionate about global health for many years and aim to focus my energy on improving the provision of cleft care for patients and their families living in resource-poor settings.
Bruce Richard Consultant Cleft Surgeon (retired) Expand I lived in in Nepal for 11 years, (1989-1999) where I set up a Plastic Surgery Department for the Government of Nepal, trained 7 Nepalese surgeons in Plastic Surgery, initiated a Randomised controlled trial in Cleft surgery, and investigated the facial nerve in leprosy. My passion was working with Nepalese colleagues to improve outcomes for the people of West Nepal. For the last 19 years, I have been a Consultant Cleft surgeon in Birmingham, developing the cleft service, teaching Plastic surgery, supporting national Cleft Audit, and initiating several cleft clinical research projects. I continue with 2 PhD students that I co-supervise on computer artificial Intelligence projects developing a better cleft aesthetic outcome measure and investigating why some children’s midface does not grow sop well after cleft surgery. The CLEFT International Charity objectives, completely encapsulates my passion for development and sustainability of improved Cleft care in Low and Middle Income Countries by the ethos and methodology stated in the Mission Statement. I would like to help those objectives become more of a reality.
David Sainsbury I am delighted to be a Trustee of CLEFT and am very enthusiastic at the prospect of helping teams around the world to provide the best possible care for individuals with a cleft. Expand I am a Consultant Cleft and Plastic Surgeon in Newcastle upon Tyne – where I live with my wife and three children. I trained in plastic surgery in North-East England and completed Advanced Training in Cleft Lip and Palate (Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham, Edinburgh) and the Paediatric Plastic Surgery Fellowship (Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto). I am a founder member of the Cleft Multidisciplinary Collaborative which produces multicentre, cleft related research across the UK and beyond. I am an Honorary Tutor at the Wound Healing Research Unit, Cardiff University.