Irwin Mitchell is proud to host a one-day conference focused
on the complexities affecting patients with bladder and bowel
conditions.
The conference will bring together healthcare professional, researchers, advocates and support organisations, the conference will explore the latest insights, share best practice and spark important conversations around improving outcomes for people living with bladder and bowel conditions.
This year's theme focuses on the impact that bladder and bowel injuries / dysfunction can have on everyday life, and what more can be done to support those affected.
The day will feature expert speakers, thought-provoking panel discussions and plenty of opportunities to network with colleagues from across the sector. We're also proud to welcome our keynote speaker, Dr Anisha Patel – bowel cancer campaigner and author of the bestselling book Everything You'd Hoped You'd Never Need to Know About Bowel Cancer. Dr Patel will share her personal and professional perspective on navigating bowel cancer, raising awareness and advocating for better support for patients.
A full agenda and speaker line-up will be announced soon.
Who should attend?
Healthcare professionals, charity partners and anyone working to support people affected by bladder and bowel conditions.
Working with charities
We’re proud to work alongside charities driving towards improving patient safety including:
Back up Trust
Bladder and Bowel UK
Bowel Cancer UK
CESA
ERIC
MASIC
POGP
SIA
Afternoon Sessions:
- What If We Talked About It? Sexual Intimacy, Identity and Relationships
- What If Recovery Meant More Than Survival? Neurogenic Bladder and Bowel Following Spinal Cord Injury
- What If Continence Care Came First? Managing Urological Complications and Rebuilding Confidence
- What If Prevention Was Possible? Reducing Bladder and Bowel Injury in Maternity Care
- What If Bowel Heath Was A Rehabilitation Priority? Expert Insights into Colorectal Injury, Treatment and Outcomes
- What If There Was More We Could Do? Learning from Lived Experience to Improve Future Care
All of Sue’s career has been in the caring profession – and has long challenged the institutional norms of healthcare to improve outcomes.
Sue qualified as a nurse in 1989 and later gained a degree in Cancer and Palliative Care. She worked throughout her 28-year nursing career in oncology, ending with 14 years as the senior Macmillan nurse for a multi-disciplinary Uro-Oncology team, sharing an office with the Colo-rectal and stoma care team…a truly great space for ‘bladder and bowel’ service development.
Recognising that the sexual impact of illness and treatment was largely ignored across the whole care system she set out to put that right, training and qualifying as a Psychosexual Therapist (PST). An NHS sex therapy service was then developed and delivered alongside her nursing role and she now specialises solely in the sexual rehabilitation of those living with a life changing illness or injury, with a particular interest in spinal cord injury and ostomy.
Recognising disparities in healthcare she went on to study for an MA in Healthcare Ethics and Law, which often informs the work that she does, particularly in the world of disability (seen and hidden).
She has spoken at conferences around the world and regularly teaches for healthcare academies and industry, encouraging nurses to assess and address sexual difficulties and deliver truly holistic healthcare.
Sue lives with her husband Stephen and border collie Mathilde in rural Somerset.
Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry
As a consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in Plymouth, he set up a clinical and research Urogynaecology unit over 30 yrs ago. Several trainees have obtained MD’s and PhD from Plymouth University. The unit is an RCOG approved centre for subspecialty training and is accredited by the national society (BSUG).
With others, he has helped with the RCOG/RCM ‘OASI Care Bundle’ for the prevention of obstetric anal sphincter injury, the UR-CHOICE risk assessment tool for identifying those at-risk of long-term incontinence and prolapse, and the Episcissors-60 for the safe angle of episiotomy.
He was a member of the NHS England’s Perinatal Pelvic Health Initiative Implementation group and helped set up a collaboration of 9 societies to produce a consensus statement on assisted vaginal birth (forceps, ventouse), to make this safer for both mothers and babies.
His main area of interest is the prevention of obstetric pelvic floor injury and he has written and lectured on this both nationally and internationally.
Previously he was a scientific editor for the International Urogynecology Journal and the BJOG.
He helped form the British Society of Urogynaecology as founding Secretary in 2001 and was Chairman 2006-2009.
He was President of the International Urogynecological Association (IUGA) from 2014-2016.
He is now education chair for the MASIC Foundation (the UK charity for women who have suffered birth injury) and a Trustee for the Birth Trauma Association.
Dr. Izzie Cartwright is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital, specialising in the treatment of cancers of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
Dr Cartwright completed medical training in 2008 at Imperial College London and specialist training at The Royal Marsden. In 2024, she was awarded the Institute of Cancer Research Chairman's Prize for her MD(Res) investigating the role of targeting DNA damage repair in oesophagogastric cancers.
Her research interests include novel therapeutics and circulating biomarkers in gastrointestinal cancers. She is the Principal Investigator on national and international clinical trials.
Dr Cartwright is a member of COLOREACH UK a collaborative for research in early-onset bowel cancer and serves on the UK & Ireland Oesophagogastric Cancer Group (UKIOG) Research Sub-Committee.
Dr Anisha Patel is an NHS GP with a special interest in women’s health and cancer care. Diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer at 39, she brings both clinical expertise and lived experience of cancer and women’s health issues to her work as a doctor, speaker, broadcaster and patient advocate.
She is an ambassador for The Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer charity, and Bowel Cancer UK, and a trustee of smaller cancer charities. Through her platform, @doctorsgetcancertoo, she shares accessible, evidence-based health information and encourages people to speak up about symptoms, seek care and feel more confident navigating healthcare.
Dr Patel is the author of Everything You’d Hoped You’d Never Need to Know About Bowel Cancer, a personal guide informed by her experience as both doctor and patient. Her work brings attention to early diagnosis, life after cancer and the health issues that too often go unspoken.
Oliver Jones is a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
He qualified from Oxford University Medical School in 1995. After house jobs in Oxford and Glasgow, he spent a year in Cambridge teaching and tutoring in anatomy. He then undertook SHO jobs in North West Thames including St. Mark’s Hospital. He was awarded his FRCS in 1999.
He then spent two years in laboratory-based research studying the physiology and pharmacology of the internal anal sphincter and its role in continence and disease supervised by Professors Alison Brading and Sir Neil Mortensen. He was awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree for this work and was appointed a Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 2006.
His specialist registrar training was spent in the Wessex Deanery and included rotations in Basingstoke, Southampton and Portsmouth. During this time, he won the Norman Tanner Prize at the Royal Society of Medicine in 2003 and the BJS Prize at the Association of Coloproctology Annual Meeting in 2004.
He completed his surgical training with a 12 month fellowship at the Royal Brisbane Hospital in Australia. This fellowship had a focus on complex laparoscopic surgery.
He was appointed a consultant in 2008, initially in Basingstoke, but the following year took up a consultant post in Oxford. Between 2018 and 2022, he was Clinical Director for Surgery overseeing a directorate of nearly 500 staff and a budget of £36M. His responsibilities included those relating to clinical governance.
His ongoing clinical practice includes both elective colorectal surgery and on call duties in general surgery. His elective clinical practice includes all aspects of colorectal surgery including cancer. However, a particular focus has been pelvic floor problems and endometriosis.
Within the hospital, he chaired the Pelvic Floor MDT meeting for a number of years. Nationally, he was on the Executive Committee of The National Pelvic Floor Society between 2015 and 2018. He has authored a couple of books, 10 book chapters and over a hundred papers on all areas of colorectal surgery, but mainly with a focus on pelvic floor disorders.
He has been doing medicolegal expert witness work for over 10 years and he has previously completed the Bond Solon course.
