Our lecture programme for 2026-27 starts with the Inaugural Presidential Address by our new President Professor Tony Avery OBE on 14th October 2026.

Meetings are held at the PGMEC Lecture Theatre at the City Hospital with the choice of attending in person or via Teams. Meetings start at 7pm, usually last about an hour and there are free drinks and nibbles available in the lounge from 6:30pm. There is limited free parking at the rear of the PGMEC

Meetings start in October you can read an outline of our programme below which will be regularly updated as needed.

14 October 2026                                                                  

Professor Tony Avery OBE

Inaugural Presidential Address: ‘Are we prescribing too many medicines?’

 

Professor Tony Avery OBE, DM, FRCGP, FRCP, FBPS, FRCPharm, MFPH(Hon)

GP at the Valley Surgery Chilwell, Nottingham, Professor of Primary Health Care University of Nottingham, and National Clinical Director for Prescribing.

Tony graduated in medicine from University of Sheffield in 1986, and after house jobs he came to Nottingham to join the Nottingham Vocational Training Scheme for General Practice followed by the Nottingham Community Paediatrics Rotation. He took up an academic post at the University of Nottingham in 1992 alongside a part-time partnership at the Valley Surgery, Chilwell, Nottingham.

At the University of Nottingham, he was very actively involved in medical education in his early years, and his research has focused on prescribing and patient safety where he has led several studies that have had impact on national policies and clinical practice. Tony became a professor in 2002 and has held many leadership positions at the University including Head of the Division of General Practice/Primary Care (1998-2012), Deputy Head of the School of Community Health Sciences (2000-2008), Director of Research for the School of Medicine (2013-2015) and Dean and Head of the School of Medicine (2015-2019).

At the Valley Surgery, Tony has been the lead for prescribing and patient safety for most of his time at the practice. In 2024 he stepped down from being a partner and continues working clinically at the practice on the GP retainer scheme.

Tony took up the role of National Clinical Director for Prescribing for NHS England in 2022 and has provided clinical leadership for implementing recommendations from the 2021 National Overprescribing Review, alongside various other initiatives. He is currently providing clinical leadership for the development and implementation of a Single National Formulary for the NHS in England.

In 2022, Tony was awarded an OBE for services to general practice and has received several other accolades throughout his career including the John Fry Award (RCGP) in 2008, Tony Mitchell Memorial Medal in 2009, James MacKenzie Lecturer Silver Medal (RCGP) in 2016 and NIHR Senior Investigator Award 2018.

In his Presidential Address, Tony will draw upon his research, clinical practice and policy work to address the question ‘Are we prescribing too many medicines?’. He will highlight the vital, and increasing, role that medicines play in improving healthy life expectancy and treating symptoms, while also addressing the problem of overprescribing, particularly for mental health problems, chronic pain, and in older frail people. He will argue that getting the balance right is essential, and that involves listening to what is important to patients and taking account of guidance, but also using common sense when guidance is not always in the best interests of individual patients.

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

11 November 2026

Dr Henrietta Hughes OBE, FRCGP, SFFMLM

‘Listening to Patients: Reflections from the Patient Safety Commissioner, including valproate, pelvic mesh and Martha’s Rule’

 

Dr Henrietta Hughes OBE, FRCGP, SFFMLM

GP and Patient Safety Commissioner for England

Professor Henrietta Hughes OBE started as the first Patient Safety Commissioner in September 2022, an independent role recommended by the report First Do No Harm.

Acting as an independent champion for patients Henrietta leads a drive to improve the safety of medicines and medical devices by ensuring that patient voices are at the heart of the design and delivery of healthcare in England.

A practising GP and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Medicine, University of Greater Manchester, Henrietta is a member of the Health Honours Committee and the guiding group of the Women’s Health and Care Leaders Network.  Henrietta was previously the National Guardian for the NHS and a Medical Director at NHS England. Henrietta has held executive and non-executive roles in the NHS and is Chair of Childhood First, a children’s charity.

In her presentation on ‘Listening to Patients’, Henrietta will cover the following:

• The vital role of the Patient Safety Commissioner
• Reflections on her first term as Patient Safety Commissioner
• Key findings from Henrietta’s report (the Hughes Report) which proposed options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh
• Understanding and addressing the patient safety gap
• Martha’s Rule which is designed to ensure urgent, independent reviews if a patient’s condition deteriorates and their family’s concerns are not being acted upon: rationale, progress and impact
• Looking ahead: the AI Commission and future patient safety work

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

9 December 2026

Professor Nick Barber

‘A novel approach to patient centred decision making about medicines: Seeking eupharmia!’

 

Professor Nick Barber BPharm, PhD, FRCPharm, FRSM

Emeritus Professor of Pharmacy at UCL School of Pharmacy

Following a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology, Nick ran hospital pharmacies before returning to academia as one of Europe’s first professors of pharmacy practice. His work is focused on improving people’s lives with medicines. He has published over 200 research papers and been cited more than 26,000 times. Much of his work has been in collaboration with disciplines ranging from philosophy to mathematical modelling. His 1995 BMJ paper  asking “What is good prescribing?” provided a framework which was adopted by the National Prescribing Centre and used to review GP prescribing. His work on medication errors led to changes in national policies in care homes and his non-adherence work was the basis of the New Medicine Service. Provided by community pharmacies, it delivered 7 million consultations last year.

Nick is a former Vice President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and winner of their Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been Director of Research at the Health Foundation and Mentor-in-Chief at the Health Improvement Studies Institute, Cambridge. Non-executive director roles include the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and West London NHS Trust, which provides mental and community health to West London and Broadmoor Hospital. He presented the BBC series “Victorian Pharmacy”. He is currently Head of Clinical Outcomes at the technology start-up Aide Health. His first book for the public, “How to Take Drugs”, was published by Macmillan in May. It re-sets our relationship with medicines, empowering patients with an approach to support their decision making about medicines. In doing so it provides a vision for the future of medicines in our societies.

In his presentation, Professor Barber will draw on the arguments presented in his new ‘How to Take Drugs’. He proposes that the existence of a good relationship between a person and their medicine, something he calls eupharmia, should be an important consideration in prescribing. He argues that drugs have significant limitations as a technology, and therefore we need to adopt special approaches to ensure that people get the best out of their medicines, or decide not to take them. He will provide a decision tree drawn from other human relationships and will speculate on the way this could be implemented in the future as roles and technologies develop.

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

20 January 2027

Professor Jeremy Howick

‘Empathy as a Blockbuster Drug: Rebuilding Healthcare from the Inside Out’

Professor Jeremy Howick, BA, Dip Soc, MSc, PGCert, PhD

Director of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, Leicester

Professor Howick is the inaugural Director of the Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, where his mission is to ensure that all healthcare consultations include a dose of empathy. Previously, he worked in the University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, where he co-founded the Oxford Empathy Programme. He holds a degree in Engineering from Dartmouth College, and graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford. He is also currently an honorary director of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, a member of the Sigma Xi honours society and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) for the East Midlands.

He recently co-founded the Global Network for Empathy in Healthcare, aiming to infuse empathy into every healthcare consultation globally. With over 250 peer-reviewed publications and three books, including the Amazon #1 bestseller Doctor You, he is a recognized authority in evidence-based healthcare. His work has earned awards from the British Medical Association, European Society for Person-Cantered Care, and the University of Oxford.

Jeremy is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the Dawkins and Strutt Award from the British Medical Association, a Gold Medal from the European Society for Person-Centred Care, and The Conversation’s Sir Paul Curran Award.

Professor Howick has appeared on BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and NPR, and his research was featured in a BBC Horizon Documentary that had 2 million viewers. He regularly speaks at high-profile events, delivering keynote lectures and workshops for corporations, NGOs, and academic audiences, inspiring change in healthcare practices worldwide. 

‘Empathy as a Blockbuster Drug: Rebuilding Healthcare from the Inside Out’

Drawing on these experiences, Professor Howick will deliver a powerful case for empathy as one of the most effective—and underused—tools in modern medicine.

Backed by over 20 years of clinical research, Professor Howick will reveal how empathy reduces pain, complaints, and even mortality—while also protecting clinician wellbeing and improving team performance. His latest research also shows that it is highly cost-effective. This presentation will blend compelling evidence with practical strategies healthcare practitioners can use to embed empathy in their contexts.

Key Takeaways:

• Science-backed tools to improve outcomes through empathic care
• Practical ways to reduce burnout and improve staff wellbeing
• Scalable strategies to build empathy into training, leadership, and culture

Empathy isn’t a luxury—it’s a clinical and operational necessity!

Follow Jeremy on Twitter/X @jeremyhowick, and you can learn more about him through:

Wikipedia (he is an international rowing champion and holds a Commonwealth Games Silver Medal)

Research

Books

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

17 February 2027

Dr Lucy Pollock

‘All Power to the Boom Generation: How we can live long and live well!’

  

Dr Lucy Pollock

Consultant Geriatrician, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Lucy trained at Cambridge, Barts and in several London hospitals before moving to Somerset in 1997, where she is a consultant geriatrician with interests in medical ethics and education, heart failure, hypertension, and frailty.

Lucy has written two highly acclaimed books for the public. The Book About Getting Older (2021) is described by Sandi Toksvig as ‘The most important book about the second half of your life you’ll ever read’. The Golden Rule (2024) contains ‘invaluable lessons … learnt from over thirty years of working with older people, from tales of loss, to impossible families, and the importance of learning to live with uncertainty’. Both books are published by Penguin Random House and have been translated widely.

‘All Power to the Boom Generation’

Lucy’s presentation will focus on the ‘Boom Generation’ which began with a bang in 1946, when everyone stopped fighting and started having babies – around a quarter of a million extra babies were born in the UK that year and even more in 1947. Those bonny post-war babies have now started turning 80.

The advances in medicine of the last 100 years are welcome, but it’s not all good news. 1 in 7 emergency admissions in people over 65 is due to a problem with their medication (imagine saying that of surgery), and globally it is estimated that about 20% of healthcare activity brings no value to the patient. Algorithmic medicine looks set to make things worse.

This is insane.  We must generate a massive shift of power, founded upon realistic and honest communication, to reframe 21^st century medicine. We need a shift of power to the Boom Generation. Here’s how we can live long and live well.

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

17 March 2027

Sir Sam Everington OBE

‘Neighbourhoods and social prescribing: from a pioneering hub in East London to a national and international movement’

Joint meeting with RCGP

 

Sir Sam Everington OBE, MBBS, MRCGP, Barrister

GP Bromley by Bow Centre, London, Provost RCGP

Sam has been a GP in East London since 1989 at the Bromley by Bow Centre. The centre has over 100 projects under its roof ranging from art and garden therapy and financial and jobs advice, all supporting the wider determinants of health. The social prescribing delivered at the centre, is now part of a network of thousands across the country and a growing movement across the world. Its focus is on what matters to patients rather than what is the matter with them. East London is a poor community but rich in diversity with over 150 different ethnic groups. We are proud to say we have the world in our East End.

Sam Provost of the RCGP, a non-executive board member of NHS England, and an Honorary Vice President of the British Medical Association. In 1999 he received an OBE for services to inner city primary care; in 2006 The International Award of Excellence in Health Care and in 2015 a Knighthood for services to primary care. In 2022 he received the Albert Medal from the Royal Society of Arts (Previous recipients include Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking, Winston Churchill). He was a member of the East London NHS Foundation Trust board (mental Health Hospital) and was an Associate Director of NHS Resolution. He is a Fellow and Honorary Professor of Queen Mary University of London and Honorary Vice President of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing. He is a member of the Knight’s Society and co-chair of the Charity, the College of Medicine.

He is a trained woodcarver, day skipper, and speaks Norwegian. He trained originally as a cadet pilot in the RAF and lives with his wife and children in the East End of London in the heart of his community.

In his presentation on ‘Neighbourhoods and social prescribing’ Sam will chart the journey the innovative, pioneering work he has done in East London to what is now the growing national and international movement of social prescribing. He will also draw on the importance of neighbourhoods and this fits into the current government’s plans for neighbourhood health.

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

14 April 2027

Dr Helen Makins

‘The rising impact of chronic pain: A shift in understanding and opportunities for prevention’

 

Dr Helen Makins FRCA, FFPMRCA

Consultant Pain Medicine Anaesthetist, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and National Clinical Lead for the Getting it Right First Time Chronic Pain programme

Helen is a consultant pain medicine anaesthetist at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.  She is the national clinical lead for the Getting it Right First Time Chronic Pain programme, improving pathways across community, primary and hospital services for people of all ages with chronic pain. She is passionate about the importance of pain education for clinicians, the untapped potential of communication to support patients and the benefits of holistic management across pathways.

Chronic pain is the most common presenting symptom across all areas of medicine, and with the number of people living with chronic pain expected to increase by 40% by 2040, its impact far exceeds that of any other long-term condition. Despite advances in prescribing and surgical interventions, we continue to see a clear mismatch between these approaches and actual improvement in symptoms.

In Helen’s presentation, she will provide an up-to-date overview of the neuroscience of chronic pain, including its overlap with other symptom-based disorders, such as chronic fatigue and long COVID. She will explore opportunities for prevention, early intervention, and recovery, all grounded in this evolving understanding. Specialist services for chronic pain are hugely oversubscribed across the country, highlighting the need for the NHS to adopt new strategies. The Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) chronic pain programme has been developed to tackle these challenges, and Helen will share progress so far.

Helen is excited to highlight the advances in chronic pain management—an area that remains challenging for many clinicians but is increasingly relevant to our practice. She will also discuss what we now know about preventing pain from persisting, the NHS’s current response, and the crucial role lived experience plays in supporting patients.

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

19 May 2027

Professor Kamlesh Khunti CBE

‘Why are  cardiometabolic diseases so common in ethnic minority populations?’

The Tony Mitchell lecture

 

Professor Kamlesh Khunti CBE, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRCGP, FMedSci, LLD

GP in Leicester, Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester, Director of Leicester Diabetes Centre, Director of the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in Applied Research Collaborations (ARC) East Midlands, Director of Centre for Ethnic Health Research and Director of The Real-World Evidence Unit.

Kamlesh leads a programme of work on cardiometabolic diseases and multiple long-term conditions (MLTC). He has published over 1600 peer-reviewed articles. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, NIHR Emeritus Senior Investigator and Member of Academia Europaea. He has won numerous awards nationally and internationally including Diabetes UK Mary MacKinnon Lecture and Arnold Bloom Award, RCGP James Mackenzie Award, International Lilly Leonard Award for Diabetes Research and William Harvey Award. He was awarded the CBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honour’s List for services to health.

His Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC) has been accredited as an International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Centre of Excellence for Diabetes Care for the eighth year running. He is Director of the first NIHR Global Health Research Centre for Multiple Long-Term Conditions (MLTCs) and Co-lead for the Cross NIHR Collaboration for MLTCs. He is the national NIHR ARC Lead for MLTC and leads the national training programme for MLTCs. He is Senior Vice President of European Association of Study of Diabetes. He was a member of UK Governments Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and Chair of the SAGE Ethnicity Sub-panel.

Why are cardiometabolic diseases so common in ethnic minority populations?

In his presentation, Kamlesh will explain how cardiometabolic diseases are disproportionately common in ethnic minority populations due to a combination of biological vulnerability, social disadvantage, and healthcare inequalities. Ethnic minority groups develop conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease at a younger age and at lower levels of adiposity, driven by greater insulin resistance and visceral fat. These risks are amplified by socioeconomic deprivation, structural racism, delayed diagnosis, and poorer access to prevention and high‑quality care. Addressing these disparities requires earlier screening, culturally tailored interventions, and health systems designed to meet the needs of diverse populations.

Kamlesh can be followed on Twitter/X: @kamleshkhunti

For the link to access meeting via Teams, please click here

You can see the recording of the talk on our YouTube channel once available by clicking here

For any more information please contact admin@medchi.org.uk

23 Junio 2027

AGM