Dr Carol Granger, DProf MSc MRSB CBiol FBANT
(Co-Chair) Carol Granger is a practicing nutritional therapist and herbalist with an honours degree in biochemistry and a Master’s in microbiology. She has been a Chartered Biologist since 1986 and had two decades of experience in bioscience research, diagnostics and medical technology before a career change to nutritional therapy.
Her doctorate in health sciences from the University of Westminster involved researching nutritional therapy practice for people with cancer. Carol is committed to evidence-based practice, professional regulation and advancing standards in nutritional therapy. She is Chair of the Nutritional Therapy Education Commission (NTEC) which accredits nutritional therapy courses that train to the National Occupational Standard (NOS).
Carol has published papers on intravenous therapy, parenteral nutrition, human tissue banking, non-surgical management of ascites, as well as a patent in intensive care technology. Her recent papers have explored professional regulation and nutritional therapy practice. She is a member of the Nutrition Society, a chartered member of the Royal Society of Biology, a Fellow of the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.
John Hughes PhD, BSc (Hons), Lic. Ac.
(Co-Chair) Dr John Hughes is the Director of Research for the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, UCLH NHS Trust. He is also Visiting Fellow within the Department of Primary Care and Population Sciences, University of Southampton, and works closely with the World Health Organisation on the subject of traditional medicine.
John has an interdisciplinary programme of mixed methods research centred on patients’ experiences of chronic illness and the alleviation of symptoms using self-management approaches and non-pharmacological interventions. The programme of research has received over one million pounds in funding, and includes awards from the National Institute for Health Research and World Health Organisation. The research has been disseminated in over 50 peer reviewed academic publications.
Jennifer Barnes
Jennifer is a University lecturer in Healthcare and Director of ‘JBH Training’ providing a wide range of holistic, spa and beauty training courses to UK and international students. Over the past 15 years Jennifer has been a passionate advocate of education, therapies and integrating their evidence based practice into mainstream health and social care environments. She is currently studying a PhD focusing on the wellbeing needs of those attending music festivals.
She recently came runner up in the Worcestershire ‘entrepreneur of the year’ awards, and is a previous runner up in tutor of the year and holistic therapy school of the year. She supports her students and graduates providing a wide range of work experience and paid therapy experiences with charities, private business, corporate and health insurance companies.
Jennifer is a ‘regular’ in our industry writing magazine articles and speaking at events and conferences to further the causes of therapists, students and the wider complementary healthcare community.
Patti Williams
After spending over 35 years in the Financial Services Industry, managing company secretarial, administration, accounting and compliance matters, Patti now provides business and financial consultancy services to organisations mainly in the charity sector.
Dr Ava Lorenc
Dr Ava Lorenc is a trustee and the administrative assistant for RCCM. Ava obtained a BSc in complementary therapies at the University of Westminster in 2005 and completed her PhD in 2010 on children’s use of traditional and complementary approaches to health and primary care providers views of CAM. She has been working in CAM research for 15 years, initially with Professor Nicola Robinson and most recently with Professor Deborah Sharp. Ava is based at the University of Bristol, working on various research projects including integrated healthcare with a focus on primary care. Ava is also an associate editor for EuJIM, member of the scientific advisory board for the National Centre for Integrative Medicine.
Sarah North
Sarah is a lay trustee and has an extensive professional background in health regulation, including governance, policy, and strategy research and implementation, with a strong commitment to quality assurance. She has worked for over twenty years in health regulation initially for the General Medical Council and then was instrumental in setting up a new regulator, the UK Public Health Register, set up in 2003. She has worked for Public Health England, and is now Head of Policy at the Institute of Osteopathy. Sarah has an interest in complementary medicine for use with conventional veterinary treatments, in particular Shiatsu for horses.
Lianne Marie Aquilina
Lianne has an interest in clinical healthcare practice, research and academia. With a Master of Science in Health Research, she combines a multifaceted skill-set to respond to pressing healthcare issues. She is a guest lecturer on the topic of Critical Appraisal of Research in Healthcare. A MSc Research Supervisor for the Online Global Master’s Advanced Oriental Medicine: Research and Practice. She has a BSc Hons in Complementary Medicine, specialisation Acupuncture.
A background in dental nursing (National Certificate) and promoting effective communication (NVQ 3). Lianne is on the research governing board for the Acupuncture Now Foundation (USA) and a trustee for the Research Council for Complementary Medicine (RCCM). She has an interest in quantitative and qualitative research design and analysis as well as promoting research mindfulness.
Karen Charlesworth
Karen qualified as an acupuncturist in 2013, since which time she has run a busy private practice and a popular multibed community clinic. Her research interests include complementary therapies in humanitarian aid, complex intervention research, and research methodologies for complementary therapies. She is the research director of the Northern College of Acupuncture in York.
Karen was awarded her PhD in 2024 at the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York for the NIHR portfolio-adopted trial “Sessions of Acupuncture and Nutritional Therapy Evaluation for Atrial Fibrillation: a feasibility study” which she ran within the York Trials Unit, (ISRCTN13671984; in press).