CVD Academy 2023 cohort
Mid and South Essex
Ajin Emmanuel – Clinical Pharmacist
Ajin clinically assesses and treats patients using his knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas and offers advice on medicines across different practices. He completes medication reconciliations for patients that have been discharged from hospital and ensures any medication changes have been appropriately recorded.
Dr Chris Olukanni – GP Partner
Chris is a GP Partner and Primary Care Network Clinical Director working in Thurrock, one of the most deprived areas in the UK. His areas of specialist interest are cardiovascular disease and minor surgery. Chris has seen a massive improvement in management of cardiovascular disease as well as other long-term conditions within the PCN, however he believes that despite the challenges, more needs to be done.
Usha Ravichandran – Clinical Pharmacist and Cardiovascular Lead
Usha Ravichandran is a Primary Care Network Clinical Pharmacist which involves carrying out medication reviews, chronic disease management and dealing with medicinal enquiries. She is also Cardiovascular Lead for Southend Victoria Primary Care Network where she delivers presentations to inform clinicians of latest updates and is a point of call if there are any queries.
Danielle Thrower, PCN Lead Clinical Pharmacist
Danni has over three years of primary care experience, a background in community pharmacy and works across six GP practices. She is passionate about empowering patients in managing their health and decision involvement for their care. She is involved in the management of long-term conditions with a focus on cardiovascular disease prevention. Her initial scope of practice is the management of atrial fibrillation, which she plans to extend out to other areas of cardiovascular disease.
Michael Thomas, Lead Clinical Pharmacist
Michael has been working as a pharmacist since 2015, initially working as a community pharmacist until 2019 when he became the first member of Chelmsford City Health Primary Care Network. He completed his independent prescribing qualification in 2022 focusing primarily on hypertension and CVD. He has a keen interest in heart health linked with health outcomes in the community, and he feels in the modern world this is more important than ever because of modern lifestyles and health inequalities.
North Central London
Haleema Ahmed, Clinical Pharmacist
Haleema has a keen interest in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease – it stems from working in both primary and secondary care. She completed her pre-registration in hospital, and she has experience as a rotational hospital pharmacist in surgery, acute medicine, endocrinology, oncology and COVID-19 wards.
Amina Ali, Advanced Clinical Pharmacist
Amina is working in general practice and currently undertaking an MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice. She endeavours to work collaboratively and in partnership with community cardiovascular services and secondary care colleagues as well as community pharmacy colleagues who participate in the Hypertension Case Finding service. Amina is currently working on the Independent Prescribing in Community Pharmacy – the Pathfinder Programme with multiple stakeholders to develop a community pharmacist prescribing service for the management of hypertensive patients across North Central London.
Jarir Amarin, GP
Jarir works at Carlton House Surgery and is the Enfield Unity Primary Care Network Performance Lead. Through collaborating with his teams, he is aiming to improve achievements in long-term conditions across all the practices and reduce variations in outcomes by sharing good practice. He has a special interest in cardiology and worked at the North Middlesex hospital’s cardiology department for 20 years.
Samantha Calder, ANP / nurse
Samantha has studied Long Term Condition management in primary care, with a particular interest in people with type 2 diabetes and creating a culture of shared care across new roles in primary care. She wants to develop a project that empowers patients into understanding the implications of cardiac, renal and metabolic issues that affect them if they are living with diabetes.
Dr Ravali Goriparthi, GP
Ravali has a passion for improving patient outcomes and a commitment to managing diabetes and its implications within the cardiovascular disease context. He has held leadership positions such as Clinical Director for Clinical Commissioning Group and later for Primary Care Network, as well as leadership roles in Barking, Dagenham and Havering Local Medical Committee.
Shivani Kawa, Clinical Pharmacist
Shivani mainly manages long-term conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and atrial fibrillation by optimising medication regimes and discussing lifestyle factors that are crucial in preventing cardiovascular disease. She is passionate about patient education and empowering individuals to take an active role in their health journey.
Dr Anuj Patel, GP Partner
Anuj is a GP partner based in Finchley and provides GP services to roughly 20,000 patients based over 3 sites with a multidisciplinary staff skill base. They cover six care homes with over 400 patients and a large refugee population. He also provides undergraduate teaching for University College London Medical School and King’s College London Medical School, as well as being a GP trainer. He was the Medical Director for the Out of Hours Organisation (BarnDoc) between 1999 and 2012 and Chair of Barnet Federated GPs between 2016 and 2022.
Tathagata Sadhu, GP Principal
Tatha is a GP partner at Medicus Health Partners, a multi-site super-practice in Enfield. He is passionate about implementing changes to improve care for patients with long-term conditions. Tatha is also the practice and Primary Care Network Lead for medicine management and has expanded the clinical pharmacist workforce. This has enabled them to become part of the primary care practice team and to attain competencies and deliver reviews on a variety of long-term conditions including asthma, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart failure, hypercholesterolemia, and chronic kidney disease. His interests outside work include playing and coaching cricket, as an English Cricket Board qualified cricket coach.
Dipak Shah, Pharmacist
Dipak currently works as a clinical pharmacist within the Enfield Care Network PCN and has been in this position since 2019. Prior to this, his previous work was all based in community pharmacy. His job role includes managing the long-term conditions of patients and providing advice on medicines as well as helping to manage the pharmacy team.
Claire Yager, Practice Nurse
Claire’s current role, overseeing a nurse-led clinic, primarily focuses on managing patients with hypertension, coronary heart disease, pre-diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). She regularly attends courses to stay informed about the latest developments in the field. Her professional journey is guided by the goal of delivering exceptional patient care and promoting preventive measures for better cardiac health.
North East London
Saima Malik, PCN Clinical Pharmacist
Saima currently works full-time as a Primary Care Network clinical pharmacist and half a day per week as a community pharmacist. She joined general practice two years ago to apply and develop her prescribing and clinical skills, acquired through a post-graduate diploma in Clinical Community Pharmacy with Independent Prescribing. She looks forward to opportunities of upskilling herself (and others) in research and collaboration to deliver good quality care.
Kathrine Makombe, Diabetes Specialist Nurse/Advanced Nurse Practitioner
Kathrine specialises in diabetes and currently manages the care of individuals with diabetes from diagnosis to long term management. She also manages individuals with a high cardiovascular risk through lifestyle and pharmaceutical interventions. Her scope of practice has increased to include managing patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) without diabetes.
Bilal Mukhtar, Pharmacist
Bilal is a Primary Care Network Pharmacist and oversees the management of long-term conditions. He runs Hypertension Clinics where he manages patients’ blood pressure and works to effectively mitigate cardiovascular risks. He also runs Lipid Clinics and Chronic Kidney Disease Reviews. By Collaborating with GPs as part of a multidisciplinary working environment, his goal is the optimisation of patient care and the pursuit of enhanced medical outcomes, all within a framework that ensures safety, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Dr Anil Shah, Clinical Director / GP principal
Anil has been a GP principle for 12 years with a special interest in diabetes at two GP practices. He is Clinical Director of Northwest 2 Primary Care Network since inception, managing a population of 45000 patients supporting a team of over 150 staff. He has been a member of the Federation Board for four years and GP appraiser for the last 10 years. Anil also works as a CQC Specialist Advisor and Local Medical Committee Vice Chair and he has a passion to improve patient outcomes through management strategy and leadership.
Dr Jyoti Sood, GP Partner
Jyoti has been a GP working in Redbridge for the past 20 years. She thoroughly enjoys every element of her work as a GP, despite the ever-changing landscape. She currently works as a GP with specialist interest in diabetes and dermatology. Her other passion is supporting people with learning disability and autism and understanding the inequalities they face. She feels lucky to be leading on these areas, working across BHR. She is also keen to support and promote Education and Training and she truly believes that providing the right skills and training to the workforce will help improve patient care. Jyoti works as Associate Director for Education and Training and Clinical Lead at North-East London Training Hub.
Dr Salman Uddin, GP Partner
Dr Salman Uddin is a GP Partner in a busy surgery in Tower Hamlets. He has been interested in preventative medicine from an early stage in his career. Working in his locality has made him acutely aware of premature cardiovascular disease, specifically in the Bengali community. Unfortunately, at the age of 34, Salman suffered a heart attack, resulting in him becoming even more impassioned to help improve cardiovascular health, in the community that he works in, by sharing his own story.