Attendees

• Charles Kingsland - Consultant Gynaecologist - Liverpool Women's Hospital - Chair
• Clare Brown - Director INUK - Speaker
• Jacky Boivin - Psychologist - Cardiff University - Attendee
• Maeve O’Connell - Pharmacy Manager - Boots - Attendee
• James Kingsland - GP - Attendee
• Allan Pacey - Andrologist - Sheffield University Hospital - Speaker
• Sarah Jarvis - GP - Richford Gate Practice - Speaker

The minutes and results from the Fertility Summit will be posted on the website from the 10th February 2006. You can also find the information published in Doctor magazine 7th February 2006 and Hospital Doctor magazine from 9th February 2006.

Charles Kingsland

Charles Kingsland is Consultant Gynaecologist at the Liverpool Women's Hospital and Lead Clinician at The Hewitt Centre for Reproductive Medicine, Britain’s largest NHS IVF unit.

A Liverpool graduate, he undertook research in in vitro fertilisation in London before gaining the post of Lecturer at The University of Liverpool. He was appointed Consultant in 1993.

He has published widely on the subject of infertility and management of the menopause and is currently an Inspector for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Clare Brown

Clare discovered she had fertility problems in 1978 and over the next 8 years had three attempts at tubal surgery and 4 IVF attempts which all failed. In 1985 she was successful in adopting her two children, James and Holly, who are now aged 22 and 21 respectively.

Having been a member for three years, she joined the National Management Committee of CHILD, the national infertility support network, in 1984. Between then and 1989 she held the posts of Membership Secretary and Chair. In 1989 she became Executive Director working part-time from home. From that time to December 2003, when CHILD and ISSUE merged to form Infertility Network UK, this developed in to a full-time post, office-based with a staff of 8.

On the merger of CHILD and ISSUE in December 2003, Clare became Chief Executive of the new organisation Infertility Network UK.

Clare was appointed as a Member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in December 2002.

Clare is President of the National Infertility Awareness Campaign, Chair of the European Infertility Alliance, patient representative on the Management Committee of the British Fertility Society and consumer representative on the NICE Fertility Guideline Development Group.

Clare has written numerous papers and articles on infertility and its effect on sufferers, as well as taking part in equally numerous interviews for the media.

Jacky Boivin

Jacky Boivin is senior lecturer (Associate Professor) at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. She is also an honorary Fellow, Cardiff Assisted Reproduction Unit & Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University Hospital Wales.

Dr Boivin has published extensively on the psychosocial aspects of infertility, presented at numerous scientific and international conferences and is an advisor to several patient led initiatives to raise awareness about fertility problems. Dr Boivin's general area of research is health psychology, with specific interests concerning psychosocial influences on reproductive health. She is interested in understanding how psychological factors, for example personality traits or stress, impact on a man or woman's ability to conceive naturally or with treatment. Her research has shown that some psychological processes interfere with critical biological events involved in reproduction (e.g., ovarian response, semen quality). She is also interested in whether reproductive health problems negatively affect quality of life and whether psychosocial interventions can minimise such effects.

Maeve O’Connell

Maeve O’Connell has been a pharmacist with Boots the Chemist for eight years after studying at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. She has worked in a variety of positions within Boots, as a Pharmacy Manager, a Professional Development Pharmacist, as Pharmacy IT systems project manager and is currently a Group Pharmacy Manager in the Richmond area. Maeve also acts as a Pharmacist Spokesperson for Boots, which involves giving healthcare advice for magazine articles- both national publications and our own Boots Health and Beauty magazine and any other media outlets.

Dr James Kingsland

James was appointed Chairman of the National Association of Primary Care in September 2004, having served as a member of the executive since the NAPC’s inception. He has a wealth of experience in General practice, medical education and medical politics.

He has been in practice since 1989 and is now the senior partner in a Personal Medical Services partnership in Wallasey. His practice has won numerous awards for clinical excellence and was in the early waves of fundholding and a first wave PMS plus site.

Between 1999 to 2002 he worked part time as a GP advisor to the Department of Health and was instrumental in the development and implementation of PMS policy and Walk-in Centres.

He has been a GP trainer for 13 years and is an undergraduate tutor for the medical schools of Liverpool and University College London.He served for 10 years on Wirral LMC, has been a member of the General Practice Committee of the BMA and for 3 years chaired its PMS sub-committee, and was formerly the Vice Chair of a Health Authority.

Dr. Allan Pacey

Senior Lecturer in Andrology

University of Sheffield

Allan graduated with a PhD from the University of St. Andrews in 1991 before taking up a Royal Society Research Fellowship at the University of Paris VI. He joined the University of Sheffield in late 1992 first as a postdoctoral research associate and was then appointed as Lecturer in 1997 and Senior Lecturer in 2001. His research interests include aspects of male fertility and human sperm function. He is currently the Head of Andrology for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals where he directs the Andrology Service overseeing diagnostic semen analysis and the sperm banking facility. He is a founder member of the Association of Biomedical Andrologists and is the chairman of the UK National External Quality Assurance Scheme for Andrology and the Honorary Secretary of the British Fertility Society.

Sarah Jarvis

Sarah Jarvis is the Women's Health spokesperson for (and a fellow of) the Royal College of General Practitioners, and a 3/4 time GP and GP trainer. She is also a medical writer and broadcaster, and is currently the Radio 2 doctor and doctor to Good Housekeeping, Women’s Health and Pregnancy magazines. She has also been the lunchtime news doctor for ITN and appears regularly on GMTV, ITN news and Radio 5 live.

In 2002, Sarah was the medical advisor to a Department of Health sponsored series - The Maternity Guide - on satellite television. She presented the series and wrote the accompanying guidance. Her latest book, Pregnancy for Dummies, was published earlier this year.

Sarah also has a particular interest in patient information, and has written over 500 patient information leaflets which have been published in medical magazines and on the NHS Net. She has co-authored several books, including A Woman’s Diagnose-It-Yourself Guide to Health and Diabetes for Dummies (the first medical book in the Dummies series to be published in the UK).