British Liver Transplant Group

Introduction:

The BLTG (British Liver Transplant Group) was launched in 2014 to represent the professional interests of liver transplantation in the UK and promote strategic and academic development.

The BLTG will foster close relationships with BTS (British Transplant Society) and LICAGE (Liver Intensive Care Group of Europe) and will build on the role of the UK and Ireland Annual Meeting by delivering structure and authority to the group.

BLTG Transplant Meetings

The annual BLTG meeting usually integrates the meetings previously organised by each individual transplant centre but will extend to the many individuals working outwith liver transplant centres with an interest in liver transplantation. The meeting offers a platform for those operating in or with a strong interest in the field of liver transplantation. The BLTG Transplant meeting usually links to the BASL Annual Meeting and is aligned to the Liver Transplant Symposium and Williams-Calne Lecture within that programme. The winner of the Andy Burroughs Young Investigator Award will also deliver their prize lecture during the BLTG meeting.

The BLTG annual meeting takes place as part of the BASL Annual Meeting in September.  Further details are aded to the Events page of the website once announced.  

The BASL BLTG School of Transplantation offers an excellent platform for trainees with lectures delivered by carefully selected leading speakers from the UK. Visit the Events page for details of the current webinar series.  

The Work of the BLTG

BLTG will provide a voice for UK liver transplantation bringing together all clinicians and allied personnel involved or interested in liver transplantation in the UK. By working closely with allied bodies such as the Liver Advisory Group to NHSBT, the British Transplant Society, BASL, BSG, AUGIS and LICAGE, BLTG will provide the professional view on aspects of planning and delivering liver service for the UK, including liver transplantation. There will also be a strong emphasis on education and training and setting out the future needs of UK Liver services / transplantation.

The BLTG Committee

Prof Matthew Cramp Consultant Hepatologist, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth
Prof Cramp is a Consultant Hepatologist at the South West Liver Unit, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, and Professor of Hepatology at the Peninsula Medical School with a major interest in liver transplantation.

He moved from Kings to Plymouth 22 years ago starting as a single handed hepatologist and went on to establish high quality, comprehensive specialist liver services previously unavailable to patients from the southwest peninsula. This led to the formation of the South West Liver Unit in 2010 which now has 9 hepatologists and 5 hepatobiliary surgeons. In parallel with clinical service development, he has established an active program of clinical and laboratory-based research and heads the Hepatology Research Group at the Peninsula Medical School. He has contributed to national service development, policy, training and research in a number of national roles including as past President of the British Association for the Study of the Liver (2017-2019) and as one of the founder members of the Lancet Commission on Liver Disease.

He has long been an advocate for improving liver services nationally through the model of multi-professional working and the building of strong clinical networks. Examples of these include the Peninsula Hepatology Network and the SWLU/ Kings College Hospital transplant network both of which have succeeded in raising standards of care for patients with liver disease, established novel patient pathways and been used as models for service delivery nationally.

Dr Brian Hogan, Kings College, London
Dr Hogan qualified from University College London Medical School in 2004. He completed Specialist Training in Critical Care Medicine and Hepatology at King's College Hospital, The Royal Free Hospital and Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals before joining King's as a Consultant in 2018. Whilst training he completed research at The Royal Free Hospital and University College London investigating novel methods of assessing portal hypertension in patients with severe liver disease.  Dr Hogan works as a Consultant in both Critical Care Medicine and Hepatology.

Dr Jess Dyson, Consultant Hepatologist, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne
Dr Dyson is an NHS consultant hepatologist in Newcastle with sub-specialty interests in autoimmune liver disease and liver transplantation. She leads the clinical service in Newcastle for patients with autoimmune liver disease and runs the regional service for second-line therapies in primary biliary cholangitis. She is also an honorary senior lecturer at Newcastle University undertaking clinical research with a particular focus on autoimmune liver disease, risk stratification and identification of biomarkers. She is principal investigator for the UK national study for patients with autoimmune hepatitis (UK-AIH) that focuses on improving therapy for patients. She is a member of the BASL SIG for autoimmune liver disease. She completed her PhD in 2019 investigating potential environmental risk factors related to autoimmune liver disease.

Professor Desley Neil, Consultant Histopathologist, University Hospitals Birmingham
Professor Neil first qualified from the University of Queensland in 1984.  She has worked at the Liver Unit at University Hospitals Birmingham since 1994 and became a consultant in 2003.  Her area of professional interest is transplantation pathology, particularly preservation reperfusion injuries.

Dr Nwe Ni Than (MBBS, MD, FRCP), Consultant Hepatologist, University Hospital Coventry NHS Trust
Dr Than is a consultant Hepatologist based at the University Hospital Coventry NHS Trust. She qualified from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2006. She was trained in many transplant centres such as Royal Infirmary Hospital In Edinburgh, University Hospital Birmingham and Royal Free Hospital. She completed the NIHR funded research at the University of Birmingham in 2018 and her research is b focused on haematopoietic stem cell therapy in patients with liver cirrhosis. She had also worked as a clinical fellow at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She looks after patients with acute and chronic liver diseases as well as after liver transplantation. She has a keen interest in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and autoimmune liver disease.

Katie Ramos, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth
Katie qualified at St Georges Hospital/Kingston University. Shortly after she developed her interest in Hepatology Nursing when she moved to the Liver Intensive Care, Kings College Hospital. Following several years of experience she became a junior sister as well as being a member of the liver retrieval team. Following this she became a liver recipient transplant coordinator at Kings, focussing on pre transplant and waiting list management. In 2009 she took up her current post as Liver transplant coordinator at the South West Liver Unit, University Hospitals Plymouth. Here she has cemented her experience and knowledge in all aspects of care of liver transplants patients and manages their care throughout the transplant journey; seeing patients from the point of referral for assessment through to long term follow-up. Her role has evolved through this time taking on more extended roles including non-medical prescribing and is currently undertaking her masters in advanced clinical practice. Katie co-leads on transition for the unit and is an integral part of the south west liver nurse group focussing on providing education to ward nurses as well as supporting patient inclusion via social media and advocating peer support.

Dr Eirini Kyrana, Leeds Teaching Hospital
Dr Kyrana is a Consultant in Paediatric Hepatology at the Children's Liver Unit at the Leeds Children's Hospital and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds. Her training in hepatology has been at King's College Hospital and in gastroenterology and nutrition at Great Ormond Street Hospital. She looks after children with acute and chronic liver disease, as well as with end stage liver disease before and after liver transplantation. She has a strong interest in nutritional issues, metabolism and body composition of children with chronic liver disease and has an MDRes with King's College London looking at body composition and metabolic profiles of children with end stage liver disease.

Miss Anya Adair, Royal Infirmary Edinburgh 
Miss Adair is a Consultant Transplant and Hepatopancreaticobiliary (HPB) Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh and Honory Senior Lecturer for the University of Edinburgh. She is Clinical lead for the Scottish HPB Cancer Network. She is the elected Liver transplant representative on BTS council and is a member of the Liver Advisory Core Group of NHSBT as surgical representative.
Miss Adair is HPB module lead for the Edinburgh School of Surgery (ESSQ) ChM surgical eLearning course and sits on the Editorial board of HPB Journal.v She is member of the Less Survivable cancer task force and British Liver Trust Clinical Advisory and works with the IHPBA supporting outreach projects in Sri Lanka and Nepal

Ian Webzell, King's College Hospital London
Ian is an Alcohol and Substance Misuse Clinical Nurse Specialist and has been at King’s College Hospital since 2007. He works with patients who have liver disease and alcohol or drug problems. He provides patients with psychological and emotional support, as well as clinical treatment.

Dr Jai Patel, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT)
Dr Patel was appointed as consultant in vascular and interventional radiology at LTHT in 1999. Together with other colleagues in the department he provides a comprehensive specialist vascular radiology service in a wide range of minimally invasive interventions. His main area of interest and expertise is in liver intervention, specifically in trans-arterial therapies for the treatment of liver tumours and interventional radiological management of portal hypertension (cirrhotic, non-cirrhotic and Budd-Chiari syndrome). His practice includes intervention in both adult and paediatric liver patients. He was previously Lead Clinician for vascular radiology at LTHT for 5 years and remains the lead interventionalist for the liver service in Leeds. Previous committee work has included Education Committee Chairman and Secretary of the British Society of Interventional Radiology. He also has an interest in the use of new medical devices and technologies in patient management, and is currently a committee member of the NICE Medical Technologies Advisory Committee.

Dr Suehana Rahman, Royal Free Hospital, London
Dr Rahman MBBS BSc (Hons) FRCA, is a Consultant Hepatobiliary and Liver Transplant Anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, London. During her transplant fellowship she undertook research in cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and acute kidney injury after transplantation. She is an active member of the Royal Free Perioperative Research Group and current anaesthetic representative for the British Liver Transplant Group.  

Catherine McAnenny, Scottish Liver Transplant Unit, Royal Infirmary Edinburgh
Catherine McAnenny qualified as a dietitian in 1997. She started her career off in Scotland but moved to London in 2000 and worked in UCLH, working in the clinical areas of Haematology, the Teenage Cancer Unit, and the Adolescent unit. She also worked in university hospital Lewisham working in the clinical areas of Critical Care and Infectious Diseases. On moving back to Edinburgh, she worked in the Regional Infectious diseases unit before securing the lead dietetic post in the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit in 2004. She is a member of the UK & ROI hepatology specialist Dietitian Group.

Suzanne Lester, Royal Belfast Hospital
Suzanne is an Advanced Physiotherapist Practitioner in Liver Transplantation and Prehabilitation. She is also an R&D Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. She is in her first year of a 3-year PhD researching the co-design and feasibility of a remote multicomponent intervention for patients awaiting liver transplantation. Additional research interests include respiratory interventions and training, rehabilitation and exercise psychology in patients awaiting liver transplantation and the wider liver disease population. 

Felicity Williams, University Hospitals, Birmingham
Felicity is a Senior Liver Physiotherapist and NIHR Clinical Research Fellow at University Hospitals Birmingham and University of Birmingham. She is in her final year of completing her PhD on the assessment of sarcopenia in end-stage liver disease. Further research interests include prehabilitation, rehabilitation and physical activity in patients awaiting liver transplantation.