Dr Aqil Chaudary
Dr Chaudary is currently a GP principal partner at Midlands Medical Partnership which is one of the largest practices in Birmingham serving a population of circa 48,000 patients.
He has been a GP for over 11 years having qualified from Manchester University in 1993 and is a Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He began his career in surgery and made the move to General Practice in 1998, which he believes to be his true vocation. As well as practicing medicine he is also an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the University of Birmingham teaching Year 4 medical students. Dr Chaudary has a strong interest in commissioning and is currently a Board Member for United Birmingham Consortium which represents 312000 patients across the whole of Birmingham. He is leading on working with the Local Authority and Mental Health as well as Local Authority Lead for United Birmingham Consortium which is a pan Birmingham consortium made up of practices crossing ‘old’ pct boundaries.
Bob Dredge
Mr Dredge is a senior fellow in financial management at Keele University. He also manages his own consultancy business, dealing mainly in health care financing. Previously, he was director of finance at Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Trust and programme manager for financial reforms at the Department of Health. His extensive NHS career in financial management has also included spells in senior posts in Dudley and Wolverhampton.
Mr Dredge has also worked on health reform programmes for both the World Bank and the Department for International Development. His recent engagements have been in the design and implementation of primary care reforms in Turkey and as an advisor on health reforms in Romania. He has worked in many of the post-conflict Balkan countries, and he continues to write and lecture on financial management issues, both in the UK and Europe. He chairs the PCT’s finance and performance committee and, outside of health, is active in the administration of athletics and fell running.
Councillor Sue Anderson
Councillor Sue Anderson came to live and work in Birmingham in 1966 as a teacher in a girls’ secondary modern school in Aston, teaching maths. At that time, girls were only entered for two exams – shorthand and typing! She introduced the City & Guilds examinations, which proved to be successful with high attainment levels. In 1997, after 30 years teaching she took early retirement.
Her political career dates back to 1961, when she joined the Young Liberals. She served on the West Midlands County Council for six years and was a member of both the Police Committee and Waste Disposal Committee, and Chair of the Womens Committee. During this time, whilst on a visit to a Birmingham Police station she became aware of the lack of facilities for women and children who had been raped or sexually abused. In order to address this particular issue, she became involved in establishing a working party, which resulted in dedicated facilities being opened in police stations throughout the West Midlands.
In 1998, she had the wonderful privilege of becoming Lord Mayor of Birmingham. During her year in office, as Birmingham’s first citizen, she enjoyed many amazing experiences. The knowledge and experience gained gave her a deeper understanding of the distinct nature of Birmingham and its diversity. She realised the importance of her role as Lord Mayor of Birmingham in welcoming visitors to the City, particularly those who might enhance industry, education or the lives of its citizens. Social Care and Health has been her primary interest during her time as an Elected Member. In 2003/4 she became Chair of the Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee, this gave her a real opportunity to use the scrutiny process not just to investigate but also to help improve the services that the directorate provides. In July 2004 she took up the position of Cabinet Member Social Care and Health which included all Adults’ and Children’s services. In 2005 Children’s Social Care gained its first star. In 2006 the role changed to Cabinet Member for Adults and Communities which in 2007 gained 2 stars. Councillor Sue Anderson served as a non-executive director of Heart of England NHS foundation trust for 6 years.
Joop Tanis
Joop is the Head of the Young Foundation’s Health Launchpad programme.
Health Launchpad has created and supported a growing portfolio of social ventures and developed the Social Entrepreneur in Residence programme. Joop leads the team in encouraging innovative ideas and to turn those ideas into new ventures that will make as profound an impact as possible on the UK’s health and quality of life. The ventures combine the discipline for sustainability and growth of commercial ventures with the social mission and inclusivity of public sector services.
Joop holds a BSc (hons) in Physiotherapy and joined the NHS in 1984. After a clinical career, specialising in musculoskeletal diagnosis and treatment, he moved into management and service delivery. At Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, he introduced innovative working practices and promoted inter-organisational integration of services. Since 2005 he has been working in health innovation as Head of Innovation, Service Delivery, at Health Enterprise East, the NHS Innovation hub for the Eastern Region. Here he initiated and developed a methodology for supporting the commercialisation and adoption of Intellectual Property arising from Service Innovations. Joop has represented the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy internationally, specifically in the field of professional regulation. He has an interest in ethics and professional conduct matters. He is a Trustee of the British Psychologial Society and is chair of its Professional Conduct Board. Joop is a director of Healthy Incentives Ltd, a new venture using personal incentives to achieve sustained behaviour change resulting in better health outcomes and cost reduction. He is a Board Member of NeuroResponse, a start-up venture providing telemedicine services to Neurology patients. Joop is a founding partner of a successful physiotherapy clinic in Cambridge.
Mark Peters
Mark Peters is the social entrepreneur at the root of Start Again Project CIC. In 2007 after a family member was sectioned in hospital Mark identified a problematic gap in the lack of care treatment offered to young people suffering from mental health. The support and care he provided along with his family towards the family member in question highlighted the beneficial effects of dedicated and holistic support in the recovery of his loved one. Feeling as though he had much more to give and having triggered an insatiable need to provide support to other young people suffering with similar issues, he decided to team his love of football with his passion for youth work and as a result Start Again Project was born in 2008.
As the Founder, Director and Project Manager of Start Again; Mark has managed to prove the success of a holistic approach to Well-being and tackling mental health. Start Again aims to engage young people through sport and one to one mentoring in particular to improve their personal and physical well-being by offering them tailored support packages to enable them to set and achieve goals, they feel are achievable and important on the road to living a fuller life.
To date Start Again has worked with over 400 young people on their development and the project continues to demonstrate its successes. In 2009 Mark was highly ranked amongst Striding Outs future 100 Young Entrepreneurs. He has successfully built partnerships with some of the Midlands leading health and care organisations such as Birmingham East and North Primary Care Trust; as well as gained support from well recognised organisations such as the Young Foundation, Unltd and Price Waterhouse Coopers, whilst in 2011 Start Again Project CIC was short-listed by Afiya Trust as Lead Black Organisation. Our snowballing successes have allowed Start Again Project to widen its demographics and open up the service to different sectors of the care provisions.
Of his continued good work Mark states: “There is no greater feeling than to see at least one of these young people feeling great. They come and they have fun, meet like minded people, and get the support they need, then they go home feeling good about themselves and one step closer to their goals…and that is what this is all about!”
Know Urself Community Interest Community is looking for enthusiastic young People to join their New Peer Education & Mentoring programme in Sexual Health & Healthy Relationships.
Know Urself will provide free training, qualification and expenses up to the value of £3.60 
BEN's Got Talent 