Professor Adewale Adebajo is a stroke survivor, having suffered a haemorrhagic stroke in August 2015 for which he required emergency neurosurgery. He self- diagnosed at the time of the stroke, by remembering the Stroke Association FAST test. Professor Adebajo was a member of the Stroke James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership Steering Committee, hosted by The Stroke Association and which developed the Top Ten national Stroke Priorities. Professor Adebajo is also a Consultant Rheumatologist and Associate Medical Director at Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. In addition, he holds an Hon Chair of Rheumatology and Health Service Research with the University of Sheffield. Professor Adebajo is passionate about inclusive research and is an independent member of the Board of the Centre for Engagement and Dissemination of the National Institute of Health Research. Professor Adebajo was awarded an MBE in the 2021 New Years Honours List for services to inclusive research.

Shakeel Ahmad was appointed as a stroke consultant in 2009. He has been the clinical lead for stroke in Cardiff & Vale University Health Board until he was recently appointed as National Clinical Lead for Wales. He has completed 1 year IHI Improvement Advisory fellowship at Boston, USA and has led on a number of successful QI projects. He led and collaborated on the ‘Stop A Stroke Project’ with Primary Care Quality & Public Health Wales to develop a tool to identify high risk stroke patients in AF that require intervention in line with up to date NICE guidance. This project was supported by Welsh Government and now we are implementing across Wales. His other current roles are, the Regional Specialty Advisor for Stroke, member of the Stroke Specialist Advisory Committee – RCP London, Training Programme Director for Stroke in Wales and Chair of All Wales Thrombectomy Network Group. In his last post he was Associate Medical Director for Neurosciences & Complex Disease – Welsh Health Specialised Services (WHSSC), that has commissioned mechanical thrombectomy service for Wales.

Jason Appleton is a consultant neurologist at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Institute of Applied Health Research at the University of Birmingham. Jason completed his PhD during his tenure as a Clinical Research Fellow at the Stroke Trials Unit, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Nottingham and continues to collaborate on research projects with colleagues regionally, nationally and internationally.

Andrew is Director of the NIHR Research Design Service (East of England). He is treasurer of the Society for Research in Rehabilitation, and Chair of the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum. His research concerns a wide range of topics concerning rehabilitation, social work, outcome measurement and social media. When he's not working you will find him coaching junior rowers or paddling in a sculling boat at Isle of Ely Rowing Club Follow on twitter @drAndrewBateman

Philip Bath (FRCP DSc FMedSci) is Stroke Association Professor of Stroke Medicine and Head of Academic Stroke at the University of Nottingham, an Emeritus National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator, and a consultant stroke physician at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. He was the UK Stroke Association’s Keynote Lecturer in 2015, the International Stroke Conference William M Feinberg Award Lecturer for Excellence in Clinical Stroke in 2016 and has received the President’s Award for Research from the British Association of Stroke Physicians in 2019 and President’s Award from the World Stroke Organisation in 2021. Prof. Bath’s research interests relate to acute blood pressure management and antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy, treatment of post-stroke dysphagia, and prevention of cognitive decline and vascular dementia. He has >450 publications. He was Chief Investigator of the TAIST (Lancet 2001), ENOS (Lancet 2015), STEPS (Stroke 2016), TARDIS (Lancet 2018) and RIGHT-2 (Lancet 2019) multicentre phase III randomised controlled trials and leads the ongoing PhEAST trial in post-stroke dysphagia. He coordinates international collaborations on acute stroke blood pressure management; and optimising the design and analysis of trials in acute stroke, stroke prevention, and cognition.

I am a clinical academic, working clinically at Royal Derby Hospital Stroke Centre as Clinical Lead Speech and Language Therapist for Stroke. I am currently undertaking a post-doctoral bridging fellowship with the University of Nottingham and my research interests include the assessment and rehabilitation of post stroke dysphagia, videofluoroscopy, surface electromyographic biofeedback and comprehensive nurse led swallow testing.