2024 - 2025 Committee Members

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Katy is a Clinical Specialist Speech and Language Therapist working in integrated respiratory services in Cornwall and in partnership with the regional severe asthma centre in Devon. Prior to moving to respiratory in 2020 Katy specialised in dysphagia in adults with complex health needs. She has completed an MSc in Advanced Dysphagia Practice and has supported various local and national initiatives regarding dysphagia policy, practice, research and education.

In her current post Katy has been involved in the development of the integrated respiratory service in Cornwall and specifically the SLT role within this. She has a particular clinical interest in difficult asthma and associated laryngeal dysfunction and has close links with the South West severe Asthma Network (SWsAN).

Katy has a keen interest in student education and staff development and is passionate about quality supervision, coaching and mentoring. She has recently completed a clinical fellowship with NHS England focussing on reducing attrition and improving retention of student and newly qualified healthcare professionals; work with an arm’s length body has strengthened Katy’s skills in networking and leadership and she is keen to look at ways in which the CEN can offer therapists and services further support and interaction at a regional and national level. 

Siobhan Ludlow is the consultant SLT and service lead for the Manchester Airways Service which is a tertiary referral centre for patients with complex breathlessness. She treats patients with a variety of conditions including; upper airway dysfunction, chronic cough and difficult to control asthma. Siobhan has a specialist interest in Inducible Laryngeal Obstruction (ILO), Exercise Induced Laryngeal Obstruction (EILO) and cough hypersensitivity syndrome and has written several papers in these areas. 

Siobhan is currently membership secretary of the Respiratory SLT Clinical Excellence Network and was involved in writing the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist’s position paper, ‘Speech and language therapy in adult respiratory care (2015).  

Siobhan is very committed to clinical research; she has attended numerous national and international conferences presenting her work and is due to start her PhD next year in developing a Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) for upper airway conditions. 

Joanne is an Expert Specialist in laryngeal endoscopy, complex dysphagia, voice disorders, and upper airways disorders. She also has Advanced Generalist skills in neurology, critical care, and Head & Neck cancer. She has been passionate about Speech and language Therapy since she started working in 1990 and has worked in a range of settings with a variety of caseloads and conditions.  She has been at the forefront of evolving areas of practice, including the implementation of SLT Led consultant clinics for videofluoroscopy, voice assessment, FEES and continuous Laryngeal endoscopy (CLE). Joanne has contributed to the development of local and national policies, statements, guidance, and governance frameworks including the RCSLT FEES position paper (2020). Joanne has had experience of initiating and designing research in practice based and small-scale projects and completed a research project trialling a novel device for the continuous assessment of aspiration. She completed a MPhil degree related to this and was published in a respected peer reviewed medical journal. Joanne won an AHP Star award for innovation in her Trust for developing a novel headgear device to aid continuous laryngoscopy and works as part of a specialist exercise physiology team. 

Jen is the team lead speech and language therapist (SLT) for respiratory disorders in Northumbria. She has specialised in laryngeal disorders for over 12 years, taking a special interest in upper airway disorders (UAD) in 2016.  in 2020 Jen completed a master’s degree in public health research, as part of the NIHR PCAF fellowship.   Her primary research explored how to support people with UAD to access timely and appropriate health information.

Jen works in outpatient SLT clinics, asthma multidisciplinary clinics, and ‘one stop cough’ clinics. She is an expert practitioner in laryngoscopy, supporting the diagnosis and management of breathing, cough, swallowing and voice disorders.  Over recent years, Jen has led the expansion of SLT-led endoscopy services in Northumbria, which are now available at four hospital sites.  She also supports fibreoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) for acute, and community SLT teams. 

In 2019, Jen created the RCSLT ‘Upper Airway Disorder Factsheet’, and has since contributed to the RCSLT clinical position paper for Upper Airway Disorders, and several peer reviewed papers. She has also presented at international conferences and lectured at Newcastle University.