Join our annual conference in person or online, as we explore the past and present of holistic medicine, and begin to envision where healthcare will go next.
Get your early bird ticket before 30 June 2024
As the British Association for Holistic Medicine & Health Care turns 40 (1984 – 2023), we’ll look to the:
- Past: with gratitude for the original people and vision
- Present: addressing the challenges and facing uncomfortable truths
- Future: seeing through new eyes what wants to emerge, and what it will take to get there.
Join your voice with ours, as we begin to tell a new story for holistic medicine and healthcare. For people, practitioners and the planet.
Programme:
Conference ends at 17:55 followed by an evening of celebration at Penny Brohn.
Find out more below and on the bookings page.
| Price Category | Price |
| In-Person – go to bookings page | |
| Members | £75 |
| Students | £25 |
| Standard | £95 |
| Donor | £120 |
| Live Stream – go to bookings page | |
| Members | £40 |
| Student | £15 |
| Standard | £70 |
Speakers
Professor David Peters
Read David’s biography on the BHMA Team page.
Professor Patrick Pietroni
BHMA’s first Chair, Patrick has been a long term advocate for holism. He is author of several books including Holistic Living (1986), The Greening of Medicine (1990) and his latest published this year The Tyranny of Identity. He has been Director of the Centre for Psychological Therapies in Primary Care at the University of Chester and Public Health Lead for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Shropshire. Also theDean of General Practice in London and head of the Primary Care and Community Health Department at the University of Westminster.
Website: https://diisc.org/prof-pietroni
Lord Nigel Crisp
Nigel Crisp is an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords where he co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health. He was Chief Executive of the English NHS and Permanent Secretary of the UK Department of Health from 2000-2006. He now works and writes mainly on global health with a focus on Africa. His current focus is on creating health – promoting the causes of health – developing the health workforce, and improving health globally.
Website: https://nigelcrisp.com/
Dr Helen Kingston
Dr Helen Kingston is a primary care physician in Frome, Somerset, England. Together with Jenny Hartnoll, she set up the Frome model of enhanced primary care project in 2013. The project has grown since then and it began to expand across the Mendips in 2016 with the supportive involvement of Dr Julian Abel and compassionate communities UK. The project was designed to better connect and support patient and improve working lives for those in health care. Integration and collaboration across our community were key to this development. By working together we enable individuals to build on their strengths, creating a vibrant and supportive local community.
By supporting one another and making it more possible to take a holistic approach to the whole person this can help improve wellbeing across our community and across those working within health and social care.
Website: https://www.fromemedicalpractice.co.uk/team/helen-kingston
Dr David Reilly
David is currently Director of The WEL Programmes, and The Healing Shift Enquiry, Founder and Director of TheWEL Charity. Until 2016 he was a Consultant Physician in The NHS for Centre for Integrative Care in Glasgow, and Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board’s Lead Clinician for people with chronic fatigue syndrome / ME. As a doctor, David combined his head and heart in helping people, widening his learning and enquiry to look at other healing systems and holistic approaches. He blended his work as a clinician, teacher and researcher to then focus on exploring better ways of approaching medicine and human caring that emphasise the innate healing capacity in people, the factors that modify the healing response and their interaction in the therapeutic encounter and relationship.
Website: https://www.davidreilly.net/HealingShift/Home.html
Dr Hugo Jobst
Hugo is a junior doctor passionate about reconnecting with nature to flourish and heal. He’s an editor of The Journal of Holistic Healthcare, alongside David and the founder of the Humanising Healthcare Forum, a platform run by students at the University of Glasgow for innovative humanistic projects to improve medical education and healthcare.
Website: https://hugoalexanderjobst.wordpress.com/
Professor Trevor Thompson
Trevor is an inner-city GP and educative creative with a strong track record in sustainability, lifestyle medicine, medical humanities, communication skills and organisational leadership. He As a GP, he sees his goal is to help people find the resources they need to get well, to stay well and, if that is not possible, to learn to live well with existing conditions. Trevor works at Wellspring surgery in Bristol, and is a Professor of Primary Care Education at Bristol Medical School (PHS).
Website: https://www.wellspringsurgerybristol.nhs.uk/team/dr-trevor-thompson
Professor Louise Younie
Louise is a General Practitioner and Professor of Medical Education at Queen Mary University of London where she leads on faculty development, innovation and flourishing. She has extensive experience with creative enquiry methodologies in medical education for humanising medicine, professional identity formation and human flourishing. Louise is co-chair of the Royal College of GPs Creative Health Special Interest Group (SIG).
Website: www.creativeenquiry.co.uk
Dr James Hawkins
James qualified as a doctor in 1975, and in the 80’s he studied acupuncture in China, helped start the British Holistic Medical Association and founded a small Edinburgh-based charity – Good Medicine – which he worked through for many years. After initially specialising in both pain problems and psychological difficulties, more recently James simply works as an independent integrative psychotherapist with an interest in both helping to decrease distress and also increase wellbeing. He is intrigued & hopeful about the increasing evidence that psychedelics can be helpful in a range of difficult-to-treat problems including trauma & addictions.
Website: https://goodmedicine.org.uk/about
Dr Alan Kellas
Alan trained in medicine at Oxford and qualified in 1981 from the London Hospital, working in General Practice, in NHS, holistic and self-help settings, before training further in old age medicine and then psychiatry in the late 80s. Since 1998, Alan has been a community NHS Consultant Psychiatrist in different community teams in the South West of England, mainly supporting adults and children with learning disabilities. Now retired from fulltime practice, he was Trust Medical lead for learning disability services (Avon and Wiltshire Partnership). Allan is now employed by Scottish Autism offering remote Covid related support for people with ASD and provide specialist assessments and reports to commissioners on complex, usually out of area, placement dilemmas.
Website: https://circleofliferediscovery.com/staff/dr-alan-kellas/
Dr Elizabeth Thompson
Dr. Elizabeth Thompson trained in Medicine at the University of Oxford and completed her clinical training at Guy’s Hospital in London. Whilst training in Palliative Medicine to Consultant level, she also trained in a range of integrative approaches including Medical Homeopathy. In 2014 she set up the National Centre for Integrative Medicine (NCIM) which focuses on both clinical and education services In 2019 she stepped out of the NHS to focus on her work as CEO of NCIM. Elizabeth is passionate about supporting a transformation of healthcare towards a wellness and empowerment model that combines conventional, holistic and lifestyle approaches to support health and wellbeing, as well as creating diversity and choice for patients and practitioners.
Website: https://ncim.org.uk/meet-the-team-bios
Dr Chris Johnstone
Resilience specialist Dr. Chris Johnstone has a background in medicine, mental health promotion, and the psychology of change. Chris is known for his work pioneering the role of resilience training in promoting positive mental health, developing self-help resources and setting up the Bristol Happiness Lectures. He is author of Seven Ways to Build Resilience (Robinson, UK, 2019), and runs online trainings for resilience, wellbeing and active hope at CollegeOfWellbeing.com
Website: https://www.activehope.info/
Professor Peter Reason
As Director of the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath, England, Peter was an international leader in the development of participative approaches to action research. He published widely, co-editing the Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice and co-founded the journal Action Research. Since retiring from full-time academic work, Peter has focused on writing books and articles that link the tradition of nature writing with the ecological crisis of our times, drawing on scientific, ecological, philosophical, and spiritual sources.
Website: https://www.peterreason.net/
Professor Paul Thomas
Await bio
Keith Humphrey
For the last 30 years, Keith has worked with boards, Chief Executives and Directors, formulating business strategies, designing culture and customer focus change initiatives and consulting on organisational change. His work also includes executive coaching and counselling, board and top-team development, working with intact work groups and virtual teams to ensure group and organisational success. Keith’s clients include Coca-Cola, Royal Dutch Shell, HSBC and Allianz Global Investors.
Celebration
For those joining us in person you are also invited to join us for the drinks reception, awards ceremony and dinner. See the in-person booking page.
| 18:10 | AGM: appointing new trustees (for members) |
| 18:30 | Reception and awards |
| 19:00 | Supper |
| 20:30 | Entertainment |
| 21:00 | End |