PROMPT Alumni

Jo leads the Maternity Critical Care Unit at Southmead Hospital and is an internationally recognised expert on the management of childbirth emergencies.

Jo was awarded a Medical Doctorate (University of Bristol, 2009) for her research into staff training to ensure all women and their babies have the best possible pregnancy outcomes. Jo is the lead author for the International RCOG Shoulder Dystocia guideline and helped to develop the PROMPT Birth Trainer, a manikin designed to help midwives and doctors improve their management of childbirth emergencies.

Jo leads a health partnership between Southmead hospital and Mpilo Central hospital, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and has Postgraduate certificates in Global Health Policy and Medical Education.

Katie Cornthwaite - Obstetrician

Katie Cornthwaite was a previous clinical research fellow with the PROMPT Maternity Foundation undertaking an MD investigating the management of Impacted Fetal Head at caesarean section, a complex obstetric emergency with potentially devastating complications. During this time she collaborated with industry partners, Limbs and Things, and the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). 

Katies work forms part of the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme, in collaboration with This Institute, the RCOG and RCM, which aims to produce evidence-based management algorithms, educational tools and multi-professional training to support good practice in management of this emergency. For more information on this, please click here.

Mary Alverez - Senior Research Midwife

Mary works as a senior research midwife for North Bristol Trust.

After 27 years of working as a clinical midwife, primarily as a core member of the delivery team, Mary now has the responsibility of heading the midwifery research team. The role requires the oversight of studies from the inception of the idea, to the delivery in the clinical environment as well as management of the midwifery research team.

A good deal of Mary's time is spent integrating research into clinical practice highlighting the benefits of taking part in research to improve the care that we are able to offer.

Cressida Bond - Consultant Obstetrician

Cressida Bond is a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at North Bristol Trust.

as a registrar Cressida was a PROMPT Research Fellow working on the development of new tool to assist the management of postpartum haemorrhage. 

Cressida is still an active part of the faculty that has developed the Undergraduate PROMPT training package as part of the South West collaborative with the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England, and continues to deliver this.

Sian Edwards - Obstetrician

During her time as Clinical Research Fellow with the PROMPT Maternity Foundation, Sian completed her MD in maternal sepsis with the PMF research team. At this time she also worked to develop the undergraduate inter-professional PROMPT in addition to working with the PROMPT team on a Health Foundation-funded project looking at the use of social franchising systems to develop a more sustainable, authentic model for distributing the PROMPT training.

Sian continues to volunteer as a faculty member. 

Emily Hotton - Obstetrician

Emily is an obstetric registrar working at Southmead hospital. She has an interest in intrapartum care and is worked with the team on the ASSIST study, which was a safety and feasibility study of the BD Odon Device for assisted vaginal birth. The BD Odon Device is a new device that has been developed as a potential alternative to forceps or ventouse. 

Emily also undertook a systemativc review exploring training, standardisation and monitoring of medical devices in assisted vaginal birth studies as well as being Principle Investigator of the TAB (Training in Assisted Birth) study. 

Sharon Jordan - Senior Midwife

With 30 years experience in healthcare in nursing and midwifery, Sharon worked for 15 years as a Senior labour ward midwife in a tertiary unit with an average of 6500 births per year. Sharon joined the PROMPY Maternity Foundation in 2000, delivering multi-professional training across the UK and overseas. 

She became Global Projects Midwife having developed a special interest in reducing harm and improving maternal and neonatal outcomes, through evidence-based training and education in resource limited areas. 

Sophie Renwick - Obstetrician

Sophie is a registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology and was a Clinical Research Fellow with the PMF. During her time at the PMF Sophie worked on researching ways of effectively spreading interventions in the NHS. 

Sophie was also involved in a 12 month project, funded by the Welsh government to implement PROMPT training nationally across Wales, leading to the development of PROMPT Wales. 

From April 2019 Sophie was working on a project funded by the Health Foundation to explore the use of social franchising, using PROMPT as a vehicle. 

She has a keen interest in global health and has travelled to Romania and Sierra Leone with members of the PROMPT team.

Jane Storey - Midwife

Jane is a registered nurse and midwife with over 25 years experience as a labour ward midwife. In addition to this Jane has also worked as a research midwife. 

Jane joined the PROMPT Maternity Foundation in 2018 to work with the team responsible for implementing PROMPT across Wales and is now works with the PROMPT Wales national team as a bank midwife.

Mary Lynch – Senior Midwife

Mary is a Midwife at Southmead Hospital, Bristol. She has been involved in local training in Bristol and around the UK. She has been the lead midwife with the PROMPT Philippines Project.

Kate Collins - Consultant Obstetrician

Kate is a Consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at North Bristol Trust.

Kate was a former Clinical research Fellow with the PROMPT Maternity Foundation, leading on the THISTLE-Plus Study, funded by the Health Foundation. This mixed-methods study investigated the facilitators and obstacles to the implementation of obstetric emergency training across Scottish maternity units, run in parallel to the wider THISTLE (Trial of Hands-on Interprofessional Simulation Training for Local Emergencies) Study, from 2014-2016.

The findings have informed the future development of PROMPT training. She is also a member of the PMF training faculty, having helped train multi-professional teams from across the UK, Dubai and the Philippines

Kiren Ghag - Obstetrician

Kiren was a Clinical Research Fellow with PMF as a senior registrar, leading on the PROMPT Philippines project which was funded by Project Hope to deliver the PROMPT Train The Trainers (T3) programme to health staff from eight selected maternity units with the aim of reducing post-partum haemorrhage through improvements in the quality of hospital-based maternal and child health service delivery.

Stephen O'Brien - Consultant Obstetrician

Stephen is a Consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at North Bristol Trust and has been a Clinical Research Fellow with PMF.

PMF were awarded a grant from Becton Dickinson (BD), a medical device company commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop the Odon Device. Dr Stephen O’Brien, Research Fellow, was the lead researcher, supervised by Dr Jo Crofts.  The Odon device is an instrument designed by an Argentinian engineer, Jorge Odon, and is proposed as an alternative method for helping women to give birth, instead of using more traditional devices such as forceps or ventouse, particularly in low resource settings, where these instruments may not be available or where birth attendants are untrained.  In 2016, Stephen and Jo, in collaboration with the BD team, conducted simulation studies using pressure-sensing technology and training mannequins developed with Limbs & Things, to assess the performance of the device, comparing it to forceps and ventouse. The team have also conducted a series of Human Factors studies from March 2016 to March 2017 enabling the team to improve and validate the design and instructions of the device. In 2017 Stephen returned to O&G training and handed the reins over to Dr Emily Hotton. 

Stephen is now the national co-ordinator for training in operative vaginal birth for the RCOG.

Chris Yau - Obstetrician

Chris is a Senior Registrar in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Has has been a Clinical Research Fellow with PMF and in October 2019 was awarded his PhD.  One of his research projects was the Erb’s Palsy Quality of Life Studies (adult patients and care givers).  Chris completed this project in 2017-2018 and the animated video which communicates the results of this study to the public and policy makers has now been released 'Erb's Palsy: Better Care Costs Less'.

Chris also researched the health economics of obstetric emergency training. His micro-cost analysis of setting up and running PROMPT for one year at Southmead Hospital has now been published in an international, peer-reviewed journal. You can view his abstract here.

Chris was involved in a Health Foundation funded study exploring the roles of the insurers and different models of clinical-insurer engagement. Chris has been collaborated with senior law lecturer, Dr Oliver Quick, from the University of Bristol and between them they have interviewed key members from the state insurers in England, Wales, Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Sweden and Victoria, Australia. In March 2017, Chris and Oliver organised a symposium to discuss the findings and emerging themes from the project. Senior representatives from all participating insurers attended the event with plans to reconvene in the future.