Kate is the founder and current Chair of SPHERE (Southwest Pre-Hospital Emergency Research & Evaluation), a regional collaborative established to strengthen research, innovation and collaboration across prehospital critical care services in the South West. SPHERE was developed from a passion to improve understanding of severe injury and critical illness in the earliest stages of patient care, and to generate meaningful research that improves outcomes for patients.

Alongside her clinical roles, Kate is co-chair of the Major Trauma Team monthly case review meetings at North Bristol NHS Trust and co-lead for Major Trauma at Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.

Kate has a longstanding interest in prehospital and trauma research. She previously completed a higher research degree (MD[Res]) at University College London, focused on Prehospital Advanced Airway Management. She is currently involved in developing research programmes exploring the hyperacute physiology of traumatic injury, including early haemorrhage, shock, transfusion practice and traumatic brain injury in the prehospital environment.

Kate's wider interests include systems leadership, multidisciplinary collaboration and advancing evidence-based prehospital critical care through regional and national partnerships.

I am an intensive care consultant at Derriford and a transfer consultant with Retrieve. Pre-hospital I work for both Cornwall Air Ambulance and Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex. I have had a long interest in research, most recently looking at both penetrating neck injuries and also ionised calcium replacement in major haemorrhage patients. I have previously been the chair of PHOTON and look forward to bringing my enthusiasm to help forward pre-hospital critical care research in the South West.

Professor Robert Crouch is a clinical academic in Emergency Care. He is Research lead for Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance and Consultant Nurse and Honorary Professor of Emergency Care at University Hospital Southampton.
He has contributed significantly to the development of advanced roles, in particular the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Advanced Clinical Practitioner programme. Working with Health NHS England, he has contributed to the national development framework for advanced practice and is the NHS England Senior Clinical Lead for Multiprofessional consultant level practice. He is recognised a clinical academic and has published over 120 papers in peer reviewed journals. He is a member of the International Emergency Nursing Editorial Board and Reviewer Advisory Group of the Emergency Medicine Journal. Prof Crouch is one of the Editors of the Oxford Handbook of Emergency Nursing. He has held a number of significant research grants.

Ben Abbott is an Advanced Practitioner in Critical Care at Wiltshire and Bath Air Ambulance (W+BAA), with over a decade of experience in pre-hospital critical care. He currently serves as the organisation’s accountable lead for research, supporting the development and delivery of high-quality evidence to inform clinical practice.

Ben began his healthcare career with an undergraduate degree in physiotherapy before transitioning to paramedicine, qualifying and working in London for four years. After relocating to the south-west, he joined W+BAA in 2015, where he completed an MSc in Pre-Hospital Critical Care (Retrieval and Transfer) as part of his advanced training.

Ben has a particular interest in environmental medicine, especially the effects of extreme temperature and altitude where he contributes to a specialist working group in this area. Alongside his air ambulance role, he also works in event medicine, providing clinical support at major events including motorsport fixtures and the Wimbledon Championships. Outside of work, Ben is a keen tennis player and actively coaches at his local club.

He has been involved with SPHERE since its early stages, contributing to its development and continuing to support collaborative research initiatives across air ambulance services in the South-West of England. Ben is also a member of NHRAF on behalf of W+BAA

Dr Jamie Plumb is a consultant anaesthetist at UHS. He is also a consultant in pre-hospital emergency medicine with Hampshire and Isle of Wight air ambulance (HIOWAA).

Jamie undertook his advanced training in perioperative medicine and then prehospital emergency medicine in Wessex. He undertook his PhD at the University of Southampton, examining how blood volume measurement and manipulation interacts with physiological performance in the perioperative space. He also established the perioperative anaemia service at UHS.
Jamie is the research lead for HIOWAA and over the past few years has established a group primarily focusing on out of hospital cardiac arrest (OCHA) research.