Meet the Team

Rebekah Hill

Forum Chair

Associate Professor, School Assessment Lead, Course Director for Acute, Critical & Emergency Care

I presently work as an Associate Professor within the School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia. I have worked as a nurse in medical and gastroenterology settings for many years. I completed my PhD in 2012, which explored the experience of  living with hepatitis C.

My current role involves both undergraduate and post graduate teaching across a range of professions; student supervision, clinical link work, module organisation as well as being the Director of Education and Assessment Lead within the school.

I currently work across all professions as an Advanced Life Support Instructor, as part of the faculty in the recognition and treatment of critical illness courses and clinically within gastroenterology medical nursing fields.  

Pearl Avery

Advanced Nurse Practitioner

Pearl Avery is an accomplished Advanced Nurse Practitioner with a deep interest in Gastroenterology that dates back to her qualification in 2005. She spent eight years as the lead clinical nurse specialist at Dorset County Hospital, specialising in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and eventually becoming a nurse consultant in her final year of employment in this role.

Pearl is dedicated to enhancing patient experience and outcomes, and she firmly believes that digital health can play a significant role in achieving this goal. In recognition of her exceptional work, Pearl received the prestigious British Journal of Nursing award for Gastro/IBD Nurse of the Year in 2018, and she has since gone on to secure a coveted position in the HEE/NIHR bridging award and NHS Clinical Entrepreneur programme, as well as a secondment to the IBD registry in 2020. Additionally, Pearl served as a patient safety practitioner for one year, providing a comprehensive view of health service safety priorities. She is an IBD Advanced Nurse Practitioner at St Marks National Bowel Hospital in London, where she has also incorporated Nurse research into her work.

Pearl further dedicates 1.5 days per week to her role as an ANP specialist with an interest in gastroenterology at Wyke  Regis and Lanehouse Medical Centre, which has broadened her healthcare experience and supported her holistic approach to supporting patients with GI conditions. Pearl is also pursuing a PhD at Bournemouth University, and she serves as the Nurse representative for the British Society of Gastroenterology IBD section clinical research group.

In 2023, Pearl and her practice won the Guts UK Nurse Innovation award for their groundbreaking work in supporting patients with GI conditions in primary care. Currently, she is evaluating this work and examining the patient experience of the service. Pearl is excited to be working on raising awareness of the non-traditional pathways to advanced-level practice and is grateful to have received support from Crohn's & Colitis UK Nurse Specialist programme to be one of the first ALNPs in IBD in the UK.

Amanda Cetroni

Senior Research Nurse in Gastroenterology, NIHR Nottingham Clinical Research Facility, Nottingham University Hospital  

Amanda is a Senior Research Nurse in Gastroenterology based at the NIHR Nottingham Clinical Research Facility at the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospital.
She has a background of Adult General Surgery and Endoscopy, before joining Research. She achieved her BSc in Nursing in Rome,Italy, at the Universita' di Tor Vergata, in 2014 and moved to England in 2015, where she worked for a private hospital in Hertfordshire, Pinehill Hospital in Hitchin, before moving to Nottingham in 2016, where she joined the Endoscopy Department at the Nottingham Treatment Centre until 2021.

Her career in Gastroenterology Research started in September 2021 and she is very passionate about career progression and nursing education. Currently she is undertaking her second-degree BSc (Hon) Leading and Innovation in Healthcare at the Nottingham Trent University, funded by NUH Charity. She is very keen in professional and personal development, and she is also undertaking the Internationally Educated Nurses and Midwives Online Leadership Programme held by the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

She is an active member of the Speciality Research Shared Governance Council in her Trust. Since started in Endoscopy, she has always been very interested in gastrointestinal diseases, especially IBD and colorectal cancer and she is taking any opportunity she could to develop her knowledge further. She has a vivid interest in taking part in writing for publication and she would like, in the near future, to progress in her education towards a master and a PhD. 

She joined the RCN Gastrointestinal Forum Steering Committee in January 2024, and she is very looking forward to this new chapter of her career and she will bring her passion for the discipline, her knowledge and her positiveness to the Forum. 

Claire Coughlan

Consultant Nurse - Colorectal Cancer, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust

Claire has worked in gastrointestinal nursing for 23 years. Her interest in colorectal nursing began as a student nurse in Sheffield and developed as a staff nurse on colorectal surgical wards at St George's Hospital, Tooting and King's College Hospital, London. In 1997 she became a Stoma Care CNS at Bromley Hospital and began an MA in Nursing Studies with a focus on colorectal cancer. Upon being appointed as a Colorectal Cancer CNS at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust she developed the trust's first nurse-led colorectal cancer follow up clinic whilst undertaking her Master's level research in cancer follow up.

From 2003 Claire has worked at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, where she is currently a Consultant Nurse leading a large cross-site colorectal and stoma service that treats over 200 newly diagnosed cancer patients each year. During that time Claire has been a nurse endoscopist, and led development of the two week wait telephone assessment service within the Trust. She also runs a rectal bleeding clinic for the management of haemorrhoids and continues to run a cancer follow up clinic and lead on the trust's survivorship program. Claire also has an interest in cancer genetics and runs a colorectal family history clinic and has written for publication on hereditary colorectal cancer.

Claire is currently in the second year of her professional doctorate; her research focuses on accessibility of the cancer survivorship agenda. She has just been appointed to the forum and is delighted to have the opportunity to represent colorectal cancer and stoma colleagues on the committee.

Julie Duncan

Clinical Nurse Educator in IBD, Takeda UK Ltd

Education and development have been central to all Julie's roles in GI nursing over the last 26 years. She developed her interest in GI / colorectal nursing during her training at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. She moved to St Mark's Hospital, Harrow in 1995 working as a staff nurse, junior sister then ward manager in a surgical/medical ward. In 2000 she joined the internationally renowned team of biofeedback specialist nurses at St Mark's, becoming the Lead Nurse for the service in 2002. At the Royal Marsden Hospital, she established the first nurse practitioner post for patients with late GI effects following cancer treatment. From 2008-2018 she re-established and developed the IBD specialist nursing service at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals.

In addition to advanced clinical practice, Julie has had educational roles within the former Burdett Institute of Gastrointestinal Nursing and as honorary lecturer at King's College London. She has published widely in journals and book chapters, is a co-editor of the first nursing textbook on IBD 'Inflammatory Bowel Disease Nursing' and contributor to N-ECCO consensus statements on the role of the IBD nurse which have shaped IBD specialist nursing practice in Europe. Julie has held strategic roles as UK representative to N-ECCO and as the National Chair then Secretary to the RCN IBD Network. She has been Primary Investigator and co-researcher on a number of nursing research projects.

Since 2018 Julie has worked full time for Takeda UK within the GI medical team co-creating and delivering 'IBD Empower', a non-promotional, multi-channel education programme which aims to empower IBD Clinical Nurse Specialists to achieve their potential and optimise patient care. She has just joined the Committee and hopes to actively engage with Forum members to encourage not only clinical excellence in practice, but to support and up-skill GI nurses to be more confident in seeking and leading nursing research and publishing opportunities.

Lisa Gower

Cathy Regan 

Endoscopy Nurse Practitioner, Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust

My journey in gastroenterology began when I started working as a nurse in endoscopy in 2000 at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust. Prior to that I had been working in elderly care in the private sector. I really enjoyed endoscopy and in 2008 I began training as a Nurse Endoscopist and became JAG certified in flexible sigmoidoscopy. I then moved to Mid Staffordhire NHS Trust and gained JAG certification in colonoscopy and gastroscopy.

I have since joined the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and continue my practice there. In my current role I carry out gastroscopy, colonoscopy and flexi-sigs including Bowel Scope and gastroenterology clinics. I am an independent prescriber and at present I’m working on my Masters. I love training the endoscopists of the future, both in daily practice and as faculty with the West Midlands Endoscopy Training Centre several times a year. I am also a member of JAG QA Training Working Group and BSGNA. I applied to join the Gastro Forum because I love the specialty and want to help share that passion with all levels of GI nurses.