NHS Forest Conference 2026 – The Speakers

Our chair will be Dr Radha Modgil. Radha is an award-winning medical doctor and general practitioner with over 20 years of clinical experience in hospital and neighbourhood medicine. Her TV and digital content credits include BBC’s Feeling Better, Channel 4’s The Sex Education Show, ITV’s This Morning, BBC One’s ‘The One Show’, BBC News and BBC Ideas. She is also an award-winning podcaster and Radio Broadcaster on BBC Radio One Life Hacks, Radio 5 Live, and Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and author of internationally published debut book, ‘Know Your Own Power’.

Our keynote speaker will be Jinny Blom. Jinny Blom is a landscape gardener who began her London-based practice in 2000. Since then, she has created gardens and large estates all over the world. Her work, which focuses on conservation and the best use of land, has been celebrated internationally. She has created therapeutic gardens for the NHS charity CW+, most recently for the new ICU at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital where she is Artist-in-Residence. The garden forms part of academic research into the positive effects of biophilia on health.

Gareth Howatson, Natural Health Service Co-ordinator, The Mersey Forest

Gareth joined The Mersey Forest in 2023, bringing with him a diverse background in health and wellbeing. His career spans personal training, criminal rehabilitation within the prison service, social prescribing, and public health. As the Natural Health Service Coordinator, Gareth supports the development of nature-based programmes that improve physical and mental wellbeing. His passion lies in connecting communities with the natural environment to promote healthier lifestyles and reduce health inequalities. Gareth’s work bridges the gap between green spaces and health services, creating sustainable pathways for nature to play a central role in community wellbeing. Gareth will be talking about his work leading the Natural Health Service at The Mersey Forest and sharing findings from a collaborative project between The Mersey Forest, Journeys in Nature, The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Everton in the Community.

Heather Jones, PhD, RN Nurse Educator

Heather has been a practice nurse for six years, and for much of these a senior Nurse Educator with the South Yorkshire Primary Care Workforce and Training Hub. Prior to nursing she completed a PhD which looked at the influence of life course transitions on travel behaviour. At the Training Hub Heather has developed and delivered experiential learning days for GPs and nurses at a local RSPB reserve which focus on nature connection and its role for patients and staff wellbeing. Visiting practice nurses across general practice in South Yorkshire has given Heather an insight in to a number of nurse-led gardening projects on general practice sites. Her talk will reflect on the potential of community health care sites to contribute to neighbourhood nature recovery and climate resilience, as well as considering what barriers exist to realising such opportunities.

Dr Jordan Tsigarides – Senior Clinical Fellow in Rheumatology (Cambridge University Hospitals) and Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia

Dr Jordan Tsigarides is a Senior Clinical Fellow in Rheumatology at Cambridge University Hospitals and a Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia, where his PhD explores how immersive technologies can support future personalised and closed-loop approaches for people with musculoskeletal disease. His virtual reality (VR) work includes the VIPA Study, which evaluated a nature-based VR therapeutic in people with chronic pain, and he is now leading related pilot work at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital evaluating nature-based VR to support patient and staff wellbeing.

Katie Storey, Assistant Sustainability Manager at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Robert Graham, Head of Bright Charity

Katie is the Assistant Sustainability Manager at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. She leads on a range of areas, including supporting biodiversity in the trust. Katie has worked closely with key stakeholders, including the trust’s Bright Charity, to progress green space improvements at Northumbria Healthcare for wildlife and wellbeing.

Robert Graham is the Head of Bright. Bright is the official NHS Charity for Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust which covers a wide range of services including emergency services, district general hospitals and community care throughout North Tyneside and Northumberland.

Graham Pike – Lead Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) nurse and Deputy Director of IPC at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Graham is the lead IPC nurse and Deputy Director of IPC at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as well as the coordinator of the Infection Prevention Society’s sustainability special interest group. His previous role (until October 2025) was at Great Western Hospitals in Swindon where he was both the IPC lead and Clinical Sustainability lead. A nurse since 2002 with 10 years’ experience in IPC, he also holds a master’s degree in physics in which he specialised in atmospheric physics. This background has informed his understanding of climate change and led to his focus on exploring the links between healthcare and the environment, in particular the intersection between sustainable healthcare and IPC.

Lucy Kennedy, Senior Nature Recovery Ranger (Notts), CSH and Graham White Waste and Environmental Manager at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and Adam Jackson, Clinical Live Team Lead and Occupational Therapist at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Lucy is the Senior Nature Recovery Ranger for Nottinghamshire. With 20 years experience working in charities delivering wildlife conservation and community gardening projects, health and wellbeing has always been at the core, but delivering within in an NHS setting has offered its own learning. Lucy has particular areas of experience in developing volunteer programmes and embedding skills into greenspace activities, and an urban focus in all her work. 

Lucy will be speaking alongside her NHS colleague Graham White. Graham is the Waste and Environmental Manager at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, working around waste management for 16 years and in the NHS for 5. His role includes work to improve the green space at the trust for biodiversity, patient therapy and staff usage, whilst supporting colleagues to improve trustwide working.

Penny Marno, Senior Specialist (Social Science and Health), Natural England

Penny is a Senior Specialist (Social Science and Health) at Natural England, leading on health evidence and understanding of how nature can benefit health and wellbeing as well as how evidence and evaluation can influence policy and practice.  Her background is in Public Health including leading programmes on health improvement, health care systems and health intelligence in local authorities, and at the Met Office where she led research on how weather affects health to inform service delivery at local and national levels.

Ian Stenton, Head of Estates Sustainability, NHS England

Ian is the Head of Estates Sustainability for the NHS England National Estates and Facilities team. He works to support trusts to reduce energy and waste, increase site resilience and develop their green spaces for the benefits of patients, staff, our local communities and nature. Ian is currently also acting Director of Sustainability for the New Hospital Programme and was previously Head of Sustainability at Liverpool University Hospitals.

Isabela Souza, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) consultant for the Healthy by Nature programme and Dr Duika Burges Watson, CSH Nature Recovery Ranger

Isabela Souza is the founder of Ar & Terra Gardens, and her practice is dedicated to nurturing people, supporting pollinators, and healing the planet. She leads the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Support Unit for the Healthy By Nature programme (CSH). Bringing over a decade of experience in international development, sustainability, and climate change, Isabela currently focuses on urban green spaces, participatory research, and leading immersive Sustainable Cities study-abroad courses. She began her professional life as an engineer conducting internal evaluations and remediating contaminated land. Isabela is a dual British-Brazilian citizen based in London.

Dr Duika Burges Watson is a Nature Recovery Ranger at Newcastle Hospitals, part of the Healthy by Nature programme run by CSH. A health geographer by training, she founded and directed the Station Master’s Community Wildlife Garden in North Tyneside for a decade, and is author of peer-reviewed publications on sensory healthcare. Her forthcoming book is A Seat at Nature’s Table: Rewilding the Senses.