Speakers

• Malcolm Chisholm MSP
• Nicola Sturgeon MSP
• Professor John Frank
• Professor Karen Vousden
• Dr Bill O’Neill
• Kevin Geddes
• Dr Aileen Keel
• Nanette Milne MSP

Malcolm Chisholm MSP
MSP for Edinburgh North and Leith, Scottish Labour Party

Malcolm has been a member of the Scottish Parliament since 1999 and Member of Parliament since 1992 for North Edinburgh and Leith. Prior to this he was a teacher of English.

Malcolm is a member of the Equal Opportunities and Subordinate Legislation Committees. Malcolm became Co-convener of the Cross Party Group on Cancer following the May 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections.

Prior to this, he was Labour’s Scottish Health spokesperson in opposition and Minister for Local Government, Housing and Transport during the first few months of the Labour Government, vice convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Community Care Committee and member of the Equal Opportunities Committee between August 1999 and October 2000.

Malcolm served as Minister for Health from 2001 and as the Minister for Communities as a member of the Scottish Executive from 2004 - 2007.

Nicola Sturgeon MSP
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing

Nicola Sturgeon was born in Irvine in 1970 and educated at Greenwood Academy. She studied law at the University of Glasgow, where she graduated with LLB (Hons) and Diploma in Legal Practice.

Before entering the Scottish Parliament she worked as a solicitor in the Drumchapel Law and Money Advice Centre in Glasgow.

She was elected MSP for Glasgow in 1999, and is now MSP for Govan. Before being appointed Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing after the May 2007 election she had been Shadow Minister for Education, Health & Community Care and Justice.

Professor John Frank
Director, Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy

Professor John Frank trained in Medicine and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, in Family Medicine at McMaster University, and in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  He has been Professor at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Public Health Sciences, since 1983.  He was the founding Director of Research at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto from 1991 to 1997.

In 2000, Dr. Frank was appointed inaugural Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research - Institute of Population and Public Health. In July 2008, he became Director of a new Edinburgh-based Unit, funded by the Medical Research Council and the Scottish Chief Scientist Office: the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy. The Collaboration seeks to develop and robustly test novel public health policies and programs to equitably improve health status in Scotland, through the convening and ongoing support of researcher/research-user consortia.  Prof. Frank also holds a Chair at the University of Edinburgh in Public Health Research and Policy. His broad research and professional interests concern the determinants of population and individual health status, and especially the causes, remediation and prevention of socio-economic gradients in health.

Dr Aileen Keel CBE MBChB FRCP(Glas) FRCP(Edin) FRCPath, MFPH
Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Scottish Government Health Directorates

Undergraduate Medical Education at Glasgow University.   Postgraduate training and early career in general medicine and haematology.  Practised haematology at consultant level in both the NHS and private sector, London, for 6 years, including a career period as Director of Pathology at the Cromwell Hospital.   Joined the then Scottish Office Department of Health in 1992 as a Senior Medical Officer.   Deputy Chief Medical Officer since 1999.  Honorary consultant in haematology at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.  Chair of the recently established Scottish Cancer Task Force.

Dr Bill O’Neil
GP Lead, Cancer & Palliative Care, Lothian
Chair, Scottish Primary Care Cancer Group

Bill O’Neill is a GP in Edinburgh, Lead GP for Cancer and Palliative Care with NHS Lothian and he chairs the Living with Cancer Sub-Group of the Scottish Cancer Taskforce and the Scottish Primary Care Cancer Group.

Bill has previously worked as a GP in London, a consultant in palliative medicine in both London and Bristol and as Scottish Secretary of the British Medical Association.

Kevin Geddes
Director of Self Management, Long Term Conditions Alliance Scotland

Kevin Geddes is the Director of Self Management with the Long Term Conditions Alliance Scotland (LTCAS). LTCAS is the umbrella body representing voluntary and community organisations across Scotland that support and/or represent people with long term conditions. LTCAS are responsible for facilitating the Self Management Fund in partnership with the Scottish Government to capture good practice and share valuable experiences to empower those living with long term conditions to become central partners their own care and support

Nanette Milne MSP
MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative Party

Nanette was educated at Aberdeen High School for Girls, and qualified as a doctor at Aberdeen University in 1965. She trained initially in Anaesthetics, gaining her Fellowship in 1969. She took a few years out in the early 70’s to bring up her two young children, and thereafter worked part-time in cancer related research.

She served as an Aberdeen City Councillor from 1988-99, and in 2003 became a North East Regional Member of the Scottish Parliament. During that time she served on the Equal Opportunities Committee and then on the Health Committee. She was Health Spokesman for the Conservative Party.

Nanette is now a Member of the Public Petitions Committee and the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, and is currently Conservative Shadow Minister for the Environment. She became Co-Convener of the Cross Party Group on Cancer following the May 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections.