About us > Who We Are > Board of Trustees > Biographies

Board of trustees Biographies

Bladder & Bowel Foundation Vice Chairman
Julia Herbert

Julia is a Specialist Continence Physiotherapist at Bolton PCT and an Independent practitioner. She has worked in healthcare for over 20 years.

Julia is currently working part time at Bolton Primary Care Trust and works in the multi-professional continence team. She also runs a private practice, which specialises in the treatment of bladder and bowel dysfunction. Julia's private work also allows her to become involved in product development, lecturing and consultancy work.
She is an approved tutor for the association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Women's Health and is currently involved with both the vaginal and ano-rectal pelvic floor muscle assessment training courses. Julia also lectures on various independently run training courses and have a special interest in bowel dysfunction, biofeedback training and neuromuscular electrical stimulation.

Julia completed the 'Promotion of Continence, Management of Incontinence' course in 1988, the St. Marks Bowel Dysfunction Course in 2001 and is now working towards a Masters degree in Practice Development.

She joined the Board of The Bladder and Bowel Foundation in 2007 and says: "I hope that I can use my experience in this speciality to help the Bladder and Bowel Foundation develop and improve the support to people who suffer from incontinence and associated problems."

Bladder and Bowel Foundation Treasurer
Jane Dixon

Jane is Clinical Lead Physiotherapist and Extended Scope Practitioner in Women's Health at Peterborough and Stamford NHSFT. She also works as an independent practitioner.

Jane qualified from Manchester Royal Infirmary School of Physiotherapy in 1971, and initially specialised in paediatrics, working in the Lake District and Surrey.

Jane began treating patients with continence problems in 1984. In 1996 she completed the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Women's Health Post-graduate Continence Course. She lectures nationally and internationally, especially on the use of dynamic imaging in pelvic floor dysfunction, and is the co-founder and secretary of the Dynamic Ultrasound Group, a Clinical Interest Group of Physiotherapists using dynamic imaging within their practice.

Jane's specialist areas of interest are imaging of the pelvic floor, chronic pelvic pain, conservative management of male problems, and faecal voiding dysfunction.

In her professional capacity, Jane has been a member of the Council of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Chairman of the Cambridge Branch of the CSP, Chairman of Chartered Physiotherapists Promoting Continence, and Company Secretary of the Private Physiotherapy Education Foundation.
She is married with two children, one grandson, and a black Labrador Retriever.

Bladder and Bowel Foundation Trustee
Joanne Townsend

Specialist Nurse Urogynaecology
I have been a specialist nurse in Urogynaecology since 1999 working at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. I am based in secondary care, but also have a primary care remit. I work clinically as well as undertaking research and audit.

I set up the RCN Urogynaecology Nurse Specialist Network in 2004, which facilitates the quarterly meetings of nurses specialising in female continence.
I was a guideline development member with the National Institute of Clinical Excellence developing the guidelines for The management of urinary incontinence in women (2006). My participation enabled to access a wealth of evidence devise recommendations for clinical practice.

I am working with the National Institute of Health in America, and the University of Minnesota, on a systematic review for the prevention and treatment of urinary and fecal incontinence adults (2007). This has provided me with the opportunity to share experience and knowledge with renowned clinicians from all over the world. I am also a member of the Urodynamic Accreditation working party developing universal training and standards for practitioners undertaking Urodynamic investigation. I was elected as a trustee for The Bladder and Bowel Foundation in 2006.

Bladder & Bowel Foundation Trustee
Peter Cartwright

Peter Cartwright was a Community Relations Officer (race relations) for 13 years in Gravesend, Ilford and Newham. He moved into the field of health and has 17 years' experience of working for patient and self-help associations, as Assistant Director of the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease, Director of the British Stammering Association (BSA) and National Development Office of the Self-Help Alliance.

Peter has an MSc in Microbiology and MA in Sociology and BA (Hons) in Business Studies. He also has a Professional Certificate in Management (OU). Peter is the author of Coping with Diverticulitis: Coping successfully with Ulcerative Colitis; and Probiotics for Crohn's and Colitis. To promote his books, he talks to local patient groups in the UK. Peter is currently self employed and earns a living by lecturing to doctors abroad (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines and eastern European Countries) on the scientific aspects of probiotics. He is married with two grown up children.

Bladder & Bowel Foundation Trustee
Dr Alan Cottenden

Dr Alan Cottenden took a first degree in Materials Science at Cambridge University followed by a CASE sutdentship PhD in the mechanical properties of machine tool materials at Cambridge and the National Physical Laboratory. He subsequently spent five years at Sussex University, where he developed an interest in incontinence technology. In 1984 he moved to University College, London to start a new collaboration with Prof James Malone-Lee (geriatrician) and Dr Mandy Fader (nurse). This persists to the present day as the multi-disciplinary Continence and Skin Technology Group (CSTG), which addresses the needs of intractably incontinent people and their caregivers.

CSTG work involves numerous collaborations with industry, hospitals, incontinent user groups and universities and current projects range from understanding the fundamental science of absorbency and of incontinence-related skin health, through the development of instrumentation for laboratory and clinical work, product development, and the laboratory and clinical evaluation of existing and prototype products, and the development of international product standards, to work on incontinence-related quality of life and health economic measures.

Dr Cottenden has a particular interest in absorbent products and a major thrust of recent years has been to develop predictive models to facilitate the design of more effective products based on a sound understanding of the interaction between urine and absorbent/porous materials. Complementary work has aimed to establish links between the clinical performance of pads (notably leakage and wet comfort) and laboratory data. Two large international projects have produced data upon which international standards have been based and a recent study - which established the (non) efficacy of various design featuers - is being used by the UK NHS Purchasing and Supplies Agency as a basis for placing national contracts with pad suppliers.

Dr Cottenden has published widely in the clinical and technical incontinence literature. He is chair of the committee that organises the biennial 'Incontinence: the Engineering Challenge' conferences in London which gather highly multi-disciplinary groups to stimulate fresh thinking on the role of technology in diagnosing, treating and managing incontinence. He was on the faculty of all four International Consultations on Incontinence and chaired the committee on Management with Continence Products for the two most recent consultations. Dr Cottenden holds some 20 patents for incontinence product designs of which the most successful is Kylie Pants, an aesthetically attractive washable absorbent product for lightly incontinent people.