ACP Patrons
Driving Excellence in Bladder & Bowel Care
Meet Our Patrons
The ACP is privileged to have the support of our patrons to help assist the association and its objectives in the wider health and political arenas.
The ACP is privileged to have the support of our patrons to help assist the association and its objectives in the wider health and political arenas.
Robert Francis was called to the Bar in 1973 and practiced as a barrister until his retirement from full-time practice in 2020, specialising in medical law, including clinical negligence, medical, patient decision-making, public inquiries, professional discipline and regulation.
He has been involved in many healthcare related public inquiries, but most notably chaired the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust inquiries (2010, 2013) recommending reforms designed to improve values and standards in the NHS, including a legal duty of candour. He conducted the Freedom to Speak Up Review into the treatment of NHS whistleblowers (2015). In 2022 he was commissioned by the Cabinet Office to recommend a framework for compensating the victims of infected blood; his recommendations were broadly adopted by the Infected Blood Inquiry. Until 2022 he was Chair of Healthwatch England, and non-executive director of the Care Quality Commission.
He co-authored Medical Treatment: Decisions and the Law (2009), and has been chair of the Professional Negligence Bar Association, a Recorder and a deputy High Court Judge. In 2023 he was Treasurer [Chairman] of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court.
Robert is a core panel member of the Expert Advisory Panel of the Health and Social Care Select Committee which advises the committee on the Government’s performance in implementing health related policy commitments. He is a Patron of the Florence nightingale Foundation. He has been a trustee of the Point of Care Foundation which seeks practical ways of humanising healthcare and Prostate Cancer Research which funds cutting edge research in this area.
He was knighted in 2014 for services to health and patients, and has received honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Surgeons (England), the Royal College of Pathologists and the Faculty of Forensic Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians, as well as an honorary doctorate in law from Exeter University and an honorary doctorate in medical science from St George’s Medical School.
Paul Abrams is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the field of lower urinary tract dysfunction. He introduced the term “Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (LUTS)” in 1994 and, with Alan Wein the term “Overactive Bladder (OAB)” in 1996. He is author on more than 780 peer-reviewed papers plus books and book chapters.
Professor Abrams received his MB ChB in 1970 from Sheffield University Medical School, was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1974, received his MD from Bristol in 1977 and was accredited in Urology in 1981. He is currently Honorary Professor of Urology, University of Bristol and Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon, Southmead Hospital, Bristol.
He served as General Secretary of the International Continence Society (ICS), a position he held from 1985 to 2003. In addition, he has been Chairman of all seven International Consultations on Incontinence and, was co-chair of the 2005 Consultation on Male Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction, and President of the 2012 Consultation on Male LUTS. He was Vice-Chairman of the International Consultation on Urological Diseases (ICUD), becoming Chair of ICUD in 2008. Professor Abrams was Chair of the Strategy Planning Office and a member of the Board of the European Association of Urology (EAU) until 2012, and was Chair of Courses and Consultations at the Societé International d’Urologie (SIU), until 2009. He was Scientific Chairman of the SIU meeting in Marrakesh in 2010 and organised the 1st ICUD-SIU International Consultation on Obstetric Vesico-Vaginal Fistulae, held at the same meeting in 2010.
He was deputy editor of Neurourology and Urodynamics (1995 – 2006), is a member of several editorial boards and an expert reviewer, as well as a journal referee, for many leading urology journals. He was a member of the NICE Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee until 2008, and was on the review group for Female Incontinence Guidelines(2013) and for Quality Standards for Male Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms(2013) and for Female Urinary Incontinence (2014).
He was the first Chairman of the BAUS Section of Female and Reconstructive Urology. He started ICS-UK which became the UK Continence Society, and he started and chaired each of the ten ICI-Research Society meetings, the most recent of which met in 2023
He is also extremely involved in UK national and local academic and administrative work: he was the Royal College of Surgeons’ Director for Professional Affairs in the South West from 2008-2013 and Chair of Trustees for the Bristol Health Research Charity 2015-2023. He is currently Chair of Bladder Working Group for the NHS England National Bladder and Bowel Health Project, and Associate Director of BABCON, a Health Integrated Team on Continence for Bristol Health Partners.