SWLSNN Board
The South West London and Surrey Neuroscience Network (SWLSNN) Board provides strategic leadership and ensures alignment of ICB delivered priorities e.g. headache pathways, advice and guidance, stroke. The network team works hard to deliver an ambitious programme of work that joins up fragmented care for patients living with a neurological condition across South West London and Surrey.
The Board is co-chaired by:
- Dr Niran Nirmalananthan, Consultant Neurologist and Chair SW London & Surrey Neurosciences Network
- Dr Nicola Williams, SWL ICB Primary Care Lead
The Board meets quarterly, inviting a wide-ranging membership from across SWL and Surrey ICSs and NHS England.
The established network has multi-professional and multi-disciplinary membership. There is great opportunity for network alignment across all sub-specialities and regional transformation.
Dr Niran Nirmalananthan
Consultant Neurologist, St George’s & Co-Chair, South West London and Surrey Neurosciences Network
Dr Niran Nirmalananthan is a Consultant Neurologist at St George’s University Hospitals and Honorary Senior Lecturer at St George’s University of London, and is Group Clinical Lead for Specialised Services at St George’s Epsom and St Helier Hospitals Group. He was previously Clinical Director of the Atkinson Morley Regional Neurosciences Centre at St George’s Hospital from 2019-2023 and clinical lead for Neurology & Neurophysiology at St George’s from 2016-2019.
He is also National Clinical Director for Neurology at NHS England. He chairs the NHS England Neurology Clinical Reference Group and co-chairs the National Neurosciences Transformation Board. Niran also serves as Group Clinical Lead for Specialised Services at St George’s Epsom and St Helier Hospitals Group, as well as a member of the South London Specialised Services Executive Management Board.
Dr Nicola Williams
GP/South West London ICB Primary Care Lead & Co-Chair, South West London and Surrey Neurosciences Network
Dr Nicola Jones MBE (MBChB, DRCOG, MRCGP. MBA), has been a GP in Wandsworth since 1995. She is the Clinical Lead for Primary Care for the SWL ICS
and advises the SWL Covid-19 vaccine programme. She is the Clinical Director of a Primary Care Network and brings her direct experience of delivering at a PCN and practice level to her Integrated Care Board role. As a practicing GP, she enjoys the challenges of an inner London practice with its diversity and pathology.
She was the Chair of Wandsworth CCG for over a decade and is now the Convenor of the Wandsworth Place Committee which brings together health and care partners from across the borough, with the aim of integrating care and addressing health inequalities. Nicola was a primary care advisor to the Department of Health, and has experience of commercial organisations as well as an NHS background. She gained an MBA from London Business School and developed her management expertise in a variety of roles but remains utterly rooted in NHS clinical practice and primary care.
Network clinical leads
Dr Ruchika Gupta
Surrey Heartlands ICB Primary Care Lead
Dr Ruchika Gupta is a GP in Esher Green Surgery since 2017 and has worked as a GP in Surrey for the last 14 years. She has an interest in Women’s Health and leads the clinic within her practice. Alongside her clinical role she has worked previously in Surrey Downs CCG as a Clinical Lead in Planned Care, innovating pathways to try and improve health outcomes and patient experience.
Ruchika was a committee member of the NICE IPAC for three years working to advise NICE on safety and efficacy of interventional procedures. She currently works as a Clinical Director for long term planning delivery for Surrey Heartlands ICB and works alongside Public Health in utilizing evidence based medicine to guide and improve population health outcomes.
Dr Arani Nitkunan
South West London Neurology Clinical Lead / SWL Neurology Network Chair
Dr Arani Nitkunan studied at Newnham College, Cambridge and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, London graduating in 1999.
She was awarded a PhD for stroke research at St George’s Hospital, London in 2007. Dr Nitkunan was appointed as a consultant neurologist in 2013 with general neurology clinics at Croydon University Hospital and a specialist neuro-ophthalmology clinic at St George’s. She is chair of the Southwest London Neurology Network since 2019, as has served as the chair of the Association of British Neurologists Services committee and hence a member of ABN executive council since May 2023.
Dr Jan Coebergh
Surrey Neurology Clinical Lead
Dr Jan Coebergh has worked as a Consultant Neurologist in the NHS at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals since January 2012 where he he has a specialist Movement Disorders Clinic and is lead for the neurosciences department. He also works as an Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Atkinson Morley Regional Neuroscience Centre at St George’s Hospital, Tooting where he has a clinic in Functional Neurological disorders, but also sees Huntington’s and Wilson’s disease patients. He does stroke on-call work.
Dr Coebergh studied undergraduate medicine at Newcastle University and worked there as a house officer. He undertook his is neurology training in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Network team
Bethan O’Donnell
Neurosciences Collaboration Manager
Bethan is the Neurosciences Collaboration Manager focused on the delivery of the South West London and Surrey Specialised Neurology pilot. The pilot is a national exemplar programme for neurosciences transformation and a regional exemplar for specialised delegation. The two-year SWL and Surrey Heartlands Specialised Neurology Pilot was initiated in summer 2022 to reduce variation in neurology services, to deliver more integrated care, closer to home, while escalating to the tertiary centre when most appropriate.