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Events

J Pouch related live webcasts scheduled for 2026

J Pouch related live webcasts scheduled for 2026

The Red Lion Group schedules another series of live webcasts for 2026 featuring world renowned speakers on subjects of great interest to patients considering or having undergone J Pouch Surgery.

We are delighted to report we have another new speaker (for us!) this year – namely Dr Alexa Duff lead clinical psychologist specialising in IBD at St Mark’s Hospital and founder of the Gut Brain Connection (gutbrainconnection.co.uk).

As you may be aware, Red Lion Group began broadcasting live webcasts on Zoom during the COVID epidemic, when we were unable to host our regular in-person Information Day previously held at St. Mark’s Hospital. These have proved so popular that we have continued with this practice every year since, and this year is no exception with an exciting line-up of speakers as detailed below.

Samantha Evans and Lisa Allison

Wednesday 18th February 19:30 (BST)- Preparing for Pouch Surgery
Wednesday 29th April 19:30 pm (BST) – Managing Pouch Complications

Samantha Evans
Lisa Allison

A dynamic duo: Samantha Evans, nurse consultant for stoma- and pouchcare at St Mark’s Hospital, and Lisa Allison, clinical nurse specialist for pouchcare, who oversee the before and after activities of St Mark’s Hospital’s pouchcare and pouch operations. They will be presenting two joint Zoom webcasts on Wednesday, 18th February and Wednesday, 29th April respectively.

The two events are deliberately linked as the first will show the structure of the St Mark’s pouchcare nursing team and how they prepare patients for pouch surgery; while the second will highlight the hospital’s enhanced recovery post-operative process and how they manage pouch complications in the hospital’s Nurse-led clinics.

PS: Lisa Allison is a former chair of the Red Lion Group!

Register

Dr Alexa Duff – The role of Stress and Anxiety in Ulcerative Colitis and Crohns

Wednesday 15th April 2026 at 19:30 pm (BST)

Dr Alexa Duff – Founder of the Gut Brain Connection

We are delighted to report that we have lined up an original and fascinating webcast by Dr Alexa Duff – lead clinical psychologist specialising in IBD at St Mark’s Hospital and founder of the Gut Brain Connection (gutbrainconnection.co.uk).  Dr Duff will cover a rarely-discussed aspect of our lives as pouchees, that is whether mental problems are a possible cause of UC or Crohn’s disease and whether stress or anxiety are contributory factors in the day-to-day behaviour of pouches. She will also review ways pouch patients can cope with the stigma of problems with the bowel – at work, in social situations and in close relationships.

Other issues that she will cover include :-

  • whether patients are given enough support for the psychological effects of pouch operations refering to some of the issues she has experienced in her work at St Mark’s Hospital.
  • what changes she would like to see introduced before, during and after operations to help pouch patients deal with a very difficult period in their lives.

This promises to be a fascinating session so make sure of your place by registering below.

Register

Others Speakers and Events to be added. You can find further information about our webcast schedule for 2026 with links to register and view recordings of previous webcasts at pouchsupport.org/events/

Events

J Pouch related live webcasts scheduled for 2025

J Pouch related live webcasts scheduled for 2025

The Red Lion Group schedules another series of live webcasts for 2025 featuring world renowned speakers on subjects of great interest to patients considering or having undergone J Pouch Surgery.

We are delighted to announce that this year we have a new speaker (for us!) – Clemmie Oliver – a specialist IBD Nutritionist who has a pouch herself!

As you may be aware, Red Lion Group began broadcasting live webcasts on Zoom during the COVID epidemic, when we were unable to host our regular in-person Information Day previously held at St. Mark’s Hospital. These have proved so popular that we have continued with this practice every year since, and this year is no exception with an exciting line-up of speakers as detailed below.

Janindra Warusavitarne – Consultant Colorectal Surgeon

Janindra Warusavitarne

Wednesday 13th August at 19:30 (BST)
We are delighted that our next live webcast will feature  Janindra Warusavitarne, the highly renowned Consultant Colorectal surgeon at St. Mark’s Hospital. I am sure that he is well known to many of you either from previous webcasts or indeed as one of his patients. This webcast “J Pouch or Stoma? A life changing decison” will take place on Wednesday 13th August at 7:30 pm. (BST) and as usual prior registration is required.

You can view a recording of this event on the Red Lion Group YouTube channel below.

Guy Worley – Consultant Colorectal Surgeon

Guy Worley

Monday 28th July 2025 at 19:30 pm (BST)
Former St Mark’s research fellow Guy Worley looks at the pros and cons of opting to have pouch surgery. Is it the answer for UC sufferers and what are the alternatives? He also reviews the latest technical changes in pouch surgery.  Finally, he asks if patients are properly primed to give their consent to operations? Guy is now a consultant IBD surgeon at The Royal London Hospital.

You can view a recording of this event on the Red Lion Group YouTube channel below.

Clemmie Oliver – Nutritional Advice for J Pouch patients

Clemmie Oliver

Wednesday 23 July 2025 at 7:30 pm (BST)
Recipes for success! Specialist IBD Nutritionist Clemmie Oliver looks at how diet and lifestyle can support recovery from pouch surgery and how it is pivotal to our ongoing health with a pouch. Clemmie who had UC aged 9 and has an ileo-pouch herself founded and runs The Nutrition and Lifestyle Medical Clinic (NALM). She is a passionate advocate of helping pouchees cope with food issues and nutrition needs.

This is a fantastic opportunity to hear from a specialist IBD nutritionist with personal experience of living with a J pouch. Early registration is recommended to ensure your place.
You can view a recording of this event on the Red Lion Group YouTube channel below.

Ben Barbanel – Back to peak fitness after J Pouch surgery

This webcast took place on 30 April 2025. Featuring Ben Barbanel who is a member of the Red Lion Group and owner of a J Pouch. Ben recently embarked on a fitness program and speaks about his journey to return to peak fitness at the “grand old age of 45” !

Ben is a regular contributor to Red Lion Social channels and last year was invited by Janindra Warusavitarne to speak at a European Colorectal Surgery Conference in Prague. He also Co-presented with Janindra on a Red Lion Group webcast on the “Patient / Surgeon Relationship“. Apart from the fitness content, the conversation and follow up Q&A covered in this session covers many topics relevant to Pouch Patients. You can view a recording of this event on the Red Lion Group YouTube channel below.

Others Speakers and Events to be added. You can find further information about our webcast schedule for 2025 with links to register and view recordings of previous webcasts at pouchsupport.org/events/

Events

Our next webcast – Dietary and medication Q&A for…

Our next webcast – “Dietary and medication Q&A for J pouch patients“” – featuring Uchu Meade and Gabriela Poufou

Updated 2nd December 2024

The promised follow-up session to this Q&A will now be taking place in 2025. We will let you know as soon as we have a confirmed date or keep an eye on our events calendar at pouchsupport.org/events/

Updated 29th July 2024

This webcast took place as advertised on 24th July and was greatly enjoyed by the attendees. The recording of this session is now available. Many subjects of great interest to pouchees were discussed in detail as shown below.

TIMESUBJECT
0.00:00Introduction
0.03:23Vitamin B12 Deficiency
0.33:24 Passing undigested food
0.36:33Psyllium Husk
0.42:52 Gas/bloating
0.56:46  Hydration/St. Mark’s eMix
1.13:34 Monitoring Sodium levels
1.15:10Taking vitamin Supplements
1.22:49Strictures/ Blockages (to be continued…)
Video timings

In fact, we ran out of time to cover all the questions that had been submitted, and we are delighted to announce that Uchu and Gabriela have volunteered to participate in another session to cover the remaining questions (and any new ones that might be added!)

We will let you know the date as soon as possible. In the meantime, enjoy the recording of Part 1, which you can find on our Youtube channel here.

After watching this recording, it would be much appreciated if you could submit your feedback at https://forms.office.com/e/a4A1nVT44V.  Survey results will support Uchu and Gabriela’s personal professional development and interaction with patient groups such as pouchees is a very important part of their professional  evaluation.

Our next webcast will be taking place on Wednesday 24th July at 7:30 pm (BST) and will feature Uchu Meade, Consultant Pharmacist, and Gabriela Poufou, Advanced Specialist Inflammatory Bowel Disease Dietitian – both at St. Mark’s Hospital.

Both have previously presented at Red Lion Group Information days and zoom webcasts and you can find recordings on our YouTube channel (see below). For the first time, we will be featuring the two of them together and the format of the whole session will be in the form of an interactive Question & Answer, on two of the most interesting subjects for people with an internal pouch (J Pouch or similar) and that is on the topics of DIETARY and MEDICATION advice for J pouch patients.

In April 2023, Uchu Meade achieved a significant milestone in her career by becoming the first consultant level pharmacist at St Mark’s Hospital. She has presented for RLG previously on the subject “Pharmacy advice for Pouch Patients“. You can find view the recording here.

Also taking part will be Gabriela Poufou. Gabriela is an Advanced Specialist Inflammatory Bowel Disease Dietitian at St. Mark’s. Her webcast “Healthy eating for Patients with a J Pouch” is one of the most viewed recordings on our YouTube channel. You can see it here.

You will be able to put your questions during the session but we would like to encourage you to submit questions in advance. Please submit questions to info@pouchsupport.org so that we can make sure the most popular questions/challenges are addressed.

(The session will be recorded and published on our YouTube channel – but privacy of participants will be maintained).

Attendance is FREE and open to all, but prior registration is required. You can register using button below.

Register


and don’t forget to checkout pouchsupport.org/events for details of other upcoming Red Lion Group online events.

You can view the recording of the recent webcast featuring Uchu Meade and Gabriela Poufou on the subject “Pharmacy and Dietary advice – Q&A” on our YouTube channel here

You can view the recording of the recent webcast featuring Janindra Warusavitarne and Ben Barbanel on the subject “Surgeon/Patient – a special relationship” on our YouTube channel here

Events

Our next webcast – featuring Janindra Warusavitarne and Ben…

Our next webcast – “Surgeon / Patient a special relationship” – featuring Janindra Warusavitarne and Ben Barbanel

Our next webcast will be taking place on Wednesday 10th July 2024 at 7:30 pm (BST) and will feature Janindra Warusavitarne, the renowned St. Mark’s colorectal surgeon. Janindra is one of our most popular speakers and many of you will know him personally, or may have seen him on a previous webcast – speaking about advances in pouch surgery. On this occasion, the focus will be on the importance of the surgeon/patient relationship.

Also taking part will be Ben Barbanel, a Red Lion Group member, who was fortunate to have had his pouch constructed by Janindra about 5 years ago. Ben was honoured to have been invited to speak at the annual conference of the European Society of Coloproctology (ESC) in September 2023 on the subject “What do the public expect from surgeons”?

Janindra commented “The concept of shared decision making is vital to ensure that in these challenging times we as clinicians hear what patients have to say and how the services we provide can ensure that their quality of life is also improved, particularly in the context of chronic diseases“

We expect this to be a very popular and fascinating webcast with plenty of time for the attendees to put their own questions to both Janindra and Ben.

Attendance is FREE and open to all, but prior registration is required. You can register using button below.

Register


and don’t forget to checkout pouchsupport.org/events for details of other upcoming Red Lion Group online events.

You can view the recording of the webcast by Ellie Bradshaw on the subject “Biofeedback management of Pouches” on our Youtube channel here

Events

Dr Sonya Frearson talks “Psychological impact of bowel surgery”…

Dr Sonya Frearson talks “Psychological impact of bowel surgery” in our next webcast

Following on from our highly successful webcast featuring Ellie Bradshaw, next in our series of live webcasts will take place on Friday 21st June at 5:00pm and will feature Dr. Sonya Frearson, consultant clinical psychologist and head of the St. Mark’s Hospital Psychological Medicine Unit (PMU). Within the Psychological Medicine Unit (PMU) she is developing psychological support for St Mark’s gastroenterology patients by gradually embedding specialist practitioner psychologists into St Mark’s multi-disciplinary care teams. You can expect the Q&A to be very interesting providing an opportunity to discuss the psychological impact of undergoing and living with major bowel surgery.

Attendance is FREE and open to all, but prior registration is required. You can register using button below.

Register


and don’t forget to checkout pouchsupport.org/events for details of other upcoming Red Lion Group online events.

You can view the recording of the webcast by Ellie Bradshaw on the subject “Biofeedback management of Pouches” on our Youtube channel here

Events

Updated – Ellie Bradshaw talks “Biofeedback” in our next…

Ellie Bradshaw talks “Biofeedback” in our next webcast

Updated 30 May 2024

The latest webinar in the RLG 2024 series took place on 29 May with Ellie Bradshaw talking about Biofeedback, a unique method of pouch emptying.  Over 50 pouchees attended the event from the comfort of their own homes via zoom.  Ellie is a highly experienced nursing specialist who used to be in charge of the Biofeedback unit at St Mark’s Hospital.  She took a sabbatical to work at the Princess Grace Hospital in London and has now returned to St Mark’s to join the highly experienced and award winning pouch nurse specialist team.  Her presence will add considerable capabilities and expertise to a team which is already world class. 

Ellie’s passion for helping pouchees was evident as she carefully walked us through the various ways in which pouchees can act and exercises they can do to improve and preserve their pouch function through control and strengthening of their pelvic floor.  As well, she provided information on creams and medical devices which are available to pouchees and which can help to alleviate some of the common pouch issues, from which many of us suffer to a greater or lesser extent. 

In a lively and extended Q&A session Ellie was able to answer both broad and very personal pouch-related topics as diverse as sex for pouchees, night time incontinence, butt creams, stool thickeners, anus and lower back pain, how to achieve full emptying, probiotics, pelvic floor exercises and investigations when the pouch is not functioning well.   The recording of the event is available on our YouTube channel here.

This was a compassionate and comprehensive talk packed full of practical tips and suggestions and some humour along the way to emphasise the messages.  Another brilliant event from Ellie, who is a long-term supporter of the RLG charity, having been delivering talks for us since 2006.  We are indeed grateful for all her support and delighted to have her back at St Mark’s.  

Thank you to all the attendees for such a great series of questions. 

The next webinar in the 2024 series will take place on Friday 21 June at 5pm (BST) when Dr Sonya Frearson, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Head of the St Mark’s Psychological Medicine Unit will talk about psychological issues associated with surgery and recovery.  Please register beforehand at pouchsupport.org/events/ to receive the dial in link.

David Davies
RLG Chairman

You can view the recording of the webcast by Ellie Bradshaw on the subject “Biofeedback management of Pouches” on our Youtube channel here

Following on from our highly successful webcast featuring Prof John Nicholls, our next zoom webcast will take place on Wednesday 29th May at 7:30pm and will feature Ellie Bradshaw. A lively and exuberant speaker Ellie will let us into the secrets of biofeedback – a unique method of pouch-emptying. Ellie, who recently returned to St. Mark’s Hospital following a spell at the renowned Princess Grace Hospital in London, says she thrives on helping people manage their bowel and pelvic floor symptoms. Those traditional pelvic floor exercises will never be the same again! Ellie has spoken at previous Red Lion Group events and is one of our most popular speakers.

Attendance is FREE and open to all, but prior registration is required. You can register using button below.

Register


and don’t forget to checkout pouchsupport.org/events for details of other upcoming Red Lion Group online events.

You can view the recording of the webcast by Prof John Nicholls on the subject “40 years of colorectal surgery” on our Youtube channel here

Events

Prof. John Nicholls to kick-off RLG 2024 webcast season

Prof. John Nicholls to kick-off RLG 2024 webcast season

We are delighted to announce that we will be kicking off our webcast season for 2024 with a talk from Professor John Nicholls, considered to be the the father of the ileo anal pouch (J Pouch).

The Red Lion Group will be repeating its popular webcast series in 2024, providing an opportunity for J Pouch patients to see and hear from the foremost experts in the field of J-pouch surgery and the challenges of living with a J-pouch. As in previous years, each talk will be followed by an interactive Q&A so a chance to put your questions to the experts.

The first event this year will be on Tuesday 16th April at 7:30 pm (BST) and will feature the eminent colorectal surgeon Professor John Nicholls, who will need no introduction to many of you. Not only was he the co-inventor, with SIr Alan Parks, of the procedure for ileal-pouch anal anastomosis (IPAA), but he has been responsible for the creation of more pouches than anyone on the planet earning him the sobriquet “the pouch king“.

Professor John Nicholls is a retired British colorectal surgeon, Emeritus Consultant Surgeon at St Mark’s Hospital London and Professor of Colorectal Surgery at Imperial College London. He is also a Patron of the Red Lion Group.

The Red Lion Group webcasts are FREE and open to all, but pre-registration is required to receive the meeting link. You can register using the “Register now” button below.

View Recording


and don’t forget to checkout pouchsupport.org/events for details of other upcoming Red Lion Group online events.

Stop Press! Updated at 13:20 on 16 April. The last time I checked, we had 98 people registered and our meeting capacity is 100 For those unable to join the Zoom meeting, the webcast will also be Streamed Live on the J Pouch Support (UK Specific) Facebook group. If you are not currently a member, you can join here. A recording of the webcast will also be available on our Youtube channel youtube.com/@PouchSupport

Related Posts

  • Professor John Nicholls guest speaker on Red Lion Group webcast
    Date
    May 14, 2021
  • Updated – Ellie Bradshaw talks “Biofeedback” in our next webcast
    Date
    May 31, 2024
  • J pouch forum update and register for next event
    Date
    April 2, 2024

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