Our Ambassadors

Carole Stone

Carole Stone CBE is former producer of BBC Radio 4’s flagship discussion programme Any Questions?
Former Managing Director of the online opinion polling company YouGovStone Limited and founder of The Carole Stone Foundation to support her belief that connecting people, exchange ideas and building friendships around the world is essential to help make a fairer society.

Dr Garry Savin

Dr Garry Savin qualified as a GP in Enfield North London where he developed a passionate interest in preventative medicine. He helped to develop Nuffield Hospitals Health Screening and became their National Clinical Advisor to Health Screening for 44 Wellness Centres and 244 Health Screening doctors.

He joined “Preventicum” as Medical Director in February 2006. After 15 years there, he moved to a practice in Harley Street where he has developed “Lumen Advanced Health Assessments”.

Brian Daniels

Brian Daniels founded Pluto Play Productions in 1997 to run the New End Theatre, Hampstead and to produce an ongoing repertoire of plays around health and social issues.
Brian is the author of 22 plays including the award winning ‘Homeward Bound’ and ‘Fighting for Life’. His plays have been performed nationally and internationally including off-Broadway in New York. The plays have all been adapted to be performed live, or by podcast or streamed on-line. Subjects include early and late onset dementia, end of life and palliative care, historic child abuse and grooming, the holocaust, lymphoedema, discrimination, suicide prevention and corporate manslaughter.

Sarah Hampton

Sarah Hampton is a retired social worker. She spent most of her career in adult social care. She has a good understanding of working in the public sector and she has experience of writing formal letters, plans and strategies. She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1971, so she is also an experienced patient.
Sarah is the secretary of the Friends of Beeston Station, a voluntary group set up to make improvements to the station, including to access for disabled people. She is a registered as a station adopter with East Midlands Railway. In early March 2020 she spoke at a Community Rail Network conference about the importance of purposeful work in retirement to avoid loneliness and associated problems.
In her spare time, Sarah sews, reads, writes letters, walks, swims and goes to the gym.
Sarah is married to Brian Fairchild and they have two adult children.

Brian Fairchild

Brian Fairchild is a coach who specialises in helping people improve their working lives. He began his career in the voluntary sector with the charity Mencap, where he worked with NHS and local authority colleagues to develop innovative services in the community. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and has worked in HR and training roles for the regulator of social care services and two local authorities. He is an associate coach and trainer for a number of companies, regularly delivering training and coaching to staff at all levels within organisations.
During the summer Brian is a regular volunteer at Trent Bridge international and domestic competition cricket matches.
Brian is married to Sarah Hampton and they have two adult children.

Samantha Wathen

Originally a lecturer in further education, since 2018 Samantha has been the Press and Media Officer for Keep Our NHS Public, an independent campaigning organisation that strives for a well-funded and fully publicly owned and provided NHS. She is a passionate NHS campaigner with a particular interest in advocating for better working conditions and the need to support the mental health of NHS staff. Samantha is an occasional journalist on NHS matters and her articles have appeared in The Metro, Independent, Tribune and Public Sector Focus Magazine.

Bertie Aspinall

Bertie previously worked at a consultancy, the European Commission and Virgin Atlantic before joining Doctors in Distress in 2020 as strategy and partnerships lead. For the next year, Bertie helped to develop the group system and partnerships we have in operation today.

Now Bertie builds social impact startups- with an education focus – at CanDo, alongside the founder of Tide Business Bank.

Emma Dillon

Emma is a positive, innovative and motivated mental health nurse educator with a passion for personal and community wellbeing. She is committed to promoting mental health for all and determined to enable social change and suicide prevention. Emma practiced as a Registered Mental health Nurse for 26 years, primarily in community and urgent care pathways.Emma also leads on student Mental Health Frist Aid education at the University of Northampton and has developed a social enterprise; UONMHFA, who are a team of MHFA Instructors. This dedicated team are made up of registered nursing academics, HR representatives and other FHES staff who all have a passion for wellbeing. UONMHFA have trained over 1200 student nurses, 400 PNA’s, 200 FHES students, assisted with training of 300 UON staff, local businesses, charities, schools and have a public MHFA online shop.

She was recognised for her positive approach to mental health with a nomination to attend the Queens Garden party in 2019.

Nicola Weaver

Nicola has 30 years experience as a GP, first in Newcastle upon Tyne, and for the last 6 years at a busy Central London practice. She has combined her role in clinical medicine with local leadership in service improvement as well as some teaching and research. She currently works as a GP Clinical Cancer Lead and champion for Social Prescribing in Southwark. This combined experience leads to a broad awareness of the many ways that illness and stress impact on peoples lives.
Outside of this she is a lifelong keen amateur violin player and active fan of live jazz and classical music.

Claire Ashley

Dr Ashley qualified as a doctor in 2008 with ambitious plans to become a high flying anaesthetist. She got onto one of the most competitive training programmes in the country before realising that it wasn’t making her fulfilled, so she then switched training programmes to become a GP. However, once having qualified as a GP she very quickly developed anxiety and burned out in her first year of being qualified.

Her mission is to improve working conditions and mental wellbeing of medical professionals, as well as helping and supporting those that are struggling with stress, burnout, work fatigue and career indecision. She has a podcast, Do Yourself No Harm, which has just launched with the aim of providing advice and guidance to healthcare workers on how to live and work well in the pressurised working environment that is the NHS currently. She also runs a subscription and membership for healthcare professionals by the same name.

Dr Ashley lives in North Somerset with her stunt man husband. Together, the couple have 2 children and a never-ending house renovation project.

Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury

Nick Shaftesbury graduated from the London Business School with a Masters in Business Administration in 2008. After an early career as a DJ and music promoter in New York City, he returned to the UK in 2005 and has since overseen the restoration of his family home, St Giles House, alongside his wife Dinah. The project has won several awards, including the 2015 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Award for Building Conservation and the Historic England Angel Award, Best Rescue of a Historic Building or Site. The work has also been documented in a book entitled, ‘The Rebirth of an English Country House’, which he co-wrote with Tim Knox, the current Director of the Royal Collection. They are the first Shaftesbury’s for 50 years to live in St Giles House.
Nick is also passionate about running and climbing and has competed in many ultra-marathons to raise awareness around disability and mental health. He is an ambassador for the spinal cord injury charity Wings For Life, a patron for Parallel London and vice-patron of the disability charity, Livability. He is also the current Chairman of the Talbot Village Trust, which is one of Dorset’s leading benefactors, supporting causes in Christchurch, Bournemouth, Poole, East Dorset and the Isle of Purbeck.

Olivia Donnelly

Dr Olivia Donnelly is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and leads the Staff Wellbeing Psychology Team at North Bristol NHS Trust, which includes a dedicated NHS wellbeing service for doctors. She has a particular interest in practical and values-based approaches that promote psychological safety and compassion within teams and across healthcare organisations, based on the foundation that ‘resilience is between us, not just within us’.

Keith Baddams

In 2009 Keith saw first-hand the day-to-day happenings on a High Dependency unit in Musgrove Park NHS Hospital. He did this from the bed next to the Nursing station after suffering a ruptured aortic aneurysm aged 52.
As a living example of what the NHS does best, he feels grateful to be given the chance to support NHS staff in any way he can.
During the first lockdown he made and donated a few stained glass panels which reflected that particular moment in time, one of which is hung in Dorchester Hospital and another is to be auctioned in support of Doctors in Distress.

He has over 40 years experience in the restoration of historic lead glazed windows and is interested in bringing arts into Hospitals to create a more pleasant environment for staff, patients and visitors alike.

Henriette Lang

Henriette has a passion for changing the stigma around mental ill-health and preventing suicides. She works for This Can Happen, which is a workplace mental health company supporting organisations with their employee mental health. She is a trained Samaritan listener, Mental Health First Aider and author of the Mindset Triangle Book which is all about how to balance your life when living with mental ill-health. She is studying BSc Psychology part time through the Open University. The NHS has helped Henriette many times through IVF treatment, to childbirth to supporting her after the death of her own child. As someone who cares for her own children living with dyslexia and autism, she strongly believes in caring for the carer. She also supports her partner who lives with bipolar. By showing compassion, empathy and care for each other Henriette believes we can prevent mental illness reaching crisis points is key and prevent suicides.

Dinah Ashley-Cooper, Countess of Shaftesbury

Dr Dinah Ashley-Cooper qualified as a veterinary surgeon and completed her doctorate in Zurich. In 2007 she became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCVS) specialising in small animal orthopaedic surgery and has worked as a veterinary surgeon for the past 10 years. Dinah manages an equine stud and horse breeding facility specialising in artificial insemination and embryo transfer. She has 3 children and has overseen the restoration of St. Giles House with her husband. The project has won several national awards and is currently used as an events venue with a particular focus on wellbeing.
She has an interest in suicide prevention given the high rates in the veterinary profession. She is a trustee of ‘Drug Science’, an ambassador for Doctors in Distress and a patron of ‘WVS’ (Worldwide Veterinary Service).