Jane MacKintosh is a Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Consultant working on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia with a particular interest in education and improving end of life care in all settings. She has a Masters in Palliative Care from Flinders University. She has been a member of Australasian Palliative Link International (APLI) since 2014 and joined the APLI executive in 2018. Jane has worked in Specialist Palliative Care roles in Australia and New Zealand since 1998, across acute hospital consultancy, inpatient hospice, community and Residential Aged Care services. In the 1990’s, she spent 7 years in Tanzania, East Africa working alongside a team providing care for people with HIV AIDS. In recent years she has been an APLI Project Hamrahi mentor in North Eastern and North Western India.

As a Nurse Practitioner, Tony is employed by Neurology Services, Te Whatu Ora Bay of Plenty based at Tauranga Hospital. Tony’s specialty is with Parkinson’s disease and related movement disorders. In addition, he supports Neurology Nurse Specialists with other neurological conditions. Academically, he has gained Master of Nursing (1st Hons), Bachelor Health Science (High Distinction), and Post Graduate Diploma of Gerontology. Professional clinical memberships of the International Movement Disorder Society and various Neurological Associations. Currently Tony is a Trustee Board Member of the Parkinson’s New Zealand Charitable Trust Inc.

Rhonda Sherriff is a registered nurse and clinical advisor working with the Aged Care Association in New Zealand. She has extensive experience in the aged care sector and provides clinical advice to members. Over the last 25 years, Rhonda has worked in a variety of operational and management roles within the sector. Rhonda is passionate about the aged-care industry, ensuring residents welfare, their safety, staff education and competence, and safe outcomes for all clients.

Roy has worked for ACON Health (formerly the AIDS Council of NSW) for over a decade. He trained as nurse, and when HIV became a threat across his community he volunteered for Victorian AIDS Council and working as an operating theatre nurse before joining ACON NSW. His role as care coordinator has included beginning training aged service providers in LGBTI sensitivity for ageing clients requiring care. He began training service providers (wrote his own program). He has co-written and presented programs on LGBTI for Alzheimer’s Australia NSW, keynote speaker at the Psychogeriatric Nurse Annual Conference. Regular presentations to Social Welfare and Aged Care students at NR TAFE Colleges. He attends inter-agencies for ageing and disability in the Northern Rivers region. He was appointed to the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Ageing (NSW) and recently co-authored along with Professor Tracey MacDonald a paper on Cumulative Disadvantage Across a Life Span.

"Brigitte Lindsay is an experienced Cardiac Nurse Practitioner with over 30 years in nursing, specialising in cardiac care with a particular focus on heart failure management. She began her career in the UK before moving to New Zealand, where she played a pioneering role in establishing one of the country’s first heart failure clinics in 2003. Brigitte holds a Clinical Master of Nursing with First Class Honours from Massey University and became a registered Nurse Practitioner in Adult Cardiac Care in 2006. In addition to her work in cardiology, she broadened her scope to include General Practice from 2015 to 2025. Since 2019, she has run her own private cardiology practice. Brigitte is also active in the professional development of others—she sits on the Nursing Council’s Nurse Practitioner candidate interview panel and has contributed to postgraduate education at the University of Auckland. Her career is marked by a strong commitment to patient care, clinical excellence, and mentoring future healthcare professionals."

Doug is a New Zealand based rheumatologist, who provides thorough, personalised and expert care of inflammatory rheumatic disorders, including autoimmune inflammatory disorders, crystal arthritis, connective tissue disorders, osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia. He holds a postgraduate qualification in musculoskeletal medicine and paediatric rheumatology and trained in centres in the UK and Australia, before settling here in New Zealand in 2010. Doug is passionate about the use of technology and new media in healthcare and has developed materials for patients and healthcare providers to improve understanding of rheumatic diseases. Doug believes that research is an integral part of providing good care and has contributed to numerous national and international research projects. He has been the Honorary Secretary of the New Zealand Rheumatology Association, and is a current member of the Rheumatology Audit Partnership New Zealand and a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

Roderick is an old age psychiatrist, current Chair of the Faculty of Psychiatry of Old Age, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and a conjoint Senior Lecturer with the University of New South Wales. Dr. McKay has worked for many years with specialist mental health services for older people in outer metropolitan Sydney, seeing older people in hospital and in their homes, including residential aged care.

Joanne Russell is a Nurse Practitioner, endorsed in 2012, who specialises in the care of the older person. Her work in Gerontology has spanned the past 18 years, working in both the acute care sector and residential care in Australia and New Zealand. The Nurse Practitioner role has three main aims; reducing unplanned transfer to hospital, optimising outcomes when external referral is required and reviewing medications.

Dr Annette Beautrais has worked in New Zealand and overseas in suicide research, prevention and education for more than 30 years. Annette's current interests include translating suicide research into effective suicide prevention programmes, suicide prevention in men, developing local suicide prevention networks, and developing regional consistency in suicide risk assessment and management programmes. She has worked with the World Health Organisation, served on the board of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, and is a member of the International Academy for Suicide Research. Annette is currently the Suicide Prevention Programme Lead at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Lai-Kin Wong is a UK trained and educated RN with post graduate qualifications in nursing the older person and stroke. For the first twenty years of her career she nursed older people, eventually becoming the manager of a 32-bed ward for older people and stroke in Swansea, Wales. In 2003, Lai-Kin emigrated to New Zealand, working initially in education, teaching undergraduate nursing students. Since 2007, she has worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for stroke, setting up the Stroke Service at Wellington Regional Hospital, New Zealand.

Kelly is a registered clinical psychologist with a passion for integrating trauma-informed principles into how we operate - both as individuals and within systems. She is the founder and principal consultant of The Trauma Informed, a consultancy supporting organisations to embed trauma-informed practices into their structures, processes, and service delivery. Alongside her consulting work, Kelly provides psychological assessments and therapy through her private practice, Meeting with Minds, offering online services to clients across Aotearoa.

Julie Watson is an educator, facilitator and advocate. After two decades of working with the Human Rights Commission, she is now programme manager for Silver Rainbow and Rainbow Tick. She also provides education and consultancy around workplace relationships, inclusive policies and LGBTTQIA+ issues. Julie is on the Rainbow Panel Advisory group to Auckland City Council and is the artistic director for Auckland Playback Theatre.

Jennifer has been working as the Urology Clinical Nurse Consultant in the Royal North Shore Hospital for the past 4 years. As a registered nurse in Australia for the past 15 years, Jennifer has extensive knowledge in general, surgical and medical nursing practice. She is also an educational officer and executive committee member, of the Australia New Zealand Urological Nurses Society NSW-ACT Section. Her passion is to improve urological practice and lead junior clinicians via education.

Di is a consultant accredited health auditor with 25 years of experience in providing medication management audits and quality use of medicines services to aged care facilities. Di is skilled in developing and implementing policies and procedures and in providing education to facility staff to promote a high level of pharmaceutical care. Di was involved in implementing the leading medication packaging systems into aged care facilities and ensuring meeting and exceeding certification in facilities she was partnered with. Di has also been involved in writing training packages for industry leading education providers in medication management and best practice standards.

Winifred is a Brain Health & Dementia Consultant/Educator. She has completed a Master of Dementia with distinction, which complements her post graduate qualification in Psychology. She has had first-hand experience with dementia, supporting her Mum as primary care partner for 8 years, while she was living with Winifred and her husband. This experience ignited her passion and curiosity for the condition. Winifred is passionate about supporting and educating people with dementia, their primary care partners, family and whanau, as well as healthcare professionals, to make the journey through dementia as smooth as possible. Winifred is full of optimism and energy, which affects everyone, with whom she gets in contact, leaving them feeling more hopeful and supported for the future.