Understanding Allergies 2025

Professor of Paediatric Allergy at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital.

Adam read Medicine at Cambridge University. From 2006, he spent 9 years as clinical lead for Allergy (Adult & Paediatric) at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals, London. After 3 years as Clinical Director for Specialist Ambulatory Medicine, he took up the post of Deputy Medical Director (Commercial) for Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in 2018 until 2023. He is also a Professor of Paediatric Allergy at King’s College London and the founding Director of the KCL Allergy Academy, a postgraduate educational programme, which was a finalist at the BMJ Awards in 2018.

Adam was elected as President of the British Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, the first Paediatrician to hold this position, from October 2018 until 2021, after which he took on the role of Chair of the National Allergy Strategy Group from July 2022. As part of this, he jointly chairs the Expert Advisory Group for Allergy with the Department of Health & Social Care and is lead for the National Allergy Strategy.

Adam was awarded ‘Paediatric Allergist of the Year’ from Allergy UK in 2007. His doctoral thesis on peanut allergy received the Raymond Horton Smith prize from Cambridge University in 2012 and he was included in The Times ‘Britain’s 100 Best Children’s Doctor’s’. Adam received the William Frankland Award for Outstanding contribution to Allergy in 2015 and a Department of Health National Clinical Excellence award from the in 2016 and 2020. In 2024, Adam became only the second person to receive the BSACI Fellows Award in recognition of outstanding contribution to clinical allergy.

Together with two colleagues he established The Food Allergy Immunotherapy Centre at Great Ormond St Hospital in 2021, where he initiated the first patient in the world, outside of the US, on Palforzia (the first licenced food allergy desensitisation product). The centre offers oral immunotherapy for multiple foods.

Dr Francesca Sawer, Clinical Psychologist specialising in Allergies @drfrancescas

Francesca is an experienced clinical psychologist specialising in paediatrics, currently working at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Her values as a clinical psychologist are to work with young people and their families to empower them and equip them with skills, tools, strategies and insights to manage all aspects of their emotional wellbeing and mental health and gain confidence in navigating life’s challenges and hurdles.

Francesca is also hugely passionate about working with children and families with allergies, having previously led the psychology team at the Children’s Allergy Service at the Evelina Children’s Hospital, which is the largest allergy service in Europe.

Since then, having been shocked by how little psychology support is available throughout the UK for children with allergies, she has remained hugely involved in the field, working with both the Sadie Bristow foundation as a specialist advisor as well as continuing to support hundreds of families along with Dr Helen Allergy through memberships, short courses and her 1:1 work in private practice.

Founder and lead trainer at The Allergy Badge

As a qualified trainer, Natalie runs the accredited training provider, The Allergy Badge, delivering training and workshops to businesses, schools, nurseries and parents and carers across the UK. The comprehensive sessions are built, not only on key information, but her own experiences as a mum to Ella – who has life-threatening food allergies herself.

Natalie also works as a consultant for brands across various industries providing everything from allergy awareness workshops and auditing through to guest speaking, marketing and events. She has delivered sessions to businesses including Jaguar Land Rover, Pip & Nut, Tesco, Saputo (Vitalite, Cathedral City, Frylight), supported charities such as The Sadie Bristow Foundation and The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and built courses for High Speed Training.

Natalie is tireless in her pursuit of raising awareness around allergies, and was recognised at the 2024 Best Business Awards. She hopes that her career experience and being an ‘allergy parent’ will allow her to bring unique insights and help others on their allergy journey.

Julianne Ponan MBE, CEO of Creative Nature

Julianne is a pioneer in the free-from world. She was diagnosed with severe anaphylaxis at two years old, she has multiple allergies to all peanuts, treenuts, sesame, chickpeas and more. She is the founder and CEO of Creative Nature a Top 14 allergen free brand, through her own experiences and challenges living with allergies she focused on Creative Nature to be at the forefront of ‘free from’ innovation, pushing the boundaries and launching a range of free from foods with good nutrition from baking to snacks! In recognition of her outstanding contributions to business, exports, and aiding individuals with allergies, Julianne was honoured with an MBE in the New Year’s Kings Honours.

Creative Nature has grown from strength to strength driving change for free-from food in the aviation industry, launching products on board Virgin Atlantic, Iberia, KLM and more. The brand is also into Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Tesco, Asda, Tesco exports to 16 countries including the UAE.

Julianne is a pioneer for ensuring air travel is for everyone and that everyone deserves to eat on board a flight working with many airlines on the education of catering for people with allergies on board.

Julianne also serves as a Non-Executive Director for GS1 UK and holds the position of Export Policy Champion for the FSB. Beyond her corporate roles, Julianne is a passionate advocate for those with allergies, striving to improve their lives and reduce stress associated with their conditions, she is regularly featured on BBC, Sky News. She has spoken at the Houses of Parliament, been a guest judge on Britain’s Next Top Model, is a judge for the Free From Food Awards and more recently Julianne has just been appointed as the first Medic Alert ambassador in 65 years. Medic Alert is a charity that saves lives through their medical id’s.

GP and Allergy Specialist ( Dr Helen Allergy)

Dr Helen Evans-Howells qualified with honours from Southampton University in 2005 and then trained as a GP, completing this in 2015. Helen became interested in allergy due to her own experiences of managing a child with milk and nut allergies. She undertook the Masters in Allergy at Southampton University and qualified with distinction in 2018.

After working with the allergy team in Southampton Hospital for 4.5years, Helen now runs a private allergy clinic –www.drhelenallergy.co.uk, which provides virtual and face to face allergy consultations. Dr Helen lectures extensively across the UK and internationally. Helen has the only community clinic outside of London which offers food immunotherapy to children under 6, and she also helps run the peanut immunotherapy clinic at Southampton Hospital. Dr Helen has an allergy centre in Ringwood and branch clinic in Belfast.

Dr Helen works tirelessly to support those with food allergies, sending up an online support group and membership, developing an EATS club (eating allergens together safely) to support families with the introduction of allergens in a supervised setting (for those that are nervous /have others with allergies in the family), and working closely with charity.

Helen was the previous chair for the primary care group of British Society of Allergy and is now a trustee for the Anaphylaxis UK Charity and Chair of their Clinical and Scientific panel.
Helen has appeared on The Jeremy Vine Extra show on Channel 5,BBC Radio, the Today Program and has written for various newspaper articles, raising awareness about allergies and anaphylaxis.

Helen runs a free private Facebook group to provide further support to patients and families struggling with allergies;

Our Ambassador – Allergy Sufferer

My name is Adam Orzel and I am a British ski racer. I am 16 and live in Birmingham. Last year I was selected for the British Children’s Ski team and represented GB in a number of international children’s races. I have just moved up to international FIS racing, which is the single world wide ranking system, and my goal for the season is to get re-selected for the British FIS team at the end of this year. I have a very severe nut allergy which makes skiing much harder as I spend 12-16 weeks per year travelling round Europe with my ski team, with constantly changing languages between countries that make it very difficult to read ingredients. As food brands are different in Europe compared to the UK I have had to learn what is safe to eat and what isn’t. The further challenge is that as an athlete with a physically demanding schedule, getting the right fuelling for my body to ensure I am in peak form is essential. However most specialist sports bars available in supermarkets contain nuts, limiting me to what I have easy access to. In my ski team there have also been others I’ve trained with that are Coeliac or have Lactose allergies and with the right planning everything is possible and just shows that an allergy doesn’t stop you following your dreams.

Expert Dietitian – Specialising in Food Allergy

Hannah Whittaker is a registered dietitian with a special focus on paediatric allergy. As the Clinical Lead Dietitian at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, she’s passionate about improving the way allergy care is delivered to help children and their families, and ensuring healthcare professionals get the support they need to make the right diagnoses.

Hannah also runs her own private practice, bump2baby Nutrition, where she offers personalised allergy support to families navigating food allergies. She’s currently studying for an MSc in Allergy at the University of Southampton, which helps her stay at the forefront of the latest allergy research.

As a key member of the British Dietetic Association’s Paediatric sub-group, Hannah works on national guidelines and regularly speaks at events to share her expertise. She’s also committed to supporting allergy charities, aiming to raise awareness and improve the quality of care for children with allergies.

Immunology/Allergy Consultant East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Leman Mutlu is a Consultant based at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Mutlu attended medical school near Istanbul, Turkey and completed postgraduate research training in the USA and Germany, after which she settled in the UK and started clinical postgraduate training.

Dr Mutlu completed internal medicine training in Liverpool in 2010 and Immunology and Allergy training in Birmingham in 2023. Following specialist Immunology and Allergy training, Dr Mutlu was appointed as a Consultant in East Kent Hospitals to set-up services there. She is a steering committee member and patient group liaison representative of the national clinical immunology network and also member of the British society of allergy and clinical immunology. She is passionate about empowering patients and sees them as major stakeholders in management of disease. She is also a mum and is delighted to team up with Clare and the Bristow family to continue building a great legacy for Sadie within and beyond Kent.