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Dr Kasim Ahmed

Dr Kasim Ahmed is an NHS doctor, specialising in Geriatric Medicine and General Internal Medicine. He came to public attention as  ‘Faithful Kas’ in series three of The Traitors on BBC One. Following his time on The Traitors, Kasim made a series of media appearances on daytime television, across national and local radio stations, and on social media and quickly became a fan favourite.

Kasim took an unconventional route into medicine, having started a degree in Mathematics at King’s College, London, at the recommendation of his tutors, before transferring into a Biomedical Sciences. During his undergraduate degree, he realised that his passion was working with patients as well as academia, and so he chose to pursue a career in Medicine.

After completing an accelerated medical degree at Imperial College London, he began his career in the East of England. He gained clinical experience in various surgical specialties, medical specialties, psychiatry and community medicine before choosing to specialise as a physician in Geriatric Medicine and General Internal Medicine. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

As a geriatrician, Kasim is keenly aware of medical, social and ethical issues that arise with an aging population, as well as how political turbulence can affect vulnerable populations on both the personal and national level. He practices inpatient, outpatient and community medicine, and is keen to ensure that each patient has the best possible clinical outcomes while respecting their personal, social and religious values.

As well as a practicing clinician, Kasim is also a keen academic and medical educator. He has been involved in training medical students, newly qualified doctors and more senior resident doctors in clinical practice. He is currently completing a master’s degree at UCL in Medical Education, and hopes to use his research to challenge approaches to education in an ever changing health climate.

Kasim has shared his medical expertise with the nation with several appearances on BBC’s Morning Live on television and on the Today programme on radio.

Outside of work, Kasim and his wife, Zahraa, enjoy going on adventures with their daughter, Noura- both real and imaginary! Always keen to try new things, he has previously taken up Kung Fu, ice skating and squash. More recently, he has taken up running as a hobby which helps balance his parenting schedule.

Kasim is keen to use his platform to engage with the public in issues affecting physical and mental health, exploring advances in medical research and technology, and exploring personal stories of those suffering from acute and chronic medical conditions. Additionally, he takes great pride in exploring and understanding how different cultures approach health and wellbeing and bringing the best to his own medical practice.

Marc Abraham

Dr Marc Abraham OBE, or ‘Marc the Vet’ as he is usually known, is a multi-award-winning veterinary surgeon, broadcaster, author, and animal welfare campaigner; regularly appearing on shows including BBC Breakfast, Sky News and ITV’s Tonight. In 2025, Marc released his film Dogspiracy which follows his travels to the US to explore the controversies surrounding the trade and sale of puppies in American pet stores. He explored the same topic in 2015 as a producer on the US documentary, Dog by Dog. Marc has experience across a range of different veterinary work and volunteers abroad, bringing a unique perspective to both broadcast and corporate work.

Marc is the author of four books for adults: Vet on Call, Pets in Need, Lucy’s Law: The Story of a Little Dog Who Changed the World, and most recently #BeMoreMosquito: How you can campaign and create change. In 2026, Marc released his first book for children, Leon’s Reef. The picture book aims to teach children that working together to look after ourselves and our environment makes life better.

Marc writes blogs and articles to raise awareness for animal welfare across local, national, and international media, is the resident vet on BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey and shares tips on his popular X and Facebook accounts. Marc has successfully collaborated with a whole host of household brands and events and is often invited to speak at public engagements as well as at meetings in Parliament.

His passion for animal welfare has also seen Marc volunteer overseas for numerous animal welfare organisations. These include vaccinating dogs against rabies in the Mumbai Slums, rescuing dancing bears in Ukraine, saving cats and dogs in post-tsunami Thailand, rescuing dogs from dogmeat farms in South Korea, neutering pets deep in the Amazon Jungle, working with pit-bulls in US prisons, operating on street dogs in Udaipur, India, going undercover to investigate Finnish fur farms, rescuing ex-breeding dogs and puppies from U.S puppy mills, as well as performing dental work on a rescued Moonbear in Chengdu, China.

Marc campaigns extensively for animal welfare issues both in the UK and US, including promoting rescue pet adoption and responsible dog and cat breeding. In 2009 he set up Pup Aid, a national puppy farming awareness campaign, featuring an annual celebrity-judged dog show in London’s Primrose Hill. Responsible for three of the biggest pet welfare government e-petitions of all time, Marc is also the co-founder and secretariat of the All-party Parliamentary Dog Advisory Welfare Group (APDAWG) and helped source rescue dog Dilyn for Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie.

After leading a 10-year campaign, including 300+ visits to Westminster to lobby MPs and Ministers, the Government passed Lucy’s Law, banning the commercial third-party trade in puppies and kittens. This made all dog and cat breeders accountable by providing a legislative framework to help investigation and prosecution, in turn providing support and transparency for prospective pet owners. The campaign was also successful in changing the law in Wales, Scotland, and later in Northern Ireland.

Based in Brighton, Marc currently works at The Mewes Vets in nearby Rottingdean and regularly visits local primary and secondary schools to talk with pupils about caring for animals and looking out for one another. He is the proud ambassador for, and patron of, several animal charities including All Dogs Matter, Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home, Humane Society International UK, SPANA, Oldies Club, Friends of Animals Wales, Nowzad Dogs, Compassion in World Farming, and Together Co.

In recognition of his work at home and worldwide, Marc was awarded an OBE for Services to Animal Welfare by King Charles III at Windsor Castle, after being announced in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Awards

Winner ‘Prime Minister’s Points of Light’ Award 2020

Winner ‘Best Public Awareness Cause Campaign’ PR Week Campaigns for Good Awards 2019

Winner ‘Golden Sabre for Animal Care’ #SABREAwardsEMEA 2019

Winner ‘Voluntary Sector Campaign of the Year’ PRCA Public Affairs Awards 2018

Winner ‘Special Award’ Daily Mirror/RSPCA Animal Hero Awards 2018

Winner ‘Vet of the Year’ 2014, 2015, 2016

Dr. Sian Williams

Dr Sian Williams is an award-winning broadcast journalist whose warmth and presentation skills have made her one of the best known and most versatile broadcasters on British television and radio. She is also a Chartered Counselling Psychologist working for both the NHS and in private practice, helping people manage anxiety, stress and trauma.

Sian presents BBC Radio 4’s Life Changing, a series exploring pivotal moments in people’s lives. To date, Life Changing has had more than seven million downloads, is one of BBC Sounds’ most listened-to podcasts and consistently ranks in Radio 4’s Top 5 programmes. Sian is known for her “gentle, empathetic approach” to interviews, which “encourages guests to tell their own stories… without glossing over more difficult areas”. Sian was listed in the Radio Times Top 10 broadcast interviewers of all time and awarded the Television and Radio Industries Club Best Newsreader/Reporter twice in successive years.

Sian also hosts ‘Classical Unwind’ on BBC Radio 3 Unwind. The show is part of a new 24/7 broadcast launched by BBC Sounds in 2025, designed to provide listeners with calming classical music to aid relaxation and well-being. Sian presents the programme daily in the mid-morning slot and incorporates advice from psychology and neuroscience experts into the programme.

Sian’s career in broadcasting spans nearly forty years. She spent over a decade anchoring BBC Breakfast. During that time, audiences more than doubled. Sian also presented all the BBC’s main news bulletins and hosted major events for BBC One, including the London 2012 Olympics, the Royal Weddings of Charles and Camilla and William and Kate, numerous General Elections and the commemorations marking the anniversaries of the two World Wars. Sian has presented many prime-time TV shows, including Crimewatch and National Treasures Live for BBC One and numerous series of Save Money, Good Health, which ran on ITV1 over several years.

In her radio work, as BBC Radio 4’s co-presenter of Saturday Live, Sian helped attract more than a quarter of a million new listeners. She was also the co-host of a unique programme, in which she was joined in the BBC studios by The Queen, to broadcast live.

Sian is proud to be able to bring stories of mental well-being to a mass audience, using her journalistic and psychological skills. During her time as Channel 5’s main news anchor, she introduced the UK’s first dedicated mental health slot on a TV news bulletin called ‘Mind Matters with Dr Sian’, it covered issues ranging from ADHD, addiction, anxiety, eating disorders, OCD and PTSD.

In her work as a psychologist, Sian has a thriving private practice, where she offers consultancy, workshops, group and individual therapy. She is a Senior Specialist Psychological Therapist at the Centre for Anxiety, Stress and Trauma at the NHS, where she primarily helps emergency service staff recover from work-related traumatic events. In 2023, Sian hosted an event for HRH Prince William, meeting first responders and listening to their mental health concerns. She is a regular host of the annual Emergency Services Mental Health Symposium, which is supported by the Royal Foundation.

Sian has been a keynote speaker at, or hosted major events for, Google, the British Psychological Society, the BBC, ITV, ITN, King’s College London, and more. She has chaired or taken part in a variety of panel discussions, including on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, and at the Hay Festival. She has written on mental health issues for newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, Good Housekeeping and The Psychologist.

Sian’s first book Rise: Surviving and Thriving after Trauma was published in June 2016. Her most recent book The Power of Anxiety: How to Ride the Worry Wave was released in March 2026. It focuses on how we can turn towards anxiety, accept it, and work with it.

Dr Saleyha Ahsan

Dr Saleyha Ahsan is an emergency medicine doctor. She is also a filmmaker and broadcast journalist, having worked and produced content for a variety of broadcasters.

On Channel 4 she has presented and produced the Dispatches programmes: Coronavirus: Can Our NHS Cope?, exploring the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the UK’s health services. She presented What’s It Like to Catch Coronavirus? and Condition Critical: One Doctor’s Story, which she filmed and directed herself. She has presented films for BBC’s The One Show, Panorama, Newsnight, Horizon and co-presented several series of the hit BBC Two series Trust Me, I’m a Doctor. She joined Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins team as the onscreen medic and appeared on Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls in 2018. On radio she has also presented BBC Radio 4’s Inside Health.

Saleyha appears regularly on Jeremy Vine on Channel 5.

Saleyha began her broadcast career as a junior reporter for BBC local radio in London. She took a four-year break from journalism upon gaining a place at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to attend their arduous army officer training course. She was the first British Muslim woman to do so, and was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps as a non-medical support officer. During her operational tour of Bosnia in 1997 as part of NATO’s Stabilisation Force (SFOR), Saleyha was inspired to re-train as a doctor, after witnessing severe trauma suffered by Bosnian civilians caused by landmines. She commenced her studies at the University of Dundee and resumed her journalism career as a freelancer at the same time.

Saleyha is an accomplished filmmaker, with her first cinematic short My Mother’s Daughter winning Best European Film at the TED sponsored Pangea Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2008.

Her current affairs broadcast work spans coverage of humanitarian, health, and conflict reporting, and she has worked as either a filmmaker or doctor in Syria, Libya, Kashmir, Palestine, DR Congo and Pakistan. After years of witnessing and documenting the challenges of access to healthcare in conflict zones, she completed her LLM in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Essex. This has now evolved to further study; she completed a PhD at Magdalene College, Cambridge where she examined the impact of attacks against healthcare in conflict zones.

When not pursuing current affairs, Saleyha also writes drama for BBC Radio 4, very much inspired by her journalism and is currently working on her fourth play. In 2018, in recognition of her media and humanitarian work, Saleyha was awarded an honorary degree from her alma mater, the University of Dundee.

Saleyha has spoken at a number of events. She was part of the Army Presentation Team during her time in the British Army and has since given talks on her experiences as a frontline doctor and journalist in Libya and at the Royal Society of Medicine’s ‘Extreme Medicine’ conference.

Dr Ellie Cannon

Geordie-born, London-based Dr Ellie is an NHS GP, broadcaster, and writer, familiar to many as the Mail on Sunday’s health columnist. She has appeared regularly on ITV ‘s This Morning as one of their health correspondents, and broadcasts on BBC Breakfast, Sky News, and ITV News. She is a well-known radio contributor often featuring on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and LBC.

In 2022 she was recognised by the medical journalists’ association as highly commended for her writing on mental health.

Ellie’s most recent book, The Little Book of HRT, is the go-to manual for anybody considering starting HRT and navigating the perimenopause and menopause journey. Ellie condenses everything doctors wish they had time to tell you, taking you through all the ins and outs of hormone replacement therapy. In 2018, Is Your Job Making You Ill? was published, focusing on health issues at work. Her first book Keep Calm: The New Mum’s Manual is a guide for new parents.

She has appeared on the prime-time Channel 4 series Health Freaks and Doctor in Your House, as well as taking part in specials on breast cancer and work-place stress for ITV Tonight. She also channelled her inner geek appearing on Celebrity Eggheads as part of a team of TV doctors – and winning her round!

Ellie is a confident public speaker and presents regularly at conferences and corporate events on a range of topics. She has appeared in conversation with HRH the Prince of Wales at the inaugural mental health at work conference, This Can Happen.

She works extensively with brands across consumer health products and is a respected voice for the NHS and Department of Health, appearing for them on multiple health awareness campaigns across traditional and social media.

Ellie presented the healthcare podcast Breakthroughs with Pfizer UK.

Ellie is a charity ambassador for several health charities, including The Eve Appeal and Meningitis Now. In October 2018 she travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo with Save the Children to film an awareness campaign on pneumonia.

Dr Ellie read medicine at the University of Cambridge before settling in London, where she has practised in the same GP surgery (on the famous Abbey Road) for over a decade. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of GPs, an honour given to those who have made an outstanding contribution to general practice. She has a social media following of over 30k, a keen swimmer, and a proud mother.

In 2022, she was named GDST Alumna of the Year, a national award with previous winners including Samira Ahmed and Olivia Colman.