Our board

Sue is Co-Chair of the Rare Auto-Immune Rheumatic Disease Alliance (RAIRDA), a partnership established in 2016 to improve the quality of life of people living with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases.  She is also Chair of the Patient Information Forum, a UK wide organisation for people working in consumer health information – championing the role that quality information plays in the delivery of positive health outcomes.

Sue has over 25 years’ experience in senior leadership roles, working across the private, public and voluntary sector, with a background in strategic marketing & communications and broadcast journalism.

Dr Griffiths is a Consultant Rheumatologist with a special interest in the autoimmune connective tissue diseases (CTDs) and vasculitides. She has a particular interest in the following areas: SLE, systemic sclerosis, CTD-related interstitial lung disease, CTD-related pulmonary hypertension,
patient outcomes and the evaluation of the effectiveness of drug treatments. She worked as a Consultant Rheumatologist at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne from 2001 until 2024, when she retired from clinical practice. She developed and led the Northern regional CTD and vasculitis service whilst working at the Freeman Hospital. From 2016 until 2022 she was appointed as NHS England’s Chair of the Specialised Rheumatology Clinical Reference Group. During this tenure
she helped to facilitate increased access to high cost drugs to treat the CTDs and vasculitides through the NICE Technology Appraisal and NHS England Clinical Commissioning Policy routes. She also helped to develop the specialised rheumatology regional networks and regional MDT meetings throughout England, with the aim of improving patient care and access to high cost drugs.

Dr Peter Lanyon is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and a Past President of the British Society for Rheumatology. In addition to general rheumatology, he has a particular interest in rare autoimmune rheumatic disease, integrating clinical research into service delivery.

He previously chaired the NHS England Specialised Rheumatology Clinical Reference Group, whose work championed the needs of people living with rare rheumatic diseases, delivered commissioning policies to enable access to high-cost treatments, and established levers for delivery of care in regional networks.

He is currently the Clinical Lead of the National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service (NCARDRS), NHS Digital. NCARDRS is a service to support clinicians and patients, service delivery, commissioning, and public health.

Caroline Olshewsky is Chief Executive of Lupus UK, one of RAIRDA’s organisational founding members. She is an expert in not-for-profit strategy and operations. Caroline holds a number of voluntary roles in the rare disorder and learning disability sectors including as a Board Member for the Foundation for ARID1B Research.

A native Liverpudlian, Peter Glennon qualified from Oxford and London in 1982. He was a full time GP partner in a large Stafford practice for most of his career. Over this time he has had special interests in immediate care, sports medicine, dermoscopy and GP education having been a GP trainer and GP tutor. His other major interest has been rheumatology and he has been a GPSI in rheumatology, did a master’s thesis on “irritable bone syndrome”, was on various committees at arthritis research UK and devised and produced a quarterly newsletter circulated to all NHS GPs (Synovium). More recently he was the GP member of the BSR group producing the 2024 Sjogren guidelines. He spent the last 4 years of his semi-retirement working as a salaried GP in remote Scottish locations before finally hanging up his stethoscope in 2024 after a 42 year clinical career. He has a strong family history of rheumatoid, Sjogren, interstitial lung disease and vasculitis hence his motivation to be involved with RAIRDA.

Dr Elizabeth Price is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Great Western Hospital in Swindon. In addition to General Rheumatology she has a specialist interest in Sjögren’s syndrome and runs a multi-disciplinary Sjögren’s clinic accepting tertiary referrals. She currently focuses on extraglandular manifestations of the disease and clinical research into Sjögren’s, and is a member of the steering committee for the UK Primary Sjögren’s syndrome registry.

She is a Past Medical President of the British Sjögren’s Syndrome Association and a Past President of British Society of Rheumatology.

Zoi Anastasa is the Director of Operations at Vasculitis UK. She was diagnosed with GPA vasculitis in November 2014 and was lucky to get an early diagnosis, as well as reacting well to the treatment. However, vasculitis has changed her life.

Zoi started as a volunteer at Vasculitis UK in 2015 and was a Trustee before starting her role as their Director of Operations. She currently represents Vasculitis UK in the European Organisation for Rare Diseases (EURORDIS) as a member of the European Patient Advocacy Group in the ERN-RITA (the network dealing with Rare Immunodeficiency, Autoinflammatory and Autoimmune diseases). She is active in her local vasculitis support group, as well as in the Patient Participation Group of her local GP surgery.

Outside of work Zoi volunteers a few hours weekly for a charity that offers a safe community space for women from forcibly displaced backgrounds. In the past she has worked as a tutor in mathematics, as an admin, as a business manager, and until recently was working at a secondary school supporting students who have English as an additional language, mostly refugees.

Working alongside other patient advocates and patient organisations, she would like to try to make the world a better place for all those who suffer from a chronic illness.

Pat spent her working life as an accountant in private practice, retiring in 2013.She then spent some years on the board of the National Institute of Health Research Clinical Research Network: Kent Surrey and Sussex, until she moved from the area in 2019.

Pat was diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome in 2010 and joined the British Sjögren’s Syndrome Association (BSSA) soon afterwards. Pat was then appointed as a trustee of the BSSA in October 2022, and has joined the RAIRDA board as a representative of the organisation.

The BSSA is dedicated to providing mutual support and information to individuals with Sjögren’s Syndrome. It offers a helpline, a variety of literature, an annual medical meeting and also annually awards a research grant.