TEDxNHS 2025: Evolve programme

Running order

Location: Bush House, KCL, South East Wing, Bush House, Strand Campus, Strand, London WC2B 4PJ (use Arcade entrance)

Find about more about speakers and performers.

2.30pm Pre-event networking and activities including:

Stacey Hussell’s photo exhibition
TEDxNHS creative space
Chance to mingle with TEDxNHS attendees, alumni, sponsors, and team
Ed Garcia’s live art
Pitch a TEDxNHS Talk

3.40pm Auditorium opens

3.55pm Auditorium doors close

4.00pm Introduction

4.15pm Talks

A note of care: Talks and performances today will explore challenging triggering themes. Please look after yourself and pause or step away if you need to.

Alice Gregory (she/her): “Dance for wellbeing: completely yourself and totally alive”
Natalie Miller (she/her): “How do we make space for care in a system designed for punishment?”
Thomas Reading (he/him): “Physiotherapy saves futures”
Jemma Martin (she/her): “Hyperemesis Gravidarum – this could never be pregnancy”
Stacey Hussell (she/her): “Being visibly invisible – a journey with cleft”
Dr Priyesh Patel (he/him): “Healthcare in hidden communities: why it’s everyone’s problem”

5.50pm break

6.00pm Talks

A note of care: Talks and performances today will explore challenging triggering themes. Please look after yourself and pause or step away if you need to.

DUKE AL (he/him): “Power of the pen: OCD, T1D and the superpower of words”
Prof. Claire Smith (she/her): “Our silent teachers: the future of body donation”
Dr Lauren Bull (she/her): “When porn becomes the curriculum: killing real connection one click at a time”
David Bahibanda (he/him): “Cultural practices we carry – the story of calabash chalk
Lynda Odoh (she/her): “Breaking the sitting cycle in workplaces: small moves, big shifts”
Shirin Yazdian (she/her): “Creating space for neurodivergent people by default”

7.25pm Close and thanks

7.30pm – 9.30pm Drinks reception

Introduction

Welcome to our eighth instalment of TEDxNHS. This year we present to you TEDxNHS 2025: EVOLVE.

As our health and care systems move through a time of accelerated transformation, this year’s theme, EVOLVE, captures the urgency and opportunity of the moment. The NHS 10 Year Plan lays out a clear vision: shifting care into the community, shifting from analogue to digital, and shifting from treatment to prevention. However, evolution does not just happen through policy. It happens in people, specifically those who are adapting, innovating, and challenging the way things have always been done. TEDxNHS is here to celebrate that human side of change: the lived experiences, bold ideas, and untold stories that are driving the NHS forward.

Talks and speakers

Selected from almost 400 applications, each of the 10 talks presented to you today is crafted from months of collaboration and coaching, and shared without notes, props, or slides. It has been a pleasure to see the growth from a simple idea to a talk on the main stage.

Community and networking

The TEDxNHS Community is a wide one, spanning colleagues from various health and care backgrounds along with our esteemed alumni and sponsors. This year we have set aside a dedicated time before the event for everyone to get to know one another, get comfortable, and swap stories before immersing oneself in the talks of the day. We also see a return of “Pitch a TEDxNHS Talk”, which was a hit last year, and through which we actually found 2 of our speakers for this year!

Venue: Bush House

We are thrilled to be hosting this year’s event in Bush House, a Grade II listed landmark in the heart of London. Once the headquarters of the BBC World Service, Bush House has long been a global stage for storytelling, innovation, and the exchange of ideas. It is a space steeped in history, but always looking ahead. This makes it a perfect setting for a TEDxNHS that honours the past while looking forward to the future.

Volunteers: The Heart of TEDxNHS

None of it would be possible without our volunteers. TEDxNHS is a labour of love, powered by a dedicated team of people who give their time and energy to make this event what it is. From curation and coaching, to production, logistics, and communications, every detail is shaped by volunteers who believe deeply in the power of storytelling to spark change.

We hope today leaves you inspired, challenged, and connected.

The TEDxNHS team

Need to knows for the day

We have some requests of you to keep everything running smoothly through the day:

All of the TEDx talks you will hear today are being filmed and will be published online in the coming weeks and months. In order to ensure that we capture the talks in the highest quality please do not leave your seat during the talks. If you think you may need to move around during a session please take a seat on the balcony level or in the relaxed room.
A note of care: Talks and performances today will explore sensitive themes. If at any point you feel affected or triggered please do look after yourself and pause or step away if you need to.
Please do not film or use flash photography during the event.
Please do not leave your belongings in the theatre during the breaks.
Please do not bring any food into the theatre.
Please return to the theatre promptly after the breaks. If a talk is in progress you will not be able to enter the theatre.

Our sponsors

Headline sponsor

CW+ is the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. They work with their Trust to create world-class facilities, drive innovation and research, and enhance patient and staff wellbeing. Using their expertise in partnership building, arts in health and healthcare innovation, they develop creative solutions to support an evolving NHS.

Volunteering for Health

Volunteering for health is a £10m programme taking place across England and is being delivered through a partnership between NHS Charities Together, NHS England, and CW+. The programme is looking to optimise how volunteers work in local systems to share expertise and maximise their impact in the health and care ecosystem to ensure continuity of care. One of the ways Volunteering for Health is enabling this is by implementing a volunteer passport making it easier for volunteers to support the people who need them most, especially if their care takes place across multiple institutions within the health setting.

Digital Inclusion

Digital Inclusion was a £1.23m two-year programme was part of the NHS Charities Together Stage 2 (community partnerships) COVID Recovery Programme. Their aim was to tackle the health inequalities which surfaced from the rise of digital services during the pandemic. They focused on improving access to digital services, especially in the disadvantaged population in NW London. Their impact was substantial, with Increased access to the internet and improving confidence in using digital tools.

CW+ has been proudly supporting TEDxNHS since our online series ‘Unlocked’ in 2021. TEDxNHS is especially grateful to CW+ for taking a chance on us whilst we pivoted our model during ‘the Covid-19 years’ and continuing to support us every year since.

RADA Business helps people at work become brilliant communicators. They build on the work of one of the world’s most respected drama schools to deliver world class training programmes and coaching for organisations and individuals. RADA Business has kindly held bespoke sessions for all our TEDxNHS speakers every year since 2018.

Find out more about RADA Business

TEDxNHS 2025 event team

Co-organisers

Farah Virani (Curation Lead)
Aiswarya Nagasubramony (Logistics and Communications)
Simon Greenwood (Volunteers and Audience Experience)

Audience Experience Lead

Jason Jeevaruban

Communications Lead

Alenka Daniel

Communications Team

Anna Hinde
Joanne Marlor
Amber Vesty

Logistics Lead

Alex Booth

Volunteer Lead

Faith Agbakoba

Speaker coaches

Rhea Burman
Arub Syed
Adedoyin Oyekan
Sofia Shah
Shaun Flores
Aislong Pigott
Martha Ewas
Sarah Gibbons
Molly Fenton
Marina Khan

Coach Mentors

Becky Taylor
Alex Prinsley
Katie Freeman Jones

Wider Support

Mark Biddle
Katie Harrison

TEDxNHS 2025: Evolve programme

Contents