Conference Programme 2026
We have a very exciting and engaging programme lined up for this years NBE Conference. With a mix of inspiring talks and practical hands on workshops you'll leave conference feel revigorated and armed with new knowledge, techniques and ideas for your team - enabling you to provide the very best of care for your patients.
Plenary Sessions
Beth Stallwood, speaker, consultant, facilitator, coach, podcast host and author
We're delighted to welcome back Beth Stallwood as our day one opening session. Beth will be bringing her unique take on 'Work Joy' and how you can better fuel your working life. More info coming soon!
Anthony Bennett – Miracle Man – Inspirational & Motivational Speaker
Anthony Bennett is an inspirational speaker and motivational speaker & fundraiser who learned how to walk, talk and speak again after contracting three virus infections at the same time
In 2006, after returning from a school trip Anthony fell extremely ill and was left fighting for his life.
The cause was narrowed down to the air conditioning within the coach and affected 80% of students on the trip but left Anthony with 10% chance of survival after contracting 3 viral infections - Streph-Pneumonia, Influenza, and Staphylococcus.
After making a full recovery, Anthony played a major role in winning a £7.5m Charity Partnership between Whitbread PLC and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, where he spent 4 years traveling the UK and Inspiring teams to get involved in raising the much-needed funds for the children’s charity. The money raised went towards the construction of a brand new cardiac hospital wing, helping at the children’s hospital to treat up to 20% more children.
Now an International Speaker, Anthony inspires audiences globally
Dr Dawn Benson, Public speaker, Academic, Educator, Campaigner, Investigator, COO
Dawn is a sociologist who specialises in safety investigation within health, social care, and education.
She spent almost 20 years as an academic researching and teaching at the universities of Northumbria, Aberdeen, and Oxford.
Her work in Human Factors and patient safety was born from personal experience when her first child was birth injured. She is particularly interested in how we improve services by engaging patient/service user perspective.
She has worked as a National Investigator at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) where she was previously seconded to establish the education function and developed the concept of Investigation Science.
Confirmed Workshops:
Tone, Proprioception and Risk: Understanding Protective Responses in Moving and Handling
Dani Paige, SupportiveAction, Director & Moving and Handling Practitoner
This workshop explores why protective responses frequently occur during moving and handling tasks that are planned correctly and use appropriate equipment. The session begins by focusing on what staff commonly observe in practice, such as stiffness, gripping, pushing away, or increased tension during transfers. These responses are often described as resistance but are more accurately understood as protective reactions when movement feels unpredictable. Participants will then explore the role of tone and proprioception in movement and how reduced sensory predictability can influence a person’s response to handling tasks. Using familiar moving and handling scenarios, the workshop links these responses to increased handling risk for staff.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us? (Can Artificial Intelligence Enhance the Work of Manual Handling Advisers?)
Carole Johnson, Freelance Manual Handling Adviser
Manual handling has moved well beyond its origins in technique-based ‘just do it’ physical lifting. Today, it is a fast evolving, multidisciplinary practice shaped by research, experience and continuous learning, where science, engineering and health advances intersect with human dignity, positive risk taking, policy and legal responsibilities. Across social care, education and acute settings, practitioners navigate complex decisions to support those in their care safely and compassionately. Artificial intelligence is becoming part of this evolving landscape. Does it have the potential to threaten our roles, take away our jobs? Could it make our lives easier by saving time and money, freeing us up to do what we are passionate about? To make the most of AI, we must understand both its potential and its limits. AI can already search, summarise and support documentation tasks, but can it offer more? Can it assist with aspects of our reasoning, analysis and problem solving, or does it risk making the Manual Handling Adviser as obsolete as some of the early strategies we once relied upon?
Maximising Safe Practice with M&H Positioning Wedges
Amanda Wells, Moving, Handling & Ergonomics Co-ordinator
This practical and interactive workshop explores how Manual & Handling (M&H) positioning wedges can be used to improve task effectiveness and reduce unnecessary moving and handling in health and social care settings. Attendees will learn how positioning wedges support the principles of safer handling, promote musculoskeletal health, enabling both patients and care givers to work in safer, more efficient ways. The session focuses on wedge application, clinical reasoning, and embedding wedges into everyday practice to enhance safety, comfort, and independence
Repositioning in Bed for the Solo Carer: Practical Techniques Using an In-Bed Repositioning System and Positioning Wedges
Julia Love, Manual Handling Advisor, LPS Training & Consultancy Ltd
This interactive, hands-on session led by Julia Love, Advanced Member of the National Back Exchange (NBE), focuses on repositioning techniques for individuals in bed, specifically tailored for the solo carer or handler. Known for her practical teaching style, Julia will guide attendees through real-life scenarios, encouraging active participation and skill practice throughout.
How the Sensory Systems can impact manual handling
Caroline Robinson, Senior Occupational Therapist, Essex County Council
The workshop will exploration briefly how the introduction of a sensory integration approach into adult social care in Essex marked a significant shift in 2021. Appreciating that until then, awareness among social care professionals was limited as sensory processing was not an area of practice that would have traditionally sat within this workforce. It was seen as being a ‘health’ need or not even recognised. The organisation had made a strategic commitment to invest in post-professional training for staff in learning disability and autism teams, while also recruiting individuals with expertise and passion in sensory integration. This initiative sparked a ripple effect across the organisation, with in-house workshops and development sessions beginning to foster a growing culture of sensory-informed practice.
Supporting Sex and Intimacy in Practice: Positioning, Moving and Handling, and Professional Boundaries
Dani Paige, SupportiveAction, Director & Moving and Handling Practitoner
This workshop focuses on the practical realities of supporting disabled people with sex and intimacy, with particular attention to moving and handling, positioning, and physical support needs. The session explores how intimacy-related activities can raise uncertainty for staff, particularly where movement, positioning, equipment, or physical assistance may be required. Rather than avoiding these situations, the workshop supports professionals to think practically and safely about how moving and handling principles can be applied while maintaining dignity, consent, and clear professional boundaries. Using realistic practice scenarios, participants will consider positioning, support needs, and environmental factors, alongside legal and ethical considerations, to support safer, more confident decision-making in this area of practice.
Handling a person on the bed: available evidence and practical application
Elizabeth Hallows, Independent Moving and Handling Specialist and Chartered Physiotherapist and Julia Maclean Independent Moving and Handling Specialist and Occupational Therapist
This session will explore relevant evidence and guidance relating to the biomechanics of handling a person on the bed and how this can inform assessment, clinical reasoning and practical handling. Tasks involving assisting a person to move on a bed are commonplace across many health and social care settings, often for reasons of care delivery such as assisting the person to wash, dress, reposition and to redistribute pressure. There is published evidence that a higher level of exposure to undertaking these tasks is associated with a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders amongst health and social care workers. An understanding of biomechanics will assist moving and handling assessors to come to reasoned conclusions regarding risk, identify methods and equipment that may enable the client and reduce risk and also inform the detail of practical handling.
Using a risk matrix to support the balanced and reasoned assessment of risk from hazards associated with the manual handling of individuals who need assistance to move and to provide data that can be used to measure outcomes
Elizabeth Hallows, Independent Moving and Handling Specialist and Chartered Physiotherapist and Julia Maclean Independent Moving and Handling Specialist and Occupational Therapist
Provide data that can be used to measure outcomes Guidance from the HSE and in HOP7 requires that the manual handling assessments that we carry out are “balanced” such that the risks to both the handler and the person are assessed and reduced, whilst the person is at the same time assisted in ways that support their choice, dignity and comfort. Using a risk matrix enables the assessor to clearly identify the hazards and more objectively quantify the level of risk to each party. This supports the assessor in identifying possible solutions to reduce the risk in a balanced manner, shows clear reasoning and also enables a comparison between the “before and after” of interventions. Using a risk matrix can be especially helpful in situations where there are differences of opinion between people regarding the level of risk and the need for interventions. We will use a video clip of a scenario both before and after interventions, and will invite the attendees to complete the risk matrix using an app on their phones to illustrate our session. Delegates will have access to copyright-free manual handling risk assessment documentation incorporating a risk matrix.
The Power of Air – clinical application of air-assisted patient transfer solutions throughout the careflow
Carol Sinden, Global Director, Medical Affairs – Patient Handling and Hygiene, Arjo - SPONSORED BY ARJO
Air is invisible but its power is unmistakable. Harnessing this power in air-assisted patient handling devices is well known for it's ability to laterally transfer from one surface to another - but their place in the careflow is key for other patient handling activities such as repositioning, changing bed linen and supporting in side-lying, for example. The same principle is now being adopted as a preferred and best practice method for falls management.
Tackling Musculoskeletal Disorders in Early Years and Primary Education
Lorna Taylor, Physiotherapist and Founder
As evidence grows about musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the early years and primary education sector for teachers and our future generation of workers, hear first-hand about latest research, interventions and signposting to support your practice and be able to share with others.
How the Sensory Systems can impact manual handling
Caroline Robinson, Senior Occupational Therapist
The workshop will exploration briefly how the introduction of a sensory integration approach into adult social care in Essex marked a significant shift in 2021. Appreciating that until then, awareness among social care professionals was limited as sensory processing was not an area of practice that would have traditionally sat within this workforce. It was seen as being a ‘health’ need or not even recognised. The organisation had made a strategic commitment to invest in post-professional training for staff in learning disability and autism teams, while also recruiting individuals with expertise and passion in sensory integration. This initiative sparked a ripple effect across the organisation, with in-house workshops and development sessions beginning to foster a growing culture of sensory-informed practice. The links between sensory processing and manual handling were ignited for me and a group of occupational therapy colleagues. We researched into the area but this yielded minimal results with most research being focused on children in this space. We worked on compiling an article to explore sensory systems and how they impact manual handling, to provide some practical suggestions for how practitioners could consider the wider picture of the persons sensory preferences and differences that could be interacting and impacting on the outcome of the manual handling assessment and subsequent outcome. Together with this, we added in looking at how this interacts with being trauma-informed when supporting a person, as triggers in care routines can initiate a stress response in the person and compromise the handling. Myself and my colleague have recently delivered this within the NHS England AHP webinar which took place on the 4th March, as an emerging area of practice. I am also delivering a session to our care providers as part of a piece of research I am undertaking for my masters in medical and healthcare education, the focus of the session is how sensory and trauma informed approaches could impact care of people with dementia. Therefore there is lots on the subject and I would plan to refine this to keep it topical for the NBE conference.
How patients can contribute in protecting the caregiver: the practice
Robby Vandevyvere, RN & Ergonomist and Norbert Hattink, BSc. Physiotherapist & Founder of Niveb
SPHM has delivered real, measurable gains. Yet caregivers continue to suffer disproportionately high rates of musculoskeletal injury compared to virtually every other profession. After thirty years, something structural is still missing. That missing element is not better equipment or stricter protocols. It is the patient. The SPHM framework positions the patient as the load and the caregiver as the person to be protected. That premise is fair — but incomplete. The NIOSH Lifting Equation, the fundament of SPHM, was designed for inert, industrial loads: compact, stable, with grips. The human body is none of these things. It is ‘shape-changeable’, neurologically responsive, and moves willingly. Treating it as a crate is not only biomechanically inaccurate — it is a missed opportunity. This session introduces “weight-less” a person-centred framework in which the patient is not the problem, but part of the solution. Some of the framework pillars: Physics. Weight only exists where body mass has contact with a surface to support (Newton). Biomechanics. By sequentially transferring weight from one body segment to the adjacent one, the caregiver never has to carry it. This sequential transfer of weight occurs in natural patterns, which feel totally natural for the client. The caregiver facilitates; the patient moves. Self-protection for the carer and active participation for the patient are the same act. Physiology. Movement stimulates vital systems, cognition, social connection, self-esteem and more. It reduces complications and improves long-term outcomes. Immobility harms both patient and caregiver. Restoring movement restores health — for both. ‘Feedback-Control’. The patient leads, it’s their call, they are in charge. The caregiver reads, adjusts and catalyses — never substitutes. Every interaction is individually and situationally adapted, because there is no standard person and no standard procedure. Assistive equipment is the last resort, not the default. The evidence base spans person-centred care, early mobilisation, proprioceptive neuroscience, physiology and organisational economics. The conclusion is consistent: when patients move more, they deteriorate less, recover faster, cost less and are treated with greater dignity. When caregivers stop carrying and start facilitating, they get hurt less.
Full programme coming soon! Check back for updates