Trustees and staff

Trustees

Our trustees founded UCARE in June 2007. They are responsible for UCARE's governance, and are involved in the charity's management and direction.

Neil Pridham, Chairman

Neil had a career in Information Technology. Starting out in programming and moving through various roles. He has worked for some of the largest companies in the world delivering software solutions to help improve their businesses. These include Hasbro (Children’s Toys), GE Healthcare (Medial Diagnostics), Bio-Rad (Medical Devises) and Oracle (Computer Software). For the last 10 years of his career, he worked in various sales and marketing roles.

Neil has a Master’s in Business Administration from Kingston University.

Neil is married with two grown up children and lives in South Oxfordshire. Neil was lucky enough to retire two years and is now enjoying golf and various other activities.

Mark Evans

After university, I worked for the probation service before taking up training in accountancy. This was however rather short-lived because a motorcycle accident left me unconscious for a week and for some time thereafter suffering from serious short-term memory loss as well as damage to my balance and coordination. The former persuaded me to retrain as a teacher, of mathematics, and the latter has been a constant source of frustration on the sports field ever since.

For the most part I taught in state schools but my final position was that of Head of Department at Rye St Antony, a private girls school in Oxford. (The school has since been amalgamated with Headington, aka Headington Rye.)

In 2023, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had a prostatectomy later that year. After hearing of the work of DUO, I joined as a trustee and shortly afterwards, it merged with UCARE.

Robin Frith

After studying Moral Sciences at Cambridge for 6 years, I married Peggy and we moved to Oxford so that she could finish her medical training here. It seemed a good idea for me to have a job and, after consulting the appointments board, I had an interview at both the Dragon School and Summerfields.

I was appointed to the staff of the Dragon School in 1971 for one year, but ended up teaching there full-time for 36 years and for another 7 years part time. I held various posts over the years, including housemaster to fifty 11 and 12 year old boys, Director of Studies and deputy head for some time.

In 1999 I was diagnosed with bladder cancer which was treated in March 2000 by removal of my bladder. As a result, I volunteered to join a new charity being set up by David Cranston in 2003. This became DUO and I stayed as a trustee of DUO until it merged with UCARE in 2025.

William Gietzmann

William is a Consultant Urological Surgeon with a specialist interest in open, laparoscopic and robotic kidney cancer surgery. He also looks after and performs surgery for patients with other cancerous and non cancerous urological condition.

He began his medical training at the University of Cambridge gaining his intercalated degree in Medical Sciences and the History and Philosophy of Science in 2007. He completed his clinical studies at Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ Medical School, London graduating in 2010. He undertook his core surgical training in Sussex before completing his higher surgical training in the East of Scotland rotating through hospitals in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee. After undertaking a locum consultant post at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary he moved to Oxford to take up his substantive post.

He is actively involved in collaborative research having been appointed an honorary clinical lecturer at Aberdeen University. He has worked on several large systematic reviews including papers on behalf of the European Association of Urologists Guidelines Panel and lead authorship of a Cochrane Review.

Ken Heathcote

Ken has worked in the golf and leisure industry for the last 32 years, during this time he has designed owned and operated 14 leisure facilities including Country Clubs, Hotels, Health Clubs, Restaurants/Bars and Night Clubs.

His current business is Studley Wood Golf Club, Oxford.

Alastair Lamb MA(Oxon) MBChB PhD FRCS(Urol)

Alastair is a Senior Fellow in robotic surgery and Honorary Consultant Urologist.

His research goal is to provide a robust molecular platform for accurate decision-making in early stage prostate cancer.

His clinical work focuses on delivering excellent and timely prostate cancer care, using state-of-the-art diagnostics. He has a particular interest in pushing the boundaries of minimal access surgery (MIS), for example to performing cytoreductive radical prostectomy in locally advanced or metastatic disease and RARP in older men.

Tom Leslie MB ChB BSc(Hons) D.PHIL FRCS(Urol)

Tom is a Consultant Urological Surgeon in Oxford and Milton Keynes. His main clinical areas of interest are robotic prostatectomy, diagnosis of prostate cancer including targeted and template biopsies, minimally invasive treatments for prostate cancer such as HIFU and brachytherapy, general urology, and vasectomy.

Tom completed his undergraduate and basic surgical training at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. He moved to Oxford in 2004 and completed a D.Phil in Surgery at the University of Oxford. He was then appointed as a Clinical Lecturer in Urology in the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford; in this post he combined research with specialist registrar training in Urology in the Oxford Deanery.

He is married with two children. Outside work, he is a mad keen sports fan and watches (or plays!) cricket, rugby and golf when family life allows.

Jim Mitchell

Jim trained as an accountant but at the tender age of twenty five decided there was more fun to be had in Marketing and Sales. He worked for Unilever/Birds Eye for a 15 year period before starting his own companies specialising in energy saving lighting and later solar voltaics in the commercial market.

He is now happily retired, living in the lovely market town of Thame with his wife of 49 years, Carol. He gets the golf clubs out a couple of times a week take them for a walk then pop them back in the garage.

Seetal Patel

Seetal qualified as a dental surgeon in 2000 and currently owns a dental practice in Oxford. Her late husband, Mr Nilay Patel was appointed as a consultant urological surgeon in February 2012. He was a renal surgeon with a specialist interest in renal cancer and autotransplant surgery. Nilay was passionate about his work and cared deeply for patients.

Because of Nilay's commitment to this field Seetal felt inspired to join the UCARE board of trustees since October 2014, and she hopes to build a lasting legacy in his memory.

Jeremy Posnansky QC

Jeremy was a barrister for many years, specialising in divorce and family law. He appeared in many of the leading cases and was also a Deputy High Court Judge in the Family Division.

Now retired, Jeremy enjoys travel, theatre, gardening and family life (he has two daughters and four grandchildren). He was an Ambassador for UCARE before becoming a trustee in 2019.

Staff

Julia Benning, Charity Manager

Julia joined UCARE in October 2025, bringing nearly two decades of experience in the non-profit sector.

She has a strong track record of helping both local and national charities to build engagement, increase awareness, and drive growth. Coming from a gynaecological cancer charity, Julia is passionate about supporting medical research and working collaboratively to promote early diagnosis and understanding of cancer. She is committed to applying her expertise to advance UCARE's mission and ensure its continued progression.

To continue her professional development, she is currently studying a Master's degree in Philanthropic Studies at Kent University.