Dr Linda Speck

Linda is employed as Consultant Clinical Health Psychologist, Head of Health Psychology Services and Manager of Cardiac Rehabilitation Services (East), ABM University Health Board, South Wales.She is developing the rapidly growing Health Psychology Service for the health board. She is also a visiting professor of health psychology at the University of South Wales.

She originally worked for some years within mental health settings until an opportunity arose in 1985 to be actively involved in setting up the first cardiac rehabilitation in Wales, at Bridgend. She has been a British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation (BACPR) Council member on two separate occasions for a total of 8 years and was part of the core writing group for the revision of the BACPR Standards for Cardiac Rehabilitation (2012). She was also a member of the NICE Guidance Development Group for Myocardial Infarction: secondary prevention (2013) and contributed to the CHD NSF for Wales (update, 2008). More recently she has been involved in writing the BACPR Core Competences for Health Behaviour Change and Education in Cardiac Rehabilitation. She is also the co-author of two separate chapters for a forthcoming book to support the BACPR Standards.

In addition to clinical commitments she is keen to continue to undertake research. In recent years she has held a British Heart Foundation Action Research grant investigating the use of motivational interviewing in cardiac rehabilitation. She has a particular research and clinical interest in the role that partners play in chronic disease management.