Celebrating the BTS 2025 Medal Winners

Deborah Arnott 

Deborah Arnott, who retired as Chief Executive of Action on Smoking and Health ASH(UK) in 2024, has worked tirelessly for more than twenty years to reduce the harm caused by tobacco - a period that has seen adult smoking rates in Great Britain more than halve (from 26% in 2003 to 11.9% in 2023, the latest year for which figures are available) and seen the UK embark on the tobacco endgame, phasing out the legal sale of cigarettes. 

Internationally, she had a key role in the development of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first global health treaty which came into force in 2005. 

Through the Smokefree Partnership she helped to bring in the EU Tobacco Products Directive, and in particular to protect it from attempted interference by the tobacco industry. 

Although “retired” Deborah continues to be active in tobacco control, attending the recent World Conference on Tobacco Control and working on a PhD project to investigate the role of different policy levers in achieving change. 

Professor Alyn Morice 

Professor Alyn Morice qualified at Cambridge University and has spent the last four decades researching Asthma and Cough, developing his expertise. In 1989 Alyn was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Sheffield, where he developed a Pulmonary Vascular service and the first UK Cough Clinic and in 1998, he was appointed to the Foundation Chair in Respiratory Medicine in Hull University. 

Alyn founded the Hull Adult Cystic Fibrosis Unit, which he developed over the 20 years. In 2024, the centre was commended in the Cystic Fibrosis Trust report for data collection, feedback to patients, and nutrition. Alyn also founded the Northern Hereditary Haemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) Centre, one of only two specialist centres for HHT recognised by the charity Cure HHT.  

As previous chair and now deputy of the local Medicines and Therapeutics committee, Alyn is responsible for approving urgent and emergency authorisation of therapy. He also sits on the ICB formulary and respiratory network committees and leads the Hull Cough Clinic, a nationally recognised tertiary referral centre for the management of intractable cough. 

Alyn has pioneered investigation into the pharmacology, epidemiology, diagnosis and therapeutics of cough, culminating in the production of national and international guidelines. He leads a research laboratory team in Hull whose work contributed to the scientific understanding of the critical role of neuronal receptors in cough, including confirmation of TRPA1 as a cough receptor.