The Cochrane Council aims to ensure that Cochrane Groups retain an effective voice in Cochrane’s leadership and strategic decision-making.

We are delighted to welcome Helen Bulbeck and Rachel Plachcinski as the new Consumer Executive representatives on the Council. Sara Yaron has decided to step down with immediate effect and we thank her for her contribution over the past few months.

Helen has experienced cancer from a carer’s perspective and also as a cancer patient. Her roles in brainstrust, a UK brain cancer charity which she founded, and as a consumer representative with various bodies, are as a disseminator of information and provider of a network and community, so that she can give advice on achieving effective consumer involvement in health care.

Rachel came to the Cochrane community and the Pregnancy and Childbirth Group via her involvement with NCT, a UK charity supporting parents through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood, which she joined after the birth of her first son. She really appreciated NCT's commitment to information, evidence-based care and peer support, and went on to train as one of their practitioners, delivering antenatal courses for 18 years.