Keynote Speakers
Amy Edmondson
Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, USA
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.
Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017. She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organizational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and in the UK (Penguin) in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 19 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.
Anthony Costello
Professor of Global Health and Sustainable Development, University College London, England
After serving as Director of the Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, WHO Geneva, Anthony Costello returned to University College London in June 2018 as Professor of Global Health and Sustainable Development. Trained in paediatrics, he is a founder and chair of the international Lancet Countdown for Climate Action and Health, and senior adviser to the Children in All Policies 2030 programme supported by WHO, UNICEF and the Lancet. He was a co-founder of Independent SAGE which aims to bring a greater focus on public health, transparency and public engagement to the UK Covid response.
His research has focused on health and social interventions to reduce maternal and newborn mortality, and latterly to improve nutrition and diabetes, in poor rural populations of low and middle income countries. He believes in partnership models for collaboration with national institutions in these settings. He received the James Spence medal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in 2011, and a BMJ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
Daze Aghaji
Environmental Activist, Regenerative Cultures Advocate, Artist, Speaker, and Essayist, England
Daze Aghaji is an Environmental Activist, Regenerative Cultures Advocate, Artist, Speaker, and Essayist. Described by The Guardian as a ‘ball of energy, conviction, and warmth,’ her bold activism has led her to take radical actions such as being involved in the formative days of Extinction Rebellion, running for election as the youngest candidate ever to stand in a European Parliament election, bringing forth a successful Judicial review against the UK Government on Net Zero Policy, and lobbying the Royal College of Psychiatry to recognise Eco Anxiety. Her approach to activism has led her to work to affect change within and with international governments, institutions, charities, and grassroots change-makers globally.
Donald M. Berwick
President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), USA
Donald M. Berwick is one of the leading scholars, teachers, and advocates in the world for the continual improvement of health care systems. He is a pediatrician, and a longstanding member of the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He founded and led the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, now the leading global nonprofit organization in its field. He was appointed by President Obama as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he served in 2010 and 2011. He has counselled governments, clinical leaders, and executives in dozens of nations. He is an elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Philosophical Society. He has received numerous awards, including the Heinz Award for Public Policy, the Award of Honor of the American Hospital Association, and the Gustav Leinhard Award from the Institute of Medicine. For his work with the British National Health Service, in 2005 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Honourary Knight Commander of the British Empire, the highest honor awarded by the UK to a non-British subject.
Jason Leitch
National Clinical Director, Scottish Government, Scotland
Jason has worked for the Scottish Government since 2007 and in January 2015 was appointed as The National Clinical Director in the Health and Social Care Directorate. He is a Scottish Government Director and a member of the Health and Social Care Management Board. He is one of the senior team responsible for the NHS in Scotland.
He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee.
He is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He was a 2005-06 Quality Improvement Fellow at IHI, in Boston, sponsored by the Health Foundation.
He has a doctorate from the University of Glasgow, an MPH from Harvard and is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Joseph Lyons
Chief Executive Officer at West Ham United Foundation, England
Joseph has over 20 years’ experience working across the community sports sector, providing successful leadership and applying core values of community engagement to pioneer and create influential partnerships and projects. Since joining the West Ham United Foundation as CEO in June 2013, he has delivered an innovative approach to inspire better futures for all, particularly focusing on Health, Education and Inclusion, and breaking down social barriers for young people to achieve. Joseph’s work across East London has been an example of his multi-layered approach to building meaningful collaborations in order to tackle inequalities and utilise the power of elite sport for social good.
Joseph has developed a number of award-winning projects in order to create environments for communities that ultimately aims to drive equality and create life-changing opportunities.
Joseph is also the director of The Second Curve Network (C.I.C), The director of Advantage (C.I.C), and a Board of Trustee for two East London based charities: Foundation for Future London and One Newham. Joseph also volunteers for Homeless Action in Barnet, a local homeless charity that provides night shelter during the winter months.
Kedar Mate
President and Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), USA
Kedar Mate, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), President of the IHI Lucian Leape Institute, and a member of the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College. His scholarly work has focused on health system design, health care quality, strategies for achieving large-scale change, and approaches to improving value. Previously Dr. Mate worked at Partners In Health, the World Health Organization, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and served as IHI’s Chief Innovation and Education Officer. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and white papers and has received multiple honors, including serving as a Soros Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, Zetema Panelist, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. Dr. Mate graduated from Brown University with a degree in American History and from Harvard Medical School with a medical degree. You can follow him on Twitter at @KedarMate
Kevin Fenton
Senior public health expert and infectious disease epidemiologist, Public Health England
Professor Fenton is a senior public health expert and infectious disease epidemiologist, who has worked in a variety of public health executive leadership roles across government and academia in the UK and internationally, including taking a leading role in London’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was awarded a CBE in the 2022 New Year honours list for services to public health. Professor Fenton is the Regional Director for London in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities; the statutory public health advisor to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority, and the Regional Director of Public Health for NHS London. In addition, he is the President of the UK Faculty of Public Health and the UK government’s Chief Advisor on HIV and Chair of the HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group to oversee the delivery of the new HIV strategy for England.
Marie Gabriel
Chair of the NHS North East London Integrated Care System, Chair of the NHS Race and Health Observatory and Trustee of West Ham United Foundation
With over 20 years of NHS Board experience, Marie is currently the Chair of the NHS North East London Integrated Care System, Chair of the NHS Race and Health Observatory and an Associate NED for the UK Health Security Agency.
She is also a Commissioner on the IPPR Commission on Health and Prosperity. Regionally, Marie is Co-Chair of the London People Board and is a member of the Greater London Authority’s London Health Board, where she is also the London Mayor’s Champion for Tackling Structural Racism. Marie contributes to her local community as a Trustee on two charities, West Ham United Foundation and East London Business Alliance.
Her previous Chair role was at East London NHS Foundation Trust, which is internationally acknowledged for its systematic approach to quality improvement and service user participation. Through this role she has participated in IHI events, delivering workshops on the Board’s role in quality improvement.
Prior to this, Marie chaired commissioning organisations with budgets up to £3bn and her first role was as Vice Chair of an acute trust.
Marie’s employment background is in local government and not for profit sector, with senior executive experience in social justice, regeneration and equity.
Marie’s contribution to the NHS was recognised through the award of her CBE, her contribution to her local community by the award of Freedom of the London Borough of Newham and her contribution to football by inclusion on the Premier League’s Black Power List. More recently in 2023, Marie received the award of Honorary Doctor of Health Sciences from the Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and she has been included in the Health Service Journal’s 100 list of the most influential people in health.
Other Speakers
Adam Butcher
Sheffield Health and Social Care, England
Adam Butcher is a member of the Engagement and Experience Team at Sheffield Health and Social Care and co-chairs multiple groups within SHSC. Adam also chairs a service user group on Adult Safeguarding.
He has worked on a few projects within Quality Improvement, including the Hospital Passport, and he works with both Sheffield Universities.
Adam was part of a group of people working on the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism, which is the standardised learning disability and autism training preferred and recommended by the government.
For the last year or so he has been co-chairing the Learning Disability Programme Board at Sheffield Health and Social Care which he is going to talk to you about today.
Adam is very passionate about co-working.
Adam Sewell-Jones
Chief Executive of East and North Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Adam has worked in the NHS since 1992 and is passionate about continuously improving services for patients. He has held a number of Executive roles before taking the national leadership role of Director of Improvement and then Regional Director for the Southwest of England. In these roles he led several national programs including the Virginia Mason NHS partnership, the Culture and Leadership programme and Aspiring CEO programme.
Agnes Wood
Child Orientated Mental Health Innovation Collaborative, England
Agnes Wood a Research Assistant at The Child Orientated Mental health Innovation Collaborative (COMIC), part of the Leeds and York NHS trust. In her first year at COMIC, she created and ran, the COMIC Young People’s Advisory Network, a collection of young people and community groups across Yorkshire who help co-produce the innovative young people’s mental health research conducted in the team. This has included: The use of virtual reality to improve sound sensitivity in autistic children, factors contributing to eating disorder inpatient admissions, using nature to reduce symptoms of ADHD and the use of psychoeducation and exercise to reduce CAMHS waiting lists. Through the YPAN, the team can develop research ideas in collaboration with children, young people and their families. It also allows us to work with community groups, clinical staff, academics and external partners with a vested interest in the improvement of the mental wellbeing of children and young people. Alongside this, Agnes is currently working on three major study developments including: Involving non-speaking autistic children in health and social care decisions, identifying factors contributing to eating disorder admissions and supporting adults to change their smoking behaviours after a smokefree inpatient stay.
Ahmed Alboksmaty
Academic Clinical Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and WHO Consultant in Quality and Patient Safety
He is an Academic Clinical Fellow at The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute) at the University of Cambridge. Over the past five years, he has been working as a Consultant in Quality and Patient Safety with the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO). He is a co-module lead in the MSc in Health Policy at Imperial College London.
Dr. Alboksmaty brings extensive expertise in public and global health. His primary focus lies in health systems development, emphasising quality and patient safety across a spectrum of contexts. He has a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from Alexandria Faculty of Medicine and a Master of Public Health from Imperial College London. He is also a Chevening alumnus. His professional experience included key roles within leading public health policy and research institutions, such as the Arab Medical Union, UNHCR, Imperial College London, Primary Care International UK, and the University of Cambridge. Currently, his research and policy work focuses on health system development in emergency settings, quality and patient safety gaps in primary care, and exploring the potential of digital health and
innovation in improving the quality of care.
Aidan Fowler
NHS England; England
Aidan Fowler is the National Director of Patient Safety in England and a DCMO at DHSC. He was previously the Director of NHS Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and Director of the 1000 Lives Improvement Service for NHS Wales. He had responsibility for QI/PS across the Welsh NHS and was a board member of Public Health Wales. Aidan was a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon in Gloucestershire for ten years and Chief of Service for Surgery for four before entering the NHS Leadership Academy Fast Track Executive Training Programme during which he worked as an executive at University Hospitals Bristol and subsequently worked briefly as a Medical Director in Mental Health and Community care in Worcestershire. Aidan trained as an Improvement Adviser(IA) with the IHI in Boston and was IA to the South West Safer Patient Programme and has worked on Patient Safety with WEAHSN. He has also worked as faculty with the IHI in the peri-operative safety domain in Qatar, infection reduction in Portugal and teaching improvement and safety in the UK and internationally. Aidan’s surgical training was in the South West but he graduated in medicine from University College London.
Alex Coulter
Director, National Centre for Creative Health, England
Alex Coulter has been Director of the National Centre for Creative Health since it launched in 2021. She was Director of Arts & Health South West (AHSW) from 2010 until the organisation closed in 2024. In that role she provided the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG) and project managed the APPG’s two-year inquiry which led to the publication of the Creative Health report in 2017. AHSW delivered three Culture Health and Wellbeing International Conferences and along with colleagues in the field helped set up the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) and the Lived Experience Network (LENs). The NCCH works closely with CHWA and the LENs.
Alex Evans
Artistic Director and co-CEO, Kazzum Arts
Alex Evans is the Artistic Director and co-CEO of Kazzum Arts, a leading arts charity working with children and young people impacted by trauma and adversity. Kazzum’s pioneering trauma-informed approach uses creativity and the arts to develop the social, emotional and mental health of young people in hospitals, mainstream and SEND schools and refugee community settings. www.kazzum.org
Alex originally studied Drama at The University of Hull and Theatre at Wimbledon School of Art. He has since gained qualifications in Trauma-informed and Child Therapeutic Wellbeing Practice with the Institute for in Arts in Therapy & Education (IATE). Alex Evans’ artistic practice encompasses drawing, performance and social engagement, collaborating with significant cultural organisations across the UK including Southbank Centre, V&A Museum and Trauma Informed Schools UK. He has lead multiple award-winning international projects in Finland, Japan, the Maldives and Australia.
Alex Harborne
East London NHS Foundation Trust, England
Dr Alex Harborne is Clinical Director for the Tower Hamlets Community Health Services, East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) and has nearly twenty years clinical experience as a Doctor in East London. Dr Alex chairs the thriving London Quality Improvement Forum to ‘educate, energise and empower’ Community Health Staff across Newham and Tower Hamlets. She is leading two Quality Improvement projects and sponsoring a project led by the Community Diabetes Specialist Nurse which will empower housebound Diabetic patients to self-manage their condition. As a result of her most recent improvement work she has co-created a website page and hosts a new podcast series on Spotify called ‘I am a Gp in Tower Hamlets’ which helps to educate local GPs. She recently successfully led complex collaborative work with multiple system partners over twelve months to create a new electronic GP referral for Community Health Services across two NHS trusts. This was published into all Gp practices in Tower Hamlets in December 2023. Her most recent work in 2024 involves similar collaboration to create a safer culture for sharing patient safety events between Primary Care and Community Health Services in Tower Hamlets. She also is a member of the Localities and Neighbourhoods Board, responsible for overseeing the design, implementation and evaluation of the localities and neighbourhood model across all Tower Hamlets.
In addition to her ELFT role she is an Out of Hour GP and Supervisor at Homerton Hospital and a GP for the London Ambulance Service. She has a passion for education and has been a GP tutor for medical students at QMUL where she continues as Medical Examiner. She has developed strong links with a local North East London Comprehensive Beal High School, successfully empowering sixth formers with her Medical School Interview training. She has been Chair of Governors in an East London primary for four years, which included co-development of a new vision and values for the school where she remains as governor after two terms of office.
Dr Alex trained at Bart’s and the London Medical School in East London and completed her General Practice training in Hackney in 2008. She was a GP both there and Tower Hamlets before working as an Out of Hour GP to enable her to work flexibly whilst bringing up her five children. She currently lives in Leytonstone, East London with her husband, five children and Labrador puppy.
Alyson Walker
Paediatric cardiac anaesthetist, Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow, Scotland
Working in Scotland’s largest children’s hospital as a paediatric cardiac anaesthetist has inspired Aly’s passion for improving user experience and healthcare environment design. This interest in design was sparked during her time on the Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship.
From a starting point of zero budget, she spearheaded a £1 million transformation of the children’s operating theatre department. Acting as a ‘superconnector’, Aly assembled a team of interior designers, architects, illustrators and environmental psychologists to work alongside contractors, capital planning, infection control and estates departments and created something truly wonderful.
Aly will share her expertise in creative design within the constraints of a healthcare environment. She has experience in design tools such as empathy mapping, journey mapping, observation, stakeholder mapping, shadowing, user interviews, personas and prototyping and enjoys gathering meaningful research to inform improvement projects.
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/03/childrens-ideas-help-transform-glasgow-hospital-unit-murals
Contact Aly here:
alyson.walker@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
http://linkedin.com/in/aly-walker-39b1811aa
@alysonwalkerRHC
Amar Shah
Chief Quality Officer, East London NHS Foundation Trust; National Clinical Director for NHS Improvement, NHS England;
National Improvement Lead for Mental Health, Royal College of Psychiatrists, England
Dr Amar Shah is Consultant forensic psychiatrist & Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). He leads at executive and Board level on quality, performance, strategy and planning at ELFT. He is the national improvement lead for mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, leading a number of large-scale improvement programmes across the UK on topics such as workforce wellbeing and mental health equalities. Amar is honorary visiting professor at City University and University of Leicester. He is an improvement advisor and faculty member for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, teaching and guiding improvers and healthcare systems across the world.
Anders Vege
Senior Advisor, Department for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Norwegian Directorate of Health, Norway
Anders is a senior nurse with 30 years’ experience in the Norwegian healthcare system. He is a Senior advisor in the Norwegian Directorate of Health in Norway. He has been a leading figure in the WMTY movement inspiring action all over the world. Anders was part of the first ever national WMTY day in Norway in 2014, a practice that initially spread to Scotland and then on to 50 countries and more than 2000 healthcare teams in 2020. In ten years, together with The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities he has been a part of a National Learning Network for Good Patient Care Pathways. The Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care services initiated this National Program. What matters to you has been a driver for change of direction in health care in this program.
Andrea McInerney
London Health Science Centre, Canada
Andrea is a skilled senior leader with more than 15 years of leadership experience in primary, community and acute care, as well as at the health government and policy level. As a results-driven visionary, she specializes in driving positive change for staff, patients and families. Andrea serves as the Executive Director for LHSC’s Office of Strategic Redevelopment where as a member of LHSC’s Executive Leadership Collaborative, she is responsible for creating and implementing an integrated plan for LHSC’s infrastructure to meet the rapidly growing and changing communities’ needs. Andrea holds a Master of Science in quality improvement and patient safety from the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME); her black belt in Lean Six Sigma (LSSBB) and is a Certified Health Executive (CHE) from the Canadian College of Health Leaders. Passionate about supporting the development of future health care leaders, Andrea serves as the co-director for the Schulich Ivey Healthcare Consultancy program within the Centre for Quality, Innovation and Safety (CQuINS) at Western University.
Andrii Bazylevich
World Federation of Ukrainian Medical Associations, Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, Ukraine
Angela King
Patient Advocate
Angela King is an Independent Patient and Citizen Advocate. She has been an active advocate for over 30 years, including 20 years of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health research, and has personal experience of long-term illnesses and cancer-related end of life caring. Angela started in the voluntary sector as helpline volunteer, Trustee and then CEO, before shifting focus to Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health research. As well as serving on several advisory and commissioning boards/panels, she is involved in individual research studies (mostly cancer related), contribute to articles and papers, deliver workshops and lectures on PPI, and carry out PPI advisory work. Angela is also Chair for the Citizens’ Panel within the Response Study at the University of Leeds.
Angela Zambeaux
Project Director, Europe Region, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, France
Angela G. Zambeaux, Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has managed a wide variety of IHI projects and programs. Since 2013 Angela has managed the Always Events program and contributed to the spread of Always Events across NHS England through the publication of a toolkit and coaching of improvement teams. Angela has worked with The Conversation Project and Conversation Ready projects to help make sure people’s end of life care wishes are expressed and respected. As a Project Director her role includes project design, delivery, and evaluation. As part of IHI’s Europe team, Angela supports the Health Improvement Alliance Europe, a robust network of members working across Europe to improve health and healthcare. Prior to joining IHI, Ms. Zambeaux provided project management support to a small accounting firm and spent a year in France teaching English to elementary school students.
Anna Fabisch
Improvement leader, Qulturum, Region Jönköping County, Sweden
Anna Fabisch is an improvement leader at Qulturum, Region Jönköping County and a PhD student in pedagogy and leadership development. Anna has developed the Learning Networks Concept in close relationship with the chiefs of Region Jönköping County, target groups and stakeholders. Anna is responsible for the structure, implementation, evaluation and development of the Learning Networks and she is training the network facilitators. As an improvement leader and an educator, Anna wants to take care of people’s differences to achieve better results together.
Anne Grete Skjellanger
Norwegian Diabetes Association
Anne Marie Weggelaar
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Anne Marie Weggelaar RN PhD MCM, is an endowed professor Healthcare Innovation and Transformation at Tranzo, Tilburg University in The Netherlands. She is currently studying resilience and complex adaptive systems, among others. She is conducting action research on the National program Time to Connect and has co-led one of twenty Safety II research projects. This specific project focussed nurses’ resilient behavior in mundane practices.
Annemieke Schoemaker-Beugeling
Time for Connection Programme, The Netherlands
Annemieke is the program leader of the Dutch National Safety II Program in medical specialized Health Care, named “Time to Connect”. “Time to Connect” aims to improve patient safety by reducing avoidable harm and mortality and is subsidized by the Governmental Ministry of Health Care. Annemieke taught at the university where she studied (Erasmus School of Health Care Policy and Management, ESHPM) and worked for several consultant companies (EY, among others). In the early years she published several articles about health care quality management systems and she was in charge of numerous national and regional partnerships in health care. She also advised the National Council for Public Health and Society. Furthermore, Annemieke developed business simulations for three leadership programs of Nyenrode Business University and is an instructor for several education programs in mental health care. Main issues in these programs are the relation between health care governance and the quality of health care. She is also a member of a supervisory board in a mental health care organization (Portfolio Holder for Quality and Patient Safety).
Anthony Staines
Patient Safety Program Director, Fédération des hôpitaux vaudois, Switzerland
Anthony Staines holds a Ph.D. in Management at University of Lyon (France). He has been CEO of hospitals for 10 years and currently runs a portfolio of Patient Safety improvement projects for the Federation of hospitals of Canton Vaud, in Switzerland, and advises several hospitals on Patient Safety strategies and projects. He lectures on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at IFROSS, University of Lyon, France.
Aoife Molloy
Senior Clinical Advisor Healthcare Inequalities Improvement, NHS England
Dr. Aoife Molloy is Senior Clinical Advisor for Healthcare Inequalities Improvement and a doctor in infectious diseases and general medicine. She works in national policy and in hospitals focusing on narrowing the gap in healthcare inequalities. She’s associate editor and social media lead at BMJ Leader, and is passionate about medical justice and equality in healthcare access, outcomes, and experience.
Aoife was National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2014/15, set up the Collaboration for Shared Decision Making, developed guideline adaptation tools to aid guideline development in India and worked on disinvestment and safe staffing. She was clinical lead of the Evidence Based Interventions programme and worked with The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges to develop the first recommendations for Choosing Wisely UK and Positively UK to develop the first national standards for peer support in HIV.
She wrote “A Clear Road Ahead, a quality strategy for the NHS in England” at The Health Foundation. She studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, and became a member of the Royal Colleges of Physicians before moving to the UK to pursue specialty training. She has a MSc in Public Health and is a PhD researcher at Imperial College examining patient safety at transitions of care.
April Kyle
Southcentral Foundation, USA
April Kyle, of Athabascan descent and a Cook Inlet Region, Inc. shareholder, is the President and CEO for Southcentral Foundation’s two-time Malcolm Baldrige Award- winning Nuka System of Care. SCF’s Nuka System of Care is a customer-owned system that provides health care and related services to approximately 65,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people. Nuka has earned national and international recognition for the quality of care it provides. Most recently, Kyle served as Vice President of Behavioral Services which includes crisis, outpatient, integrated, collocated, day and residential program and services. Kyle began her career at SCF in Human Resources in 2003 as a manager and advanced to the Human Resources Director in 2006. Kyle received her master’s degree from the University of Washington Foster School of Business. In 2013 she was nominated by her peers and received the Top 40 Under 40 award from the Alaska Journal of Commerce, and 2014 completed the Alaska Pacific University Alaska Native Executive Leadership Program. Kyle is a mother and a customer-owner. Kyle speaks nationally and internationally on various topics including whole system transformation, behavioral health, leadership, and innovation in the industry.
Aurora Todisco
Health Innovation Network, England
Aurora is a Lived Experience Partner at the Health Innovation Network South London (HIN) with 19 years’ background in finance, HR, and governance development. She has dedicated the last 7 years to working across the health and social care sector, contributing her expertise. Holding a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Primary Care Management, Aurora brings a wealth of knowledge to her role. With a passion for fostering collaboration, Aurora has engaged in a wide variety of involvement and coproduction activities and connected with nearly 90 national stakeholders since 2021. She has collaborated with different academic, research, and NHS organisations, showcasing her commitment to building meaningful partnerships. At the HIN, Aurora actively advises staff on the design and implementation of involvement activities. Her involvement in diverse projects, such as an experience-based co-design (EBCD) initiative addressing chronic pain management and contributing to the Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP), showcases her dedication to creating positive change. Additionally, her impact extends beyond her current position, as she previously played a key role in supporting the development of the HIN Involvement Strategy.
Axel Ros
Chief Medical Officer, Region Jönköping County, Sweden
Dr Ros is a specialist in General Surgery. He was Head of the Department of Surgery at the County Hospital Ryhov in Jönköping, Sweden 2004-2012, and was Chief Medical Officer/Patient Safety Lead in Region Jönköping County 2012-2022. His current position is Research leader Patient safety and Quality at Futurum, the Research and education department in Region Jönköping county, Sweden. He is Associate Professor at Jönköping Academy of Improvement of Health and Welfare at the Jönköping University, Sweden, with research and education in patient safety. He also has a position in The Swedish National Cooperation Group for Patient Safety. Dr Ros has an interest in Patient Safety work for many years, and he is a founding member of the Resilient Health Care Society.
Birgit Hartoft
Danish Society for Patient Safety, Denmark and WHO Patient Safety Champion, Denmark
I am a patient safety advocate for the Danish Society for Patient Safety. In 2006 my husband died prematurely after a series of miscommunications and resulting medical error. Working at the time in process improvement in an IT company, it felt natural to me to use this experience to help prevent similar adverse events. And so I became a WHO Patients for Patient Safety Champion in 2007. I use my experience in storytelling, as a jumping off point for debate about the importance of acknowledging human error and learning from it. I volunteer my experience as guest lecturer at junior doctors’ communications courses, various public speaking engagements, and in participation in quality improvement work groups in Denmark. My focus is on patient safety from diagnosis through treatment and care, on quality improvement work in general, and on learning from adverse events in particular. To ensure the best possible outcomes for both patients/carers and healthcare professionals all perspectives must be included in healthcare improvement work.
Blackford Middleton
Digital Knowledge Products Consultant, BMJ Digital Health, London, England
Dr. Middleton’s work is focused on clinical informatics – the applied science surrounding strategy, design, implementation, and evaluation of clinical information systems in clinical environments, or wherever clinical decisions are made. His overarching goal is to cure what ails healthcare: one decision at a time. His special interests are in augmented clinical intelligence, computable knowledge representation and sharing, clinical decision support, and quality measurement – all mediated through clinical information management systems (EHR, PHR, etc.). He has deep experience in team building, innovation, and leadership roles in academe and industry. He was a professor of biomedical informatics, and or of medicine, at Stanford, Harvard, and Vanderbilt Universities, and he held executive leadership roles at Stanford University Medical Center (CMIO), MedicaLogic/ Medscape (CMO), Partners Healthcare System (Corporate Director, Clinical Informatics R&D; now Mass General Brigham), Vanderbilt University Medical Center (CIO/Assistant Vice Chancellor), and at Apervita (Chief Informatics & Innovation Officer). Currently, he is semi-retired and consulting to select global startups and related efforts including Evidentli (Australia), the British Medical Journal Knowledge Centre, BDR Solutions, Inc., Modern Trials, and Redesign/Syntax Health.
Past Speaking Experience: Dr. Middleton is an internationally recognized thought leader in healthcare informatics and a frequently sought-after speaker. He has delivered keynote addresses, plenary presentations, and panels at healthcare informatics, technology, and policy conferences across the country and around the world. He is Past-Chairman of HIMSS.
Bob Klaber
Consultant General Paediatrician & Director of Strategy Research & Innovation, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, England
Bob Klaber is a Consultant General Paediatrician & Director of Strategy Research & Innovation at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London. Bob also trained as an educationalist alongside his paediatric training in London. He has a strong interest in individual and systems learning, quality improvement, behavioural insights work and leadership development. Bob is also a strong advocate for child health and co-leads the Connecting Care for Children (CC4C) integrated child health programme in North West London www.cc4c.imperial.nhs.uk , which is focused on developing whole population integrated care models of service and training within paediatrics and child health. Perhaps most importantly, Bob is increasingly convinced that we need to do more to reconnect our colleagues, teams & organisations with the extraordinary mission and purpose that is healthcare. And a focus on kindness needs to be at the heart of this. The work Bob and colleagues are leading on through the conversation for kindness is an attempt to build a global movement that will help keep the spotlight on this issue.
Bola Owolabi
Director, National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme, NHS England, England
Professor Bola Owolabi MRCGP MFPH (Hon) is Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England. She works as a General Practitioner( Family Physician) in the Midlands region of England. She is Honorary Professor at the Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medicine and Dentistry , University of Birmingham UK. Bola has particular interest in reducing healthcare inequalities through Integrated Care Models, Service Transformation and using data & insights for Quality Improvement. She spearheaded NHS England’s Core20PLUS5 approach to narrowing healthcare inequalities. She was until recently, National Specialty Advisor for Older People and Integrated Person Centred-Care at NHS England where she led the Anticipatory Care Workstream of the National Ageing Well Programme. She has worked with teams across NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care as part of the Covid 19 Pandemic response. She is an alumnus of Ashridge Executive Education/Hult International Business School and holds a Masters degree with distinction in Leadership (Quality Improvement). She holds an NHS Leadership Academy Award in Executive Healthcare Leadership for Clinicians.
Brigid Russell
Coach, Facilitator and Leadership Consultant, Scotland
Brigid Russell is a coach, facilitator, and leadership consultant working with people across the public and third sectors in Scotland. Over the past four years she has collaborated with Charlie Jones in convening weekly #SpacesForListening over zoom, listening to and connecting with many hundreds of people across the UK and beyond. She is passionate about creating more spaces for having more open conversations. She is undertaking a doctorate part-time with HULT Ashridge using action research methodologies, and her interests are around relational approaches to learning, development, and dialogue.
@brigidrussell51
Carol Munt
Patient Partner and Advocate
Carol Munt, SRN. ONC.
Lived Experience Partner NHSE
Passionate about Patient & Public Involvement and Co-Production, believing that people with lived experience are a valuable asset to the Health Service.
Carol is a Doubleday Affiliate.
She is an Experience of Care Partner and Mentor at the NHS Leadership Academy and sits on the following NHSE DrEaMing National Strategy group,
National Steering Group Maximising Leadership Learning in the pre-registration curriculum.
An entertaining and informative public speaker, the recording of her talk on Co-Production at the King’s Fund still forms part of the Open University Health & Social Care degree course.
Following her BMJ article about Covid visiting restrictions she was asked to address the All Party Parliamentary Committee Covid Enquiry
Before moving to Kent, as co-Chair of the NHS Thames Valley Patient Experience Operational Group, Carol sat on the board of the NHS Thames Valley Strategy Group and was part of the Oxford AHSN Leading Together programme team
She worked closely with Health Education Thames Valley and Reading University on the e-version of the ‘Dementia Handbook for Carers and Care Providers’ having been part of the team behind the original printed version.
She remains one of HSJ Top 50 Patient Leaders.
In 1982 Carol was a passenger involved in a road traffic accident in France, sustaining a fractured skull, and brain haemorrhage resulting in coma.
She was subsequently diagnosed with Narcolepsy and Cataplexy as a result of the trauma.
Medication keeps her long-term condition reasonably stable.
Carol has a daughter, a son and 5 grandsons, lives in Tunbridge Wells and lists travel, photography and meeting new people as her main interests.
Caterina Raniolo
NHS England, England
Caterina Raniolo is the National Maternity Quality Improvement Lead at NHS England. She is also a midwife and continues to practice clinically in a London Trust, which helps her to bridge the realms of clinical practice and quality improvement, maintaining her midwifery registration while actively contributing to national initiatives.
Her passion for Quality Improvement (QI) has become the driving force behind her career. Caterina’s expertise lies in applying QI methodologies to elevate the standards of quality and safety in maternity and neonatal services. She champions the cause of fostering engagement and involvement among staff and service users, recognizing the pivotal role they play when improving services. Caterina holds a Masters degree in Healthcare Leadership from the prestigious NHS Leadership Academy, a testament to her commitment to continuous learning and growth. This academic achievement has equipped her with a successful blend of theoretical knowledge and practical experience, enabling her to excel in various leadership roles.
Caterina has been a featured speaker at numerous national conferences, where she shares her insights and experiences with fellow healthcare professionals. In 2017, Caterina proudly received the RCM “Better births” Award, recognizing her contributions to maternity care. The following year, she emerged as one of the winners of the NHS 70 Women’s Leaders Awards, a testament to her leadership prowess and dedication to advancing healthcare for women. Her team’s outstanding efforts were recognized when they became finalists in the BMJ Awards for Women’s Health Team of the Year in 2015. The NHS Elect Excellent Teamwork Award in 2019 and the HSJ Staff Engagement Award in 2021 further underscore Caterina’s commitment to collaborative excellence.
Caterina’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of blending leadership, clinical expertise with a passion for quality improvement.
Catharina van Oostveen
Time for Connection Programme, The Netherlands
Dr. Catharina van Oostveen is trained as a nurse and works as an assistant professor ‘Nursing Practice; Organization & Development’ at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). In this positions she conducts research on how nurses can create their own resilient work environment. In addition to her work at ESHPM, Catharina is nursing dean at the Spaarne Gasthuis hospital, boardmember at V&VN, the Dutch professional nursing association and STZ, the Dutch association for teaching hospitals.
Catherine Dale
Health Innovation Network, England
Catherine is the Deputy Coordination Director at the Health Innovation Network. Catherine has over 20 years’ experience in the NHS in London, including more than 15 years in quality improvement and transformation roles, including leading the national Learning Network for Covid Oximetry @home and Covid Virtual Wards. Catherine has a Masters in Business Psychology and is an expert on co-designing improvements with patients and applying behavioural insights to healthcare. Catherine is also a Trustee at the Point of Care Foundation and helped develop their Experience-Based Co-Design toolkit. In 2017 she taught on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s inaugural ‘Co-design College’ in Boston, USA. Catherine was a Labour Councillor in the London Borough of Southwark from 2014–2018. She is the co-host of the podcast Looking After the NHS.
Catherine Fowler
Patient Advocate and Trsutee of The Aortic Dissection Charitable Trust, England
In 2022 Catherine received an Honour from the British Citizen Awards at Westminster Palace for her outstanding contribution to aortic dissection healthcare across Great Britain over the last 7 years.
Catherine’s father lost his life to a misdiagnosed aortic dissection in 2015, resulting in the launch of a petition and awareness campaign requesting the NHS and HSE to implement changes across four key pillars: policy, diagnostics, education, and process. The petition currently has over 10,000 supporters and is growing daily.
Catherine is a relentless campaigner to improve aortic dissection patient outcomes, appearing on national radio, television and at medical conferences throughout the UK, Ireland, and Europe.
She founded The Aortic Dissection Charitable Trust in 2020 The UK and Irelands first charity dedicated to aortic dissection, her mission is to shape a safer future for people impacted by aortic dissection through education, research, and policy change.
Catherine is also the current public and patient voice for NHS England’s Cardiac Clinical Reference Group, the Cardiac Pathway Improvement Program (which includes shaping the design and implementation of the acute aortic dissection NHS England toolkit from a lives experience perspective) and the Clinical Policy Unit. Catherine is also actively working with NHS England to reinvigorate Patient Public Engagement nationally and across all regions of NHS England.
Her work continues to be a catalyst for change across the aortic dissection diagnosis and treatment pathway.
Catherine Richards
Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, England
Catherine leads the SusQI programme for the SusQI Academy and courses at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. An Occupational Therapist by background with experience in Clinical Governance and Quality Improvement in the NHS. Catherine is an experienced Improvement Advisor and Coach, with a passion for embedding sustainability into clinical practice and QI.
Charlie Goodwin-Smith
Institute for Healthcare Innovation, England
Charlie Goodwin-Smith, Project Manager, joined IHI in May 2022, and since then has managed the delivery of a variety of quality improvement partnerships and collaboratives across the UK and USA, including the integration of equitable health and care services for children in London, a network of perinatal care collaboratives, and the piloting of an innovative approach to age-friendly home health care in the United States. He has also managed long-term relationships with some of our partner trusts in NHS England. Prior to joining IHI, Charlie held a variety of project, programme and policy management roles for the Scottish Government, including on equity, human rights and international climate justice, managing Scotland’s climate-focused international development work in Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia. He is trained as a social and cultural anthropologist and lives in the Scottish Borders.
Charlie Jones
North Bristol NHS Trust, England
Charlie Jones leads a clinical psychology team in Southmead Hospital in Bristol. He has a passion for systemic and relational approaches to working in healthcare, and how we can create sustainable conditions for safe, honest conversations with both colleagues and patients. He has worked in the NHS since 2004. He is a dad with two lively boys.
Chelsea Gilsenan
NHS England, England
Chelsea Gilsenan Head of National Patient Safety Independent Investigations Team Working in the National Patient Safety Team for NHS England, Chelsea supports the commission of Independent Investigations for NHS England, focusing on the insight gained from investigations to support patient safety improvement. Prior to this national role, Chelsea worked within the Acute health sector supporting all aspects of Quality, Safety and Risk Management.
Chinyama Okunuga
Proud2BOps
Chinyama Okunuga is a highly skilled and motivated Executive and Board member in the NHS, with exceptional operational and strategic experience obtained in a wide range of NHS organisations. Chinyama holds expansive knowledge of the health and political agenda, while working in an increasingly challenged environment with high service demand while striving to meet financial and performance targets. Demonstrable skills and experience in strategic planning, change & project management, leadership, and excellent communication skills with the ability to think beyond conventional boundaries. Chinyama is an active convenor and leader and her roles have included, Lead Governor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at London South East Colleges and previously the vice Chair for the national Proud2bOps Network, a national award-winning network for operational managers and leaders. She has a strong track record of engagement at all levels to achieve service improvement and culture change to deliver high quality service.
Chris Gordon
Director of Improvement and Transformation, Barts Health NHS Trust, England
Chris is the Director of Improvement and Transformation at Barts Health, one of the largest Group Hospital Trusts in the UK NHS, based in East London. He is responsible for developing a culture and practice of continuous Improvement, engaging all staff and embedding it as the approach to address our most urgent health priorities. He also leads for the group on a wide-ranging Transformation and Patient Safety Programme. He has held positions of Medical Director, Chief Operating Officer and CEO, of NHS Acute and Mental Health Trusts. He continues to practice as a Consultant Geriatrician, specialising in Movement Disorders. He is an Improvement Advisor and IHI Fellow.
Chris Wroe
Head of Informatics, BMJ Digital Health, London, England
Chris is Head of Health Informatics at BMJ. He has been focussing on how to get evidence based recommendations in front of clinicians using informatics standards such as SNOMED-CT and those from HL7. Prior to working at the BMJ, he was a solution specialist at BT Global Services, working on projects deploying integrated EHR systems such as Cerner within London hospitals. He also spent a significant period as a biohealth informatics clinical fellow at Manchester University. His research focused on how ontologies can underpin a range of applications from clinical decision support to genomics research. Past Speaking Experience: Dr Wroe has presented at previous AMIA annual symposia, the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, European Semantic Web Conference, European Conference on AI. He has run workshop tutorials in semantics and ontologies to healthcare and life science audiences.
Claire Snyman
Two Steps Forward
Claire Snyman is an author, blogger and advocate for patient and healthcare collaboration. She is passionate about inspiring people to put their health in their own hands as a result of her own lived experience as an individual with a brain tumour and other chronic health conditions. She is a TEDx Speaker and is always looking for ways to increase communication and collaboration between patients, families, caregivers and the healthcare system to improve the patient experience, access to care and embed an understanding of what matters most to people across healthcare.
Corinna Parisi
Institute for Healthcare Innovation, England
Corinna Parisi is a Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) where she works with European partners to build their capacity and capabilities in Quality Improvement and improve care quality through results-driven improvement projects. Her current portfolio includes equity and patient safety work within the UK. She received her Bachelor of Art’s from Bates College. Prior to joining IHI, Corinna supported clinicians in the United States to implement best practices through Academic Detailing efforts. She is currently in her last semester completing her Master’s in Public Health from George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health with a focus on health policy. Patient-centered care, engagement, and advocacy is what matters most to her.
Cristina Serrão
Lived Experience Ambassador, NHS England, England
Cristina Serrão joined the NHS in 2018 as London’s first musculoskeletal Patient Director based at University College London Hospitals. Since early 2020, she has been with NHS England and is now the National Lived Experience Ambassador, working in the People and Communities Division. She champions both the promotion of co-production and the active involvement of people using health and care services and their carers in all aspects of the planning, design, and delivery of care through co-produced clinical pathways across England. Cristina has a strong passion for justice and health inequalities to be faced head on and believes we should treat the whole person, supporting their physical, mental health and social care needs. On a personal level she is a strong believer in supported self-management of both physical and mental health, because of her own multiple chronic health conditions and disabilities. Cristina tackles every challenge with an abundance of energy and laughter – breaking down as many stigmas as possible along the way!! Internationally she is a member of the Global Patient Family Advisory Board (GPFAB) at The Beryl Institute and is also a member of the Health Improvement Alliance Europe (HIAE), Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Cristina is named by The Shaw Trust as one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK 2021 and 2022 in the #DisabilityPower100 list.
Dan McAullay
Edith Cowan Universit, Australia
Professor McAullay, a proud member of the Noongar community of the South West of Western Australia, is a leading figure in Aboriginal health research. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Nursing), a Master of Applied Epidemiology, and a PhD.
Currently, Professor McAullay serves as Dean of Kurongkurl Katitjin and Director of Aboriginal Research at Edith Cowan University. He is widely recognised for his work developing national standards for ethical research on Indigenous Health issues. Professor McAullay has a distinguished record of publications, grants, and invited presentations.
His research interests encompass maternal, infant, and child health, primary healthcare, and broader health services research. Professor McAullay brings extensive experience in Aboriginal health research, policy, and practice to his work. He has held senior positions in these areas and boasts a strong governance background, serving on various government and non-government boards and advisory committees. Currently, he sits on the Boards of the Child and Adolescent Health Service, the Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service, the Stars Foundation, and the Western Australian Museum.
Darshan Patel
Sustainability and Improvement Programme Manager, Imperial College NHS Trust, England
Darshan is the Sustainability and Improvement Programme Manager at Imperial College NHS Trust. He manages the hospital’s Green Team and also provides strategic and operational leadership to implement the organisation’s Green Plan that is designed to put the hospital on a net zero path to a cleaner, greener, healthier and more equitable future. Prior to this he was a Senior Research Manager at the Health Foundation and an Improvement Partner at Imperial College NHS Trust. He has also headed up an Economic Analysis and Performance Research Centre at the Learning and Skills Network, was the British Dental Association’s economist and has held numerous consultancy roles in the private sector.
David Bussue
SACMHA (Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association), England
David has a long professional history in the areas of personal social care, service development, third sector service delivery and service development. He chairs numerous boards and panels, including those in third sector organisations.
He also has extensive public sector experience, rising to senior levels within the public sector organisations, managing multi-million-pound budgets and copious numbers of managers and staff.
He is a qualified social worker and practice educator, supporting universities in the training of social workers.
David is also an ordained and licensed minister and serves as Associate Pastor at the Church of God of Prophecy, one of the longest-established Black Majority Churches in Sheffield.
Debbie Clark
University of Leeds, England
Debbie Clark is a Critical Care Nurse and Senior Lecturer in Nursing. She gained her BSc in Critical Care Nursing from the University of Sheffield in 2004 and an MSc in Healthcare Education from Sheffield Hallam University in 2016. Whilst working within education Debbie has focused upon enhancing patient safety, human factors, and quality improvement within pre and post registration education. During her lecturing career, Debbie has enjoyed a secondment with the Yorkshire and Humber Improvement Academy which allowed her to work with a team to support regional work on Human Factors education and collaborate on a Health Foundation funded safety project: The measurement and monitoring of safety framework (Vincent, 2013). Debbie is a member of Q, the Resilient Healthcare Society, an Associate member of the CIEHF and a HEA fellow. Debbie is currently undertaking a PhD with the University of Leeds funded by THIS Institute.
Deinniol Owens
Health Services Safety Investigations Body, England
Deinniol is currently Deputy Director of Investigations at the Health Services Safety Investigation Body (HSSIB). Deinniol studied law at the University of Durham and qualified as a solicitor in 2008. He went on to work with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, investigating complaints about NHS care and treatment, and completed a Professional Certificate in Ombudsman and Complaint Handling Practice via Queen Margaret University Edinburgh.
He subsequently worked as a Patient Experience Manager at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and completed the NHS Leadership Academy award in healthcare leadership. He joined the Care Quality Commission as an inspector, and then inspection manager, in its acute hospitals directorate. Deinniol completed further study and obtained the NHS Leadership Academy award in senior healthcare leadership and an MSc in Healthcare Leadership.
Deinniol joined us in January 2018 and has since gone on to develop his interest in human factors, completing an MSc in Patient Safety and Clinical Human Factors at the University of Edinburgh and becoming a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. He has also completed the NHS Leadership Academy Nye Bevan programme in executive leadership and is currently studying for a PhD considering how simulation is used in the training of healthcare safety investigators at Staffordshire University.
Deinniol has presented to a variety of audiences on our work and how we adopt safety science in our approach to investigations.
Dominique Allwood
Director of Improvement and Partnerships at UCLPartners; Senior Visiting Fellow at The Health Foundation; Deputy Director of Improvement & Strategy at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, England
Dominique is a Consultant in Public Health and Quality Improvement. She holds a portfolio of roles across Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, a large London teaching hospital where she is Director of Population Health and UCL Partners, a Health Innovation Partnership where she is Chief Medical Officer. In her roles she is leading work on learning health systems, improvement and population health, equity and inequalities. Dominique is an experienced medical leader and has worked across healthcare for 18 years. During the pandemic Dominique helped to set up NHS Nightingale Hospital London where she was Medical Director, establishing a learning health system and approach to quality. Dominique’s expertise includes clinical leadership, quality improvement and population health improvement. She holds a master’s degree in Public Health , has undertaken a Darzi Fellowship in Clinical Leadership, is Associate Editor for BMJ Leader Journal and is currently undertaking an Executive MBA at Henley Business School.
Doug Eby
Vice President of Medical Services Division, Southcentral Foundation, USA
Doug Eby is Vice President of Medical Services for Southcentral Foundation’s Malcolm Baldrige Award-winning Nuka System of Care. Doug is a physician executive who has done extensive work with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and other organizations around the Triple Aim, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Patient Centered Medical Homes, whole system transformation, workforce, cultural competency, health disparities, and other topics. His speaking and consulting includes work across the U.S., Canada, and portions of Europe and the South Pacific. Doug has spent more than 20 years working in support of Alaska Native leadership as they created a very innovative integrated system of care that has significantly improved health outcomes. Doug received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his master’s in public health degree from the University of Hawaii.
Ed Fulker
Evaluation Manager, North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust; England
Ed is the Evaluation Manager for North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust. His background is in operational analytics, having served in the Royal Navy in intelligence roles. Having joined the NHS in 2020, Ed quickly moved into evaluation where he practices and advocates robust evaluative practice in healthcare interventions.
Eleanor Thomas
Advanced Training Education Placement Lead, HEIW, Wales
Eleanor, BSc (Hons) Optometry, MCOptom, graduated from University of Wales Cardiff in 1997. Since qualifying, Eleanor has worked as a community optometrist in south Wales and has gained further accreditation to provide emergency services in primary care. Over the past year Eleanor embarked upon a multi-professional leadership development programme as a Welsh Clinical Leadership fellow, in Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW). This provided the opportunity to collaborate with many professions on projects, and study compassionate leadership gaining qualifications in coaching and mentoring, in addition to a Post Graduate Certificate in Professional Practice in Health. Eleanor also investigated optimum conditions to embed Quality Improvement across primary care optometric practices in Wales. She developed a framework to deliver education and training, focusing upon building capability and capacity of QI skills in the optometry workforce to foster a QI approach to daily practice, and has led a QI project in a primary care optometry practice, which successfully improved patient compliance. Eleanor has recently become the Advanced Training Education Placement Lead at HEIW, facilitating placements for optometrists with higher qualifications, and continues to support, train and coach colleagues in QI skills, alongside studying MSc Therapeutic Prescribing. Eleanor is also a council member representing Wales for the College of Optometrists.
Ellen Joan van Vliet
President-Elect, International Society for Quality in Health Care / CEO Qualicor
Emily Audet
National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow, Internal Medicine Trainee, NHS, England
Dr Emily Audet is an Internal Medicine Trainee Doctor based at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, West Midlands. She is currently in a 12 month out-of-program post working with the Care Quality Commission as Clinical Fellow to the Chief Inspector of Hospitals whilst she undertakes the National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellowship Scheme. She graduated from Birmingham Medical School in 2017, having achieved a 1st Class Honours BSc in Medical Microbiology and Immunology at Newcastle University, 2012. Since co-founding an Interprofessional Education Society at the University of Birmingham, Emily has continued to develop her understanding and experience of the process of influencing, enacting and embedding change within clinical practice. Emily is passionate about enhancing patient safety and quality of care through: empowering frontline healthcare staff with skills to drive change, improving healthcare team-dynamics and team-working, and the use of story-telling and experience-sharing to influence change.
Emma Challans-Rasool
Proud2BOps Founder and Director Proud2bOps, Director NHS Horizons
Emma has worked across healthcare for over 20 years and is an experienced Board level Director and leader within the health and care sector. She is a values driven leader centred around people, continually striving for innovation and improvement that enhances patient, colleague, and partner experience.
Emma is proud to have led in various senior leadership roles including Operational Management, Service Improvement, Organisational Development, Leadership and Culture Transformation. Emma’s public sector experience spans acute, community, primary care and independent. She has also gained experience within the private healthcare sector and worked across Europe as a Senior Healthcare Consultant supporting organisational change and effectiveness.
Emma believes dearly and holds a constant ambition to develop and sustain cultures where networking, compassion, motivation and learning for improvement is valued and lived through the behaviours of people and social systems. She is the Founder and Chair of Proud2bOps, an innovative, multi award-winning national network of operational professionals from health and care providers. Emma is a leader within the Horizons senior team, leading system and large-scale change whilst also acting as a national advisor across health and care management development. Emma is a member of the BMJ Leader International Editorial Advisory Board and an Ambassador of the OD Academy.
Emma Rowan
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust
Head of Service Improvement at South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust. Emma is the lead for Improvement at South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust overseeing the organisational capability and culture for improvement. With a background in clinical research, a qualified coach and QSIR practitioner, Emma is passionate about fostering a culture of improvement, change and leadership in healthcare.
Eric Thomas
Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Healthcare Quality at the McGovern Medical School; University of Texas Health Science Centre, USA
Eric J. Thomas, M.D., M.P.H. is a Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Healthcare Quality at the McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He also directs the UT Houston-Memorial Hermann Center for Healthcare Quality and Safety. Since 1992 he has conducted research on patient safety and his work was heavily cited in the Institute of Medicine’s reports To Err is Human (2000), and Improving Diagnosis in Health Care (2015). Dr. Thomas’ current research focuses on topics such as diagnostic errors, measuring safety culture, and engaging families and frontline clinicians in detecting harm and improving patient safety. Dr. Thomas also served as the Chancellor’s Health Fellow for Patient Safety for The University of Texas System. In that role he led UT System efforts regarding disclosure of errors, a quality and safety grants program, and faculty training for quality improvement. As Associate Dean for Healthcare Quality he works with other leaders of the UT Houston Medical School to develop quality and safety programs within the education, research, and patient care missions of the school, and he Co-Chairs the UT Physicians Outpatient Quality Council. In 2007 he received the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award for Research from the National Quality Forum and Joint Commission, and currently serves as Co-Editor in Chief for BMJ Quality and Safety.
Ethel Oldfield
Head of Patient Safety (Oversight & Alerts), NHS England, England
Ethel is currently Head of Patient Safety (Oversight & Alerts) for the NHS England National Patient Safety Team. She is a Human Factors Specialist and a Registered Midwife. She has a background in safety investigations, training, safety & risk management. She also delivers Human Factors & Safety Investigation Training in various industries, including healthcare and mining. Ethel has an MSc in Human Factors from Loughborough University and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors.
Faith Smith
Health Innovation Network, England
Faith is a Lived Experience Partner at the Health Innovation Network South London (HIN) who has worked with local and national involvement initiatives including co-chairing the NHS England Experts by Experience regional forum. She is also on the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) involvement register where she provides staff training, supports recruitment processes and has helped develop e-learning programmes. Before becoming a Lived Experience Partner, Faith worked with the HIN on their Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme. Since joining the HIN in her current role, Faith has supported on a number of projects including advising on involvement approaches for Physical Health Checks for people with Serious Mental Illness and recruiting of Experts by Experience for a Culturally Competent Genetic Services programme. Faith has a particular interest in reducing health inequalities, and is keen to use her role to support other people with lived experience and empower them to have their voices heard.
Fiona Flowers
Social Care Institution for Excellence, England
Fiona has gained extensive knowledge and experience of the UK health, social care and voluntary sectors working for a large national charity, the NHS, government and the police. Fiona has worked clinically across social care and clinical psychology with children with cancer and their families. With a background in mental health, she has also worked with offenders experiencing mental health conditions and worked in HR with employee wellbeing.
Fiona has developed and delivered corporate strategy as well as experience in influencing wider policy, such as the implementation of the NHSE Long Term Plan. Fiona has programmed managed SCIE’s work with the DHSC including work around Social Care reforms and is linked into to multiple working groups within the DHSC including digital aspects of social care.
Key experiences:
- National programme of system change; led a multi-million pound programme of system change, working across the system to develop integrated models of care that are tailored to local needs and utilise community assets working to ensure efficiencies and driving up quality of care.
- National evaluation programme led an evaluation programme including leading a Community of Practice
- Consultancy : leads many of SCIE’s coproduction and strength-based consultancy programmes, including digital transformation, to support LA’s to benchmark, model demand and understand strength based approaches, coproduction and its impact on services and outcomes, including developing robust business cases for change.
Forzana Nasir
Lived Experience Partner, England
Forzana is a lived experience partner for NHS England, actively involved as a member of the nutrition and hydration board and strategic coproduction group. She has garnered global recognition for her leadership as a patient advocate and her unwavering commitment to supporting patients and carers. Credited for her collaboration on a service directory aimed at enhancing patient experience in North Central London, Forzana is dedicated to improving healthcare delivery. Living with multiple chronic conditions served as the catalyst for her decision to pursue further education, resulting in the attainment of a Bachelor of Science in Health Science. Forzana is committed to championing inclusion and reducing health inequality. She focuses her efforts on community research and improving health literacy to create a more inclusive and accessible healthcare system.
Frances Wood
Registered Nurse, NHS England, England
Frances is a Registered Nurse, having qualified in 1991. Her clinical career included working within a range of medical specialities including emergency medicine, and women’s health. She later became a Risk Advisor in a large acute trust and following further study related to healthcare ergonomics at Loughborough University, became a Patient Safety Manager in 2005, specialising in serious incident investigation and complaints management.
In 2010, Frances secured a one-year secondment to the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) as part of the national response function working within a specialist team to review and act on reports of harm made to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS). During that time, she learned how reports of harm made by frontline staff can support national as well as local safety interventions and initiatives.
In 2014, after a further period back in an acute trust she joined the National Patient Safety Team, now at NHS England, as a Patient Safety Lead. From 2016 Frances has been Head of Patient Safety (Review and Response) leading the team that review reports of harm to patients, primarily to identify new, rare, emerging, or potentially under recognised risks to patient safety. This work underpins the National Patient Safety Alerting System and supports other types of system wide safety advice and guidance for the NHS.
Gabrielle Mathews
NHS England, England
Gabrielle is a multi-award-winning children and young people’s health advocate. A long-term patient, she role models the inclusion of patients in strategic decision-making as a member of the NHS Assembly. She sits as an Oversight Board member to the Research and Economic Analysis for the Long term (REAL) centre at the Health Foundation and is a member of the General Advisory Council at the King’s Fund. Her advocacy work extends beyond healthcare; She is a board member of the #iwill movement and a trustee of UK Youth, an organisation that supports over 7000 youth organisation and collectively reaches 4.1 million young people. Gabrielle is an academic foundation doctor in North Central London with an interest in co-production and power in both research and policy development. Her current thinking is focused on individual and systems leadership and how we can equip and mobilise all health care professionals to lead with and for Kindness.
Gambinga Gambinga
SACMHA (Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association), England
Gambinga is the Race Equity Officer at Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association (SACMHA). SACMHA is a charity that was set up in 1988 in response to the mental health needs of people of African or Caribbean descent.
Within his role, Gambinga focuses on supporting and coproducing with patients, staff, and people with lived experience, both in terms of those affected by restrictive practice and those impacted by self-harm and suicidal ideation.
As someone who has lived with bipolar, depression and is a former service user, Gambinga’s lived experience gives him insight into the people he works with. His experiences help him to treat everyone with respect and dignity, and he is proud that he treats people “as human beings; not a diagnosis, condition or situation.”
Gambinga is also a qualified nurse and has worked in mental health hospitals, which helps him to do his job in a professional yet compassionate manner.
A large part of Gambinga’s role is building trust with others within mental health settings and within the community. He has led on several projects to support this work, including the collection of qualitative data post restrictive practice incidents which he has started thematically analysing.
Gambinga is keen to disseminate his findings from the various work he has undertaken, including sharing work through conferences. He is also trying to set up a network of Race Equity Officers and similar roles to share practice and learning.
Gareth Thompson
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, England
Gareth is a doctor and the Sustainability Clinical and Innovation Lead at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. As Sustainability Clinical and Innovation Lead, he has a focus on staff engagement that empowers and grows the hospital’s green champions, as well as supporting change that can decarbonise clinical practice and pathways. He has a special interest in sustainability entrepreneurship and innovation and assists startup founders with climate change and circular economy solutions with a focus on healthcare. His career vision is to plant the seeds of a regenerative economic paradigm shift that will enable both human society and nature to thrive together.
Geetika Singh
Head of Quality Improvement, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, England
Geetika works as Head of Quality Improvement at Central North West London (CNWL). She is a qualified Physiotherapist with 20 years of NHS experience within the acute, community and mental health sectors, working in quality improvement for over a decade. She has led many multi-site, multi-disciplinary QI programmes and collaboratives and trained as an IHI Improvement Advisor in 2017.
Her work included improvement and prevention of falls, diabetes, acute kidney injury, invasive procedures, and advanced care planning. The delivery of these programmes has resulted in significant change. She has shared her work at various national and international conferences. Her work was recognised as runner up at the 2016 National Patient Safety HSJ Awards. Geetika is a strong advocate for Expert by Experience in co-design and co-production within her QI work. Recently, she worked alongside service users, carers and staff to co-design the Expert by Experience Improvement forum that facilitated higher SU&C involvement in improvement projects across the CNWL.
Gemma Louch
Associate Professor, School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, England
Gemma is an Associate Professor in Applied Health and Care Research at the University of Leeds and Research Programme Manager for the Response Study. The Response Study is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to evaluate the implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) across the NHS in England. Gemma is a mixed-methods researcher and her broad research interests include patient involvement in patient safety, patient safety inequalities and patient safety policy.
George Samoutis
National Centre for Clinical Evidence, Cyprus
Prof George Samoutis, is the Chairman of the Coordination Committee of the National Centre for Clinical Evidence, leading Cyprus efforts for the introduction of a National organization that will develop/adjust clinical guidelines/clinical protocols/clinical pathways, overview and evaluate their implementation via clinical audits, peer reviews and inspections in Cyprus nationwide ( funded by the European Commission via the Recovery and Resilience Funds). Furthermore, Prof Samoutis is the Clinical Director of Apostolos Loukas Medical Centre, a Clinical Professor at the University of Nicosia Medical School, a member of the Scientific Scientific Committee of the Cyprus Federation of Patients Associations and board member of the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee. . He served in the past as NICE international Associate, Medical lead for the Cyprus National Health Insurance Organization.
Göran Henriks
Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation, Qulturum, Sweden
Göran Henriks has been Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation at The Qulturum in the County Council of Jönköping, Sweden, since 1997. Qulturum is a centre for quality, leadership and management development for the employees in the County and also for health care on a regional and national level.
Göran has nearly forty years’ experience of management in the Swedish Health Care system. He is a member of the Jönköping County Council top management and Strategic Group. The county are ranked among the best in Swedish care with regards to patient satisfaction, access, clinical performance, safety and costs.
Göran is a senior fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and is the chair of the Strategic Committee of the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.
Hannah Baird
St3 Emergency Medicine, Chair of the FMLM Trainee Steering Group, FMLM, UK
Hannah is a Trainee in Emergency Medicine in the North West. She is also undertaking a Medical Education Fellowship alongside her clinical training. She has an interest in Medical Leadership and has recently completed a Masters in Medical Leadership at Lancaster University and chairs the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management Trainee Steering Group. She has a keen interest in education and Quality Improvement and has set up TIPSQI – Trainees Improving Patient Safety through Quality Improvement – a peer lead training initiative for Foundation doctors across the North West and Mersey.
Hannah Waterson
Research and Policy Manager, National Centre for Creative Health, England
Hannah joined NCCH as Research and Policy Manager in 2022. After completing a PhD related to health promotion and policy, she worked in policy research and media roles before returning to the University of Manchester as a lecturer in healthcare sciences, working in research and evaluation on a range of projects related to public health and health inequalities. There she developed an interest in creative health, co-developing and delivering a course on arts and public health. She is excited to be able to promote evidence-based policy and practice around creative health in this new role.
Hassan Mahmood
Sheffield Health and Social Care, England
Dr Hassan Mahmood is the Clinical Director of the Learning Disability Service at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust. He is also a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Intellectual Disability Executive Committee.
He has made a rapid ascent into senior medical leadership and his work has been nationally recognised as shown by him being shortlisted for the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ “Psychiatrist of the Year” award in 2021.
Hassan was interim Divisional Medical Director in Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and had an interview about his leadership experience during the pandemic published in the BMJ Leader.
He innovated “Multicultural STOMP” a national first, which aims to improve STOMP implementation in people with Learning Disability and/or Autism. His innovation was rated by CQC as “outstanding practice” in 2020.
Hazel Tan
Priory Hospital North London, Collegio de San Juan de Letran School of Nursing Calamba, Philippines & Philippine Journal of Nursing
Helen Bevan
Chief Transformation Officer, NHS Horizons, England
Helen Bevan is acknowledged globally for her expertise and energy for large scale change in health and care. During her 25 years as a change leader in the English National Health Service, Helen has been at the forefront of many NHS improvement initiatives that have made a difference for thousands of patients and for the staff who care for them. Helen currently leads the Horizons team, which is a source of ideas and knowledge to enable the spread of improvements at scale. The team uses a variety of different tools and approaches including social movement thinking, community organising, improvement science, accelerated design and digital connectivity. It champions the role of emerging leaders, students and trainees at the forefront of radical change.
Helen Crisp
BMJ Open Quality, England
Helen Crisp, BA Editor-in-chief of BMJ Open Quality Independent Consultant – Crisp QI Previously: Assistant Director of Research at the Health Foundation, Director of accreditation services and consultancy at CHKS Accreditation Unit London, UK Areas of expertise: Patient safety, Person-centred care, Quality improvement methods, Healthcare improvement research
Helen Haylor
Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, UK
Helen qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 2008 and then worked clinically within adult community mental health services using a range of trauma informed psychological therapies. Since 2015, she has worked in a service evaluation role exploring the approaches taken within acute community mental health services in order to inform service improvements. Helen has worked alongside service users and carer representatives in the undertaking of studies and also captured their perspectives within studies. Helen’s work has included applying a confidential inquiry model suicides which occurred under BDCFT mental health services during years 2014-2020, drawing from the content of serious incident investigation reports.
Helen Hughes
Chief Executive, Patient Safety Learning, England
Helen is Chief Executive of Patient Safety Learning, a charity and independent voice for system wide change. It promotes patient safety and the reduction of avoidable harm through: policy, influencing and campaigning; developing and promoting ‘how to’ resources including shared learning, the hub is our free shared learning platform for patient safety and Organisational standards for patient safety using the evidence-based foundations in A Blueprint for Action.
Helen’s passion for improved patient safety is informed by personal family insight into the impact of unsafe care and the ineffectiveness of organisational responses to learning and taking action to reduce avoidable harm. Helen is an experienced leader in organisational effectiveness and transformational change. She has held Executive leadership roles in healthcare in the UK and the WHO, the National Patient Safety Agency, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Parliamentary Health Services Ombudsman and the Charity Commission. Helen has extensive experience as Chair and Trustee in social justice and health care delivery charities.
Helen Lee
NHS England, England
Helen is a qualified nurse with experience of working in both acute and community settings and was Head of Quality Improvement and Experience in a provider organisation prior to her current role. Helen is now Experience of Care Lead with NHS England and is strategic policy lead for experience of care improvement. Helen is passionate about co-production where people, with lived and learnt experience, partner to understand what matters to people. This ensures improvements are co-designed, sustainable and, ones that will really make a difference.
Helen has seen the huge impact that asking what matters to you can make for people receiving and providing care. This simple question helps us to connect as people and to understand and support each other better.
Internationally Helen is a member of the Health Improvement Alliance Europe (HIAE) Creating, Leading, and Sustaining a Culture of Quality Workgroup, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and a member of the international What Matters To You leadership team.
X/Twitter: @helenlee321_lee #coproduction #ExpOfCare #AlwaysEvents #WMTY #LivedExperience #ImprovingTogether
Helen McConnell
Service User Representative, England
I started the role of York & Scarborough MNVP lead in September 2022, having used the services myself in 2019. Since then I have been involved in driving service user led change and improvements to maternity care. I am proud to represent the voices of service users and to work closely as part of a multidisciplinary team to ensure the voices are heard and represented as YSTHFT drives forward improvements, keeping service users as a central strand to all of the work being done.
Helen Wharam
Solent NHS Trust, England
Helen is an Advanced Quality Improvement Methodologist at Solent NHS Trust’s Academy for Research and Improvement. She has had a leadership role in their expanding quality improvement programme since 2016, providing training in QI methodology, facilitating teams implementing improvement activities, and sharing and spreading learning. More recently, she has focused on supporting services manage demand and capacity. For the past two years she has been using the specialist expertise developed through participation in a training programme with NHS England’s Demand and Capacity team to develop and deliver a programme integrating quality improvement methods with demand and capacity management and modelling. Helen is a qualified occupational therapist specialising in mental health and holds a master’s degree in Clinical Research and a doctorate focusing on healthcare quality improvement.
Henrietta Hughes
Patient Safety Commissioner
Dr Henrietta Hughes OBE started in September 2022 as the first Patient Safety Commissioner, an independent role recommended by the report First Do No Harm. Acting as an independent champion for patients Henrietta leads a drive to improve the safety of medicines and medical devices by ensuring that patient voices are at the heart of the design and delivery of healthcare in England. A practising GP and a member of the Health Honours Committee and the guiding group of the Women’s Health and Care Leaders Network, Henrietta was previously the National Guardian for the NHS and a Medical Director at NHS England. Henrietta has held executive and non-executive roles in the NHS and is Chair of Childhood First, a children’s charity.
Hesham Abdalla
Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, England
Hesham is a consultant paediatrician and head of quality improvement at Oxford University Hospitals. He has over 20 years’ experience of service improvement seen through the twin lenses of patient and staff experience and has led teams to several Patient Experience National Network and HSJ awards.
He teaches extensively on leadership is an associate professor at the University of Birmingham, teaching on the NHS Leadership Academy Masters programme for senior leaders. He was a trustee of Doctors Worldwide, a charity delivering quality medical care and relief in over 22 countries across the globe and for the Point of Care Foundation in its mission to humanise healthcare. He has also served on the advisory board of the Q Community at the Health Foundation.
Hesham co-founded Hexitime, the first time-banking platform for the improvement of Health and Care, which has been nominated and won a number of regional and national awards for innovation and sustainability.
Hristio Boytchev
Freelance Investigative Journalist, Germany
Hristio is a Berlin-based investigative health and science journalist, focusing on research integrity and systemic problems in health. He is leading the project “Follow the Grant”, a data driven tool for investigating conflicts of interest. He was awarded the “European Science Journalist of the Year 2021” prize by the European Federation for Science Journalism. Hristio has worked for the German investigative non-profit Correctiv and the Science Media Center Germany.
Hugh McCaughey
Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI), N.Ireland; Former National Director of Improvement, NHS England; Former CEO, South Eastern HSC Trust
Former National Director of Improvement at NHS England and NHS Improvement, April 2019 to March 2022
Former Chief Executive of South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland, 2009 to 2019.
Prior to 2009, Hugh held Board level positions including CEO; Deputy CEO; COO in other Health and Social Care trusts for over 15 years.
Founding member of the Health Improvement Alliance Europe and the UK Improvement Alliance.
Professional interests and experience in: Leadership and Organisational Development; Quality Improvement and building/embedding an Improvement approach; Improvement Culture and Culture change; Health Improvement and a particular interest in a “Better start in life for Children”; Quality Management and Healthcare Regulation; Health Service Transformation and Large-scale change.
Chair of Crescendo from Oct 2022. Crescendo is a long-term immersive music programme, jointly led by Colin Neighbourhood Partnership and the Greater Shankill Partnership’s, involving 4 Primary schools, the Ulster Orchestra, and queens University Belfast. It aims to transform the lives of children through, and beyond music, and with impacts on families and neighbourhoods.
Former Chair of the Ulster Rugby Academy and a former coach, player, and manager, he has a long-term interest in player and coach development pathways.
Former Chair of the Sports Institute, N.Ireland
Hugh’s Twitter handle is @HughMcCaughey
Ian Leistikow
Inspector at the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate, Professor at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Rotterdam; The Netherlands
Ian Leistikow is an inspector and advisor at the Dutch Health & Youth Care Inspectorate and professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam where he does research on governmental regulation of healthcare quality. He is a non-practicing physician. He was the coordinator of the patient safety program within the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 2003 to 2011. He has set up various patient safety related trainings, has published multiple articles about patient safety and co-authored a Dutch book on Root Cause Analysis. In 2010 he published his PhD thesis on how the Board of Directors can lead patient safety improvements. Since 2011, Ian works at the Dutch Health & Youth Care Inspectorate. There his tasks have included judging the quality of sentinel event analysis reports from hospitals and coordinating the Dutch national set of quality indicators for hospitals. In 2011 Ian became a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. In 2017 CRC Press published his book “Prevention is better than cure”, on learning from adverse events in healthcare.
Ikran Ahmed
SCIE Consultant
Ikran is a SCIE Consultant, having previously worked as an Operations Director and Service Manager at Mind. Prior to that she worked in various roles across the charity sector, including as an Operations Manager at Age UK and served as a Social Prescribing Link Worker as well as Vaccinator during COVID. Ikran has worked in many capacities for the NHS, including digital projects and transformation, facilitating improvements in access to health and social care for vulnerable and under-represented groups. She trained in medicine and later in social care, with a particular aptitude for integrating and bridging the gaps between health and social care. She has won several recognitions, including from the local mayor and community leaders.
Ikran previously led a pilot project for a hospital discharge pathway, along with single point of access systems in the charity sector through Alliances. She worked across system partners including health, social care, housing and the voluntary sector to develop a new service to reduce inappropriate hospital re-admissions and to increase people’s positive experience of hospital discharge. She is also experienced in leading on housing projects within SCIE including the development of custom housing tools and resources to support Social Workers, a first for the social care industry, as well as supporting innovation projects and accelerated funding schemes. Ikran’s medical and social background with variety of perspective, provides a synergy in approach to complex problems.
Inge Kristensen
Danish Society for Patient Safety, Denmark
Inge Kristensen is the CEO of the Danish Society for Patient Safety. Inge is a long-standing manager with experience from the social and health sector and research institutions in the municipal, regional and state sector. Inge has worked as a consultant, has been Head of the Social Services and Health Care in a municipality and before that the head of Development and Quality in a hosptial region. Inge has achieved significant results with the establishment and implementation of innovative cross-sectoral cooperation in the health field and in complex projects within quality development – which both save money and increase quality. A wide and deep knowledge of many sector areas enables Inge to navigate, collaborate and create sustainable solutions that use inspiration from Denmark and abroad. Inge works with the development of Danish Society for Patient Safety roles as a catalyst and integrator in the health care system, and where professionalism and strategy must be connected. Constant improvements have been a red thread through Inge’s working life, along with a focus on the user/ patient perspective.
Irenie Ekkeshis
New Citizenship Project
Irenie is an award-winning health campaigner, Patient Leader and champion of citizen participation across the health and care sector, having been through a life-changing illness resulting in the total loss of sight in her right eye in 2011. She has a background in the advertising industry, and spent more than a decade developing brand strategy and campaigns for clients including HSBC, Unilever and the BBC. In 2014 Irenie blended her lived experience and work to co-found New Citizenship Project, an innovation and participation consultancy working with organisations of all types to help them involve people meaningfully as citizens, rather than treating them as consumers of products or services. Irenie has led work on public engagement, strategy, participation and co-production across a range of sectors, from cultural heritage to business, and has had a particular interest in and focus on health, working with organisations within the NHS, Local Authorities and the VCSE sector. She is also a regular contributor to the Darzi Fellows leadership programme delivered by London South Bank University.
Iris Reijmerink
University Medical Centre Groningen, Netherlands
Iris Reijmerink is an MD/PhD student at the University Medical Centre of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her PhD project entitled “From the O.R. to the boardroom: unravelling the story of stress, fatigue, and well-being in healthcare” is aimed at the enhancement of the overall well-being of healthcare professionals while concurrently addressing potential risks in the quality of care. On an individual level, Iris aims on understanding how surgeons stress and fatigue, and performance variability, collectively impact surgical performance and subsequently the well-being of surgeons. At the organizational level, she explores the role of organizational entities, including hospital leaders and global medical regulators, in fostering and sustaining the well-being of healthcare professionals. Iris has presented part of this topic at multiple conferences, among which at the International forum of Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Glasgow 2019.
Iwan Meynaar
Haga Hospital, The Hague, The Netherlands
Iwan is a practicing consultant intensive care since 2001. He works at the Haga Hospital a large hospital in the Hague, the Netherlands. In 2013 he started as safety officer and head of department quality and safety. He is a board member of the Medical Patient Safety Officers of the Dutch Association of Medical Specialists (FMS). He finished a master’s degree on healthcare organization from the TIAS Business School in Tilburg, the Netherlands and a master’s degree on epidemiology from the Free University in Amsterdam. He is also a board member of the Dutch Society for Critical Care Medicine.
James Mountford
Health Strategy Officer, Galileo Global Education, France
Dr James Mountford is Health Strategy Officer for Galileo Global Education. Based in France, Galileo runs a network of universities and colleges internationally spanning many disciplines (from creative arts to business to health professions). Galileo’s mission is to bring higher-and vocational-education within everyone’s reach, and to equip people to have rewarding careers in areas which matter to society. James qualified in Medicine at Oxford and has a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard. He worked initially as an NHS doctor, then in consulting. From 2005 to 2007, he was a Commonwealth Fund/Health Foundation Harkness Fellow based at Massachusetts General Hospital, and at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), both in Boston. James was Director of Quality at UCLPartners and then at the Royal Free London hospital, during which he led a multi-year programme to embed improving quality into routine practice and to put greater focus on what matters to staff, patients and families. James has also worked centrally in the NHS as Director of National Improvement Strategy for NHS England. In 2020 he was Chief of Quality and Learning at the NHS Nightingale Hospital, a field ICU hospital built in London’s ExCel conference centre to treat patients with COVID19. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal BMJ Leader, and serves on the International Advisory group of PAQS (the Belgian national improvement body) an is Associate at the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA). During 2022 James volunteered with Solidarité Ukraine, a grass-roots organisation based in St. Omer, France set up to support people displaced by the war to find safety, employment and to rebuild their lives in northern France until it is safe to return home.
Jane Coy-Terry
Project Manager, Royal Free Hospital, England
I have worked within healthcare, both NHS and privately, as an Occupational Therapist (OT) since 2010. My speciality during that time was working within mental health, and for the last 9 years working in a National Specialist Service for Deaf adults with mental health difficulties. I then made the difficult decision to leave clinical work behind but was committed to continue to be a part of the NHS and having some positive impact on patients and staff. I started working at The Royal Free Hospital in North London in 2023 within the Quality Improvement team. My role is running a staff wellbeing programme, ‘What Matters To Staff’ (WMTS), within the hospital. My passion for working with patients has now extended to a real desire and passion for improving the everyday working lives of staff within the NHS.
Jane O'Hara
University of Cambridge, England
Professor Jane O’Hara is Director of Research at The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute, at the University of Cambridge. Currently, she leads the Safer Systems, Cultures and Practices theme within the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (running 2023-2028), and a large NIHR-funded programme evaluating the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (May 2022-July 2025), alongside an ongoing quality and safety research portfolio. Jane holds Visiting Professor positions at the University of Leeds, and the SHARE Centre for Resilience in Healthcare at the University of Stavanger, Norway. She has nearly fifteen years’ experience leading patient safety research, and a further eight years of applied psychological research prior to that. Jane has received funding from the Health Foundation, THIS Institute, the Trondheim Foundation and Research Council of Norway, and the NIHR. Jane has a broad range of research interests including engaging patients and families in care quality and safety; measurement and monitoring of patient safety; improving incident investigation and learning; safety theory and resilient healthcare approaches; co-production; and, quality and safety intervention development and testing.
Jason Leitch
National Clinical Director; Scottish Government, Scotland
Professor Jason Leitch, CBE Jason has worked for the Scottish Government since 2007 and in January 2015 was appointed as The National Clinical Director. He was appointed CBE in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours. The National Clinical Director is responsible for quality in the health and social care system, including patient safety and person-centred care, NHS planning, and implementing quality improvement methods across the government and the broader public sector. He is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He was a 2005-06 Quality Improvement Fellow at IHI. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee and a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde. Jason is a non executive Board member of the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, a Board member of The Nazareth Trust and a trustee of the Indian Rural Evangelical Fellowship (UK) which runs a children’s’ home and schools in southeast India. He qualified as a dentist in 1991 and was a Consultant Oral Surgeon in Glasgow. He has a doctorate from the University of Glasgow, a Masters in Public Health from Harvard and is a fellow of the three UK surgical Royal Colleges. Jason is an internationally recognised expert in healthcare quality. He speaks around the world and has advised Governments in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, The Republic of Ireland, Jordan, Canada, Brazil and South Africa. In 2020 and 2021 he was awarded the Fletcher of Saltoun award from the Saltire Society, elected to the US National Academy of Medicine and awarded an Honorary Membership of the Faculty of Public Health all for his contribution to the UK and Scottish response to the global pandemic. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, he has played a key role in public health communication and engagement. He regularly featured at Scottish Government press conferences as well as public engagement on regional and national television and radio. He received praise for his ability to translate complex scientific information to the public, providing calm and clear advice.
Jesper Gyllenborg
Region of Zealand, Denmark
Jesper Gyllenborg is the CMO of one of the five healthcare regions in Denmark, Region Zealand. Jesper is a specialist in neurology, with a long career as a clinician and leader in the secondary healthcare system. Throughout his leadership Jesper has had a persistent focus on equality in health, prioritization and efficient use of available resources.
Joanna Moore
Senior Improvement Advisor, Barts Health NHS Trust, England
Joanna is an AHP by background, with over 16 years clinical experience across all NHS healthcare settings and in Canada. She is currently a Senior Improvement Advisor working at Barts Health as Programme Lead for Unplanned Care Trustwide and the Northeast London sector. Joanna has lead on the Remote Emergency Access Coordination Hub (REACH) and Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) improvement programmes since 2021. Joanna is a member of the National @AHPQI Comms Squad with the aim of connecting, sharing and promoting QI throughout the AHP world. She is also a part of the global ‘Kindness Collaborative’ aiming to build ‘Kindness Leaders’ throughout all levels of international healthcare. She is an advocate of the global “What Matters to You?” healthcare movement.
John Dean
Improvement Clinical Director and Consultant Physician/Deputy Medical Director (Transformation),
Royal College of Physicians East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, England
John is Improvement Clinical Director at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Consultant Physician/Deputy Medical Director (Transformation) at East Lancashire
Hospitals NHS Trust.
At the RCP he provides strategic clinical leadership to improvement programmes and partnerships. As Clinical Director for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the
RCP from 2017, he represented the college and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges on a number of NHS improvement boards and provided leadership to a number of RCP patient safety and quality improvement programmes.
In East Lancashire he is working across the health economy, leading service improvement.
He has worked in improvement initiatives across the Department of Health, Royal Colleges, NHS NW, IHI and the Health Foundation. He was faculty and non-executive board member of AQuA. He was previously Medical Director of NHS Bolton, Clinical Director of Medical and Elderly Service for Bolton Hospitals, and Clinical lead for Diabetes Services in Bolton.
He is a Health Foundation/IHI fellow and Q fellow.
John Lodge
Co-founder and CEO, Hexitime, England
John is a co-founder and Director at Hexitime, the first timebank for professionals to exchange skills for the improvement of Health and Care, which has won a number of regional and national awards for innovation and sustainability.
He is the Director of Innovation and Quality Improvement at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and a visiting lecturer in Leadership and Quality Improvement at King’s College London. John also supports the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) as an innovation mentor and is an alumni of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme (CEP).
After a career in the British Army, he held posts in NHS service management, national policy and commissioning, and most recently as the NHS Head of Quality Improvement for London.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlodge/
Jonathan Wetzel
Executive Director, Mount Sinai International, Mount Sinai Health System (New York, New York, USA)
Jonathan Wetzel serves as an Executive Director of Mount Sinai International and is responsible for managing a diverse portfolio of active relationships and launching new partnerships. Jonathan was part of the team that established Mount Sinai International in 2014. He plays a key role in the team’s operational oversite and in Mount Sinai’s global expansion. Jonathan joined Mount Sinai in 2013 as Manager of Network Development where he focused on local and regional strategic partnerships, acquisitions, and relationship management for the Mount Sinai Health Network. Before joining Mount Sinai Mr. Wetzel served as Project Manager, Western Region, for Northwell Health, where he began his career as an administrative fellow. Jonathan holds a M.B.A. in Health Care Management from Union Graduate College and a B.A. in Behavioural Neuroscience from Lehigh University.
Jonas Boström
CGI/Mid Sweden University, Sweden
Jonas has a long background in Swedish healthcare as a anaesthetic nurse within prehospital care as well as in emergency care and ICU. Since 2013 he has worked with research and development questions in healthcare, both at regional and national level. His research studies is focusing on quality improvement, design and change in complexity.
Julie Miah
Barts Health NHS Trust, England
Julie is an accomplished Digital Change lead with a wealth of experience in project management, including managing infrastructure, application support and change development, and Evaluating and proposing digital change. Julie has led on improving bed management and patient flow through the delivery of successful technical solutions. Julie has honed Quality Improvement skills, ensuring that her projects result in continuous improvement and deliver sustainable value. Julie is passionate about identifying process gaps and designing digital changes to enhance workflow and data collection using strategic methodology and innovation to deliver.
Kamran Abbassi
Editor in Chief, TheBMJ, BMJ, England
Kamran Abbasi is editor in chief of The BMJ. He is a doctor, journalist, editor, and broadcaster.
After starting his career in hospital medicine, in various medical specialties such as psychiatry and cardiology, Kamran worked at the BMJ from 1997 to 2005. He was deputy editor and acting editor during that time. In 2013, Kamran returned to the BMJ in a new role as executive editor for content, leading the journal’s strategic growth internationally, digitally, and in print.
In December 2021 he was appointed editor in chief of the BMJ.
Outside the BMJ, Kamran’s previous roles include being editor of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization and a consultant editor for PLOS Medicine. He is editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and JRSM Open.
Kamran also created three major e-learning resources for professional development of doctors, including BMJ Learning and the Royal Society of Medicine’s video lecture service.
Kamran has held board level positions and been chief executive of an online learning company. He has consulted for several major organisations including Harvard University, the World Health Organization, and McKinsey & Co.
In addition, Kamran is an honorary visiting professor in the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College, London. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of London, patron of the South Asian Health Foundation, and a member of the General Advisory Council of the King’s Fund.
He is an experienced contributor on radio and television.
Kamran’s other passion is cricket. He writes on cricket for publications throughout the world, including Dawn and Wisden, but is best known for his popular blog that featured on ESPNCricinfo for over a decade. His cricket book, Englistan: An immigrant’s journey on the turbulent winds of Pakistan cricket, is available from Amazon.
Kamran tweets from https://twitter.com/KamranAbbasi
Karen Amsden
Principal Policy and Projects Officer, London Councils
Karen Amsden is a Principal Policy and Projects Officer at London Councils who has the lead responsibility for community engagement. She is responsible for supporting the London Community Engagement Network and is passionate about connecting people who are working in, and with, communities.
Karen Turner
Senior Improvement Advisor, Royal Free Hospital in London, England
Karen Turner is the Senior Improvement Advisor for the Royal Free Hospital in London. Her role involves supporting and leading site wide improvement projects and programmes, advising teams on QI methodology, teaching and ensuring that learning is spread and shared and leading on patient involvement work. She is passionate about asking, listening and doing ‘what matters’ for both staff and patients and has developed a site wide approach to staff wellbeing by operationalising the ‘what matters to you’ conversation. Karen qualified as a physiotherapist in 1996 and worked in different acute trusts and community settings before she specialised in Oncology and Palliative Care. She worked at the Royal Free for 17 years as a physiotherapist before taking this Improvement role in October 2019. Karen became interested in the world of Quality Improvement during a year as a Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholar in 2017 and thanks to the Royal Free Charity, had the opportunity to attend the London IHI forum where she first heard about the ‘what matters to you’ movement. Karen has published original research in the area of Cancer Rehabilitation and has co-authored a chapter in a Textbook of Palliative Care. She has presented widely on the what matters to you movement and continues to try and embed #wmty in all the improvement work at the Free. Karen lives in South West London with her husband and two children, Amelie and Lola and her rabbit Pepper (who she often thinks is her favourite house mate!)
Kate Arrow
Consultant Anaesthetist, NHS Education Scotland, Scotland
Kate is a Consultant Anaesthetist in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness and the Clinical Lead for Realistic Medicine in NHS Highland. She is also an Educational Lead with the Scottish Quality & Safety Fellowship and leads on the service design element of the programme. She has an interest in Peri-operative Medicine, particularly shared decision making, service improvement & redesign and reducing inequalities in experience & outcomes. She completed a Fellowship in Adelaide Women and Children’s Hospital in 2021, during which she developed her interest in clinical hypnosis & Nocebo effects. She is Mum to Alasdair and Daphne, wife to Colin and subordinate to one cat called Coco. She enjoys living in the Scottish Highlands, exploring it by bike, boot and board.
Kathryn Turner
Metro North Mental Health, Australia
Dr Kathryn Turner is a Psychiatrist and Executive Director of Metro North Mental Health, which includes Mental Health. Alcohol and Other Drug Services, and statewide services including Forensic Mental Health. She has had a longstanding interest in education, training, and continuous improvement of quality and safety in healthcare systems, evaluation, and a focus on culture in the workplace. Dr Turner has been involved in design and implementation of Suicide Prevention frameworks and pathways in her previous and current service with her publications have demonstrated significant positive outcomes of this work. Dr Turner implemented a Restorative Just and Learning Culture framework into the service, providing support for consumers, carers, clinicians and the organization to heal, learn and improve following the loss of a consumer to suicide. In 2018, she was awarded the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Margaret Tobin Award for administrative psychiatry.
Kris Vanhaecht
Associate Professor, KU Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, University of Leuven, Belgium
Kris Vanhaecht is associate professor in Quality and Patient Safety at the Faculty of Medicine, KU Leuven, University of Leuven, Belgium. He is teaching quality and safety in the master programs at Leuven University and is also affiliated to Erasmus Centre for Care Policy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Next to his academic work he is senior policy advisor to the management team of Leuven University Hospital, an 1800 bed academic medical centre. His main interests involve general quality management, the organisation of care processes, the care for second victims after adverse events and person cantered care. Kris is an IHI Improvement advisor, an ISQUA expert and is the Secretary General of the European Pathway Association.
Laura Williams
Senior Director of Patient Experience and Engagement, University Health Network
Laura Williams is the Senior Director of Patient Experience & Engagement for the University Health Network (UHN). UHN is a large multi-site organization with two large acute hospitals, 5 rehabilitation sites, and a cancer centre. The goal and mandate for this portfolio is to both lead and support UHN teams with patient engagement in organizational decision-making while supporting clinical teams to engage with patients and families at the point-of-care. The team also leads projects and programs focused on Digital Health, Interpretation, Health Literate Care Provision, and Caregiver Support.
Laura also has a deep commitment to support accessibility. She is pursing a Doctorate in Health Leadership and Rehabilitation at Queen’s University, sits on the Board of Trustees for Community Living Ontario and is Co-Chair for UHN’s Accessibility Committee.
Laura Wilson
Policy and Practice Lead; Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Scotland
Laura is the Policy and Practice Lead at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland. Laura comes from a community background where she spent 14 years as a pharmacy manager. With a special interest in addiction and mental health, Laura gained her independent prescribing qualification in psychiatry in 2008. Since then, she has prescribed in various roles, most recently in addiction services, prescribing for patients with opiate addiction. Laura spent 7 years of her career as an Advanced Pharmacist in Addictions. Some highlights from that time include being a member of HM inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland and spending 2 years in education as a teacher practitioner at Strathclyde University. Laura joined the RPS in March 2021 and leads on policy development and professional support for pharmacists in Scotland. She also leads, from a policy perspective, the organisations Sustainability and Health inequalities workstreams on a GB basis.
Lauren Ramsay
Senior Research Fellow, Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration, England
Dr Lauren Ramsey is a Senior Research Fellow working within the ‘Safer systems, culture and practices’ theme of the Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration. Her research interests centre on improving the safety of care and include safety culture, patient involvement in patient safety, digital approaches to patient safety, and safety inequities. Most recently, Lauren worked on the Learn Together programme, aiming to more meaningfully involve those affected by patient safety incidents in incident responses.
Lea Misan
Founder & Director, Act for Change
Lea Misan is the Founder and Director of the charity Act for Change. She is an accomplished consultant, facilitator, trainer and coach in systemic psychotherapy and process-oriented psychology. Passionate and dedicated to helping people involved in conflict, abuse, trauma and leadership. She has developed the DATIS (Developmental Awareness, Trauma-Informed Systemic approach) enabling wider engagement. Her writing draws on her multi-cultural life experiences, studies in process-oriented psychology and extensive research into body signals that arise out of past experiences and the patterns of emergence out of trauma. Author, Facilitator, Psychotherapist, Social Entrepreneur and previously a lawyer, living and working in London.
Leandro Herrero
CEO and Chief Organization Architect of The Chalfont Project
Dr Leandro Herrero is the CEO and Chief Organization Architect of The Chalfont Project, a UK based consulting group dedicated to the creation of large scale behavioural and cultural change in organizations and society, with additional emphasis on the role of leadership and organizational structures to support that aim. Dr Herrero is a psychiatrist who left clinical practice to hold leadership positions in the global pharmaceutical industry, before co-founding The Chalfont Project in 2000. He is the pioneer of Viral ChangeTM, an approach for organizations based upon a focus on behaviours, the shaping of bottom-up peer-to-peer networks, storytelling as an accelerator and Backstage LeadershipTM. As an author he has published 10 books on management and leadership, which includes his most recent release Camino – Leadership Notes on the Road, as well as The Flipping Point – Deprogramming Management, Viral ChangeTM, the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organizations and its follow up Homo Imitans, the art of social infection; Viral ChangeTM in action. He also wrote a short series of books on Psychiatry whilst still in practice. As a speaker, Leandro Herrero has won the highest recognition from many audiences, big and small, at public forums and in-house events. He is Executive Fellow of the Centre for the Future of Organization, Drucker school of Management, US. He lives in the UK with his family.
Lesley Sharkey
Director of Midwifery NHS Tayside, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Scotland
Lesley started her midwifery career journey in 1996. Since then Lesley has worked in a variety of women’s health and early years settings in both Scotland and England and now in her current post as Director of Midwifery. Lesley is also presently chair of the national Midwifery Director Scotland (MiDS) group. Lesley is a Scottish Quality Safety fellow having completed the programme through cohort 13, having quality improvement and leadership threaded through this was an excellent opportunity and provided key development for leading future healthcare services. Most recently she has been involved as an expert review panel member for the Northern Ireland national review of maternity services with a focus on governance of the services being undertaken by Regulation and quality assurance authority Northern Ireland. Through this career journey she has developed a passion for individualised, relational based care for families and staff and has a passion for kindness in leadership. Lesley has a keen interest in governance and safety in healthcare with the main focus being on ensuring we continually learn and strive for the best for women and families.
Leticia Nani Silva
Wolters Kluwer, Academic Faculty and Ovid Synthesis Consultant for UK&I
Leticia Nani Silva is an Academic Faculty and Ovid Synthesis Consultant for Wolters Kluwer for the UK and Ireland. Leticia works directly with universities and healthcare institutions across the country facilitating new ways of improving quality, implementing evidence-based practice, and enhancing efficiency of hospitals and academic institutions. Furthermore, Leticia works directly with university faculty to enhance student’s learning experience within the fields of Medicine, Nursing, Midwifery, Anatomy, and Allied Health using Medical Educational Resources. Before joining Wolters Kluwer, she obtained her BSc in Neuroscience and her MSc in Human Nutrition in Manchester and has previously worked in scientific publishing within those respective fields. She is an accredited Associate of Nutrition and has also completed the Women’s Leadership Development Programme at the Said Business School at Oxford University. She led the Frontiers Women in Science Blog for many years and has an immense passion for encouraging women in STEM. Leticia’s current focus is on leadership and providing healthcare workers with the necessary tools and platforms for them to grow sustainably in their professional careers, whilst propagating scientific research across multidisciplinary fields amongst doctors and nurses, as well as newly trained academic students. She loves to dance, read and is well-travelled, having lived in Brazil, The USA, The Netherlands, and now almost 10 years in the UK.
Libby Keck
Head of Design and Collaboration, Q Community, England
Libby Keck is Head of Design and Collaboration for Q: a community of thousands of people across the UK and Ireland, collaborating to improve the safety and quality of health and care. Libby leads Q Lab, an initiative that brings people together to develop, test and implement solutions to complex issues that span health and care. Her experience is focussed on how to enable collaboration and creativity, work effectively in partnership and navigate complexity. Previously Libby supported the Health Foundation’s work on improvement, where she managed large scale improvement funding programmes. Before joining the Health Foundation, Libby worked in the NHS in service management roles.
Lorraine Armstrong
University of Stirling, Scotland
Lorraine has over a decade of experience working in an academic institution, previously as a clinical academic and currently as a registered adult nurse lecturer and researcher. She holds a strong teaching portfolio in BSc and MSc level education which is centred around of Improvement and Innovation and is a recognised Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is Theme Lead for Innovation and Improvement in the BSc Nursing Programme and is an Early Career Qualitative Researcher with interests in Healthcare Improvement Science; Nurse Education; Ethnography; Context, Complex systems and interventions, Evaluation, Quality Improvement and Innovation.
Louise Patmore
Programme patient lead, Sussex Healthcare Partnership ICS** and Trauma Informed Practice initiatives, England
Louise has been on many patient forums in Sussex and nationally over the last two decades and is the Programme patient lead for Sussex Healthcare Partnership ICS** and Trauma Informed Practice initiatives across Sussex.
Louise plays a key role in the cultural change of multiple complex health need in her work with strategic development of patient participation and leadership as programme lead for ICS MH participation in Sussex and leads the programme on trauma informed care for the collaborative . She has worked on national drives for co-production including NESTA, Realising the Value and Imagine project. She also sponsors quality Improvement projects and the Leader Leader patient power sharing program within Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust. She has a social policy degree as well as a degree in senior change management and leadership which helps inform her work. Louise has been nominated and won several positive practice and other awards. Has spoken at MH collaborative events, BMJ Quality Forum IHI, NHS Confed, KSS; and mentors patient leaders for NHS England; KSS.
Specialist areas of interest:
Systems Change | Patient leadership / mentoring | Recovery Practice, compassionate leadership and cultural change
Louise Weile
Operational quality and patient safety lead, Region of Zealand, Denmark
Louise Weile, PhD, MHSc, midwife, is the regional, operational quality and patient safety lead in the Region of Zealand, Denmark.
Louise has previously worked as manager of an obstetric unit at Odense University Hospital, Denmark.
Marc Beswick
Scottish Government, Scotland
Prior to his current role Marc was an Occupational Therapist and AHP Practice Education Lead in Shetland where he used the Near Me video consultation platform clinically to provide services to children & families. As the COVID 19 pandemic took hold he supported staff and patients in their use of Near Me to facilitate the continuity of services in a remote island community. Marc was then part of a team who created digital resources and ran webinars to enable wider NMAHP services across Scotland to use Near Me at pace and scale. Marc was then seconded into the Near Me Team within the Scottish Government as the National Lead to further scale up and embed Near Me within all areas of Health, Social Care and the 3rd sector.
Marco Aurelio
East London NHS Foundation Trust
Marco is Associate Director for Quality Improvement at East London NHS Foundation Trust. Marco has over a decade of experience leading large-scale change, using QI to tackle problems including Population Health, staff wellbeing, Equity and patient safety. Prior to joining the NHS, Marco spent time working as an information scientist. He has postgraduate degrees in information science, health informatics, leadership and public health. Marco has authored several articles in peer reviewed journals.
Marie O'Haire
Organisation Development & Change Practitioner, Health Service Executive (HSE), Republic of Ireland
Organisation Development & Change Practitioner, Health Service Executive (HSE), Republic of Ireland
Marie has a long career in enabling people and services develop for the better. Currently she is a member of the National Organisation Development & Design Team in the HSE formally working as a Leadership, Education and Talent Development Manager in HSE West. Her qualifications include RGN, RM, PHN HDIP, BNS Hons, MSc Health Services Management, ACC accredited ICF Coach, certified Mediator and Organisational Development and Design CIPD Certified Practitioner.
Working in health services in various roles in Ireland and aboard since 1986, Marie has acquired a rich and broad range of experience which she brings to her current work in OD and change. She commenced her career as a general nurse in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, then as a midwife in Scotland and England in the early 1990s, eventually moving on to work as a Primary Care advisor in Mozambique and South Sudan for contracted periods in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s with an International Non-Governmental Organisation.
Marie returned to Ireland and spent a number of years in Dublin as a Public Health Nurse and in 2001 moved into change management, facilitation, training and Workplace Partnership.
2011 brought change and Marie joined the Leadership, Learning and Talent Development Team in the HSE. Her role there included managing the function regionally and evolved with her overseeing the transition of a regional to a corporate function. Marie led the team providing supports to staff and managers with training opportunities, coaching services and mentoring. In her present role she is part of the National HSE Organisation Development & Design team working with the CEO and the Health Region Implementation Team. The team supports the building of change capacity and capability within the health services in Ireland.
She is passionate about enabling services to respond to people and community needs and her philosophy in life is to make sure that those who come in contact with her leave feeling empowered.
You can connect with Marie via:
LinkedIn @marieohaire
Twitter X @haire_marie @HSEchange_guide
Web www.hse.ie/changeguide
Mark Goldszmidt
London Health Sciences Center, Canada
Associate Chair, Department of Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Site Chief Acute Care Medicine, London Health Sciences Centre University Campus, London, Ontario, Canada.
Mark Goldszmidt, MDCM, MHPE, PhD is a clinician Leader and Research Scientist from London Ontario Canada. He is most interested in the intersection between clinical practice and clinical learning, and he uses both qualitative research and quality improvement methods to understand and then enhance clinical care and clinical learning. In addition to his other leadership roles, he co-leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers focused on continuous quality improvement for the acute care medicine services at his hospital.
Mark Smith
Patient Safety Partner, NHS England, England
Mark Smith is a Chartered Chemist and Scientist and has been involved in safety management in the water, chemical and nuclear industry. He is a Patient Safety Partner with NHS England and has been involved in the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) since it was proposed that the existing Serious Incident Framework needed revision. This has included work on the framework, guides and providing assistance and advice to various organisations.
Marta Jóns Hjördísardóttir
National Hospital, Iceland
Marta Jóns Hjördísardóttir, project manager (MPM), Landspitali, Iceland. Marta Jóns Hjördísardóttir is a project manager in the Project Management Office at Landspitali University Hospital in Iceland. As a centralized project manager, Marta plays a vital role in leading projects across various departments, supporting alignment with strategic objectives and efficient resource utilization. Furthermore, she is also the head of the cross professional council at Landspitali and an observing member of staff in the
hospital board. Marta finished BSc degree in nursing in 2010 and worked as a nurse in various clinical setting in Landspitali, mostly in cardiac care. She also worked for few years in the educational department where her focus was on improving teamwork and safety culture. Marta also has a MPM degree in project management since 2017 and will finish MSc degree in nursing, with focus on human resources and project management in 2024. Marta is a part of the European Researchers’ Network Working on Second Victims https://cost-ernst.eu/. The Action aims to foster discussion and share scientific knowledge on adverse events in healthcare. It promotes joint efforts to support second victims and encourages open dialogue among stakeholders across nations and disciplines. The network addresses patient safety and the impact on healthcare professionals directly or indirectly involved. Marta‘s passion is about creating an atmosphere where people can speak up about what matters to them. She believes that if we really listen and do what matters to both staff and patients, we create a foundation for safe environment and healthy workplace culture, Marta‘s interest in joy in work came after attending a Pathway to Excellence conference in Florida in 2018. Since then, she has spoken about the importance of pride and joy in work in various settings. In 2022, Marta returned to Florida for the annual IHI forum and was both inspired and motivated to continue her efforts about joy in work and what matters to her colleagues. She used this drive to create the first “what matters to you” workshop for Landspítali and has since then met with various teams and made further improvements to the workshop alongside. Marta lives in Reykjavík with her child Matthías Hjörtur, two cats, Ísabell and Yrja, and the black Labrador Aska, the youngest and most popular person of the household.
Mathieu Louiset
PAQS Belgium; Belgium
Mathieu Louiset works at PAQS asbl, Plateforme pour l’Amélioration Continue de la Qualité des soins et de la Sécurité des Patients, in Belgium. He is Deputy CEO and Head of Improvement Services. As a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Public Health, UCLouvain, University of Louvain, Belgium, he teaches strategic management of healthcare organizations. An occupational therapist by training, he specializes in hospital management, and works on innovation, change and leadership. Mathieu is an IHI and ISQua fellow.
Matt Hill
Head of Insight, Evaluation and Research at the Q Community, The Health Foundation, England
Matt’s primary role is supporting the Q team to continually improve their work through evaluation. This includes both managing the external evaluation of the Q community and developing meaningful internal evaluation with the delivery team. The second aspect of his role is leading Q’s insight work that applies a range of social research methods to drawing on the expertise and experience across the Q Community and bring it to bear on improvement priorities.
Matt Makin
Consultant in Palliative Care Medicine, Manchester University Foundation Trust, England
Professor Matt Makin MA MD FRCPE
Over the past ten years Matt has worked as Medical Director at two of the largest and most challenged Health Organisations in England and Wales. A Mancunian by birth Matt is now one of the Medical Directors at Manchester University Foundation Trust based at North Manchester where he practices as a Consultant in Palliative Care Medicine.
Matt is an Honorary Professor of Health and Behavioural Sciences at Bangor University. He is passionate about addressing inequalities in health, quality improvement and the role of clinical leadership in improving health systems.
Matthew Fogarty
Deputy Director of Patient Safety (Policy and Strategy), NHS England, England
Matt is currently Deputy Director of Patient Safety (Policy and Strategy) for the NHS England National Patient Safety Team. Prior to this Matt held a number of roles in patient safety policy and worked as a civil servant, including as a Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Health. Before joining the Civil Service, Matt was a research scientist and gained his PhD in Developmental Neuroscience at University College London in 2006.
Maureen Bisognano
President Emerita and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), USA
Maureen Bisognano is President Emerita and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), previously served as IHI’s President and CEO for five years, after serving as Executive Vice President and COO for 15 years. She is a prominent authority on improving health care systems, whose expertise has been recognized by her elected membership to the National Academy of Medicine (IOM), among other distinctions.
Ms. Bisognano advises health care leaders around the world on quality improvement and is a tireless advocate for change and is a Board member of the global Nursing Now campaign.
Maureen Tshabalala
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), South Africa
Dr Maureen Fatsani Tshabalala, RNM, BBA, MPH, Ph.D., is a Senior Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). She currently leads and oversees diverse projects in several countries in Sub-Saharan-Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia) and beyond (Indonesia, and Nepal). She provides strategic and operational guidance, assists with program design, and proposal writing. She offers technical assistance to IHI’s project teams, organizations, and ministries of health (MoH) on their quality improvement initiatives. She manages relationships with funders, technical partners, including MoH. She is a trained improvement science specialist and has extensively worked as an improvement Advisor on multiple projects in numerous countries, leading several improvement collaboratives. She is a content contributor and teaches IHI’s professional development programs both in-person and virtually. She has also assisted in IHI’s Middle East Region with capability building in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and India. Prior to joining IHI 12 years ago, she worked for Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) as a Quality Improvement Manager, leading quality improvement efforts in five provinces in South Africa. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with her family.
Maxine Power
North West Ambulance Service, England
Maxine is an NHS Executive and improvement leader with over 30 years’ experience leading improvement. Initially trained as clinician Maxine has had an eclectic career working across clinical practice and academia in a variety of settings. Maxine has over 20 peer reviewed publications in Improvement focussing on large scale change, measurement, evaluation, and patient safety. Maxine is the Executive Director of Quality, Innovation and Improvement at the North West Ambulance service, with responsibility for patient safety, innovation, improvement and digital systems. Her work involves leadership across four Integrated Care boards in the North West and she presents nationally and internationally on systems leadership for quality, safety, improvement and digital.
Mel Smith
Grapevine, Coventry and Warwickshire, England
Relationships matter to Mel in all aspects of her life, from the individual to working deep in communities and through to the boardroom – it all starts with being more human. She is Deputy CEO at Grapevine Coventry & Warwickshire and spends her days working alongside a team of nine Community Organisers. Mel champions leadership that enables local people and communities to become stronger, have the power to take action on the things that matter to them and are more able to influence the systems they live within. Mel believes that strategic relationships for change can be a powerful way of unlocking potential leadership and the willingness to act so that local residents can be advocates for the wants and needs of their whole community. Mel’s team are working alongside local people on a variety of issues: land ownership, road safety, air pollution, trans rights and disability justice as well as place based organising in three specific neighbourhoods.
Melissa Kwiatkowski
Guelph Community Health Centre, Canada
Melissa is a passionate community organizer and social justice advocate. She lives and works in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and is a partner and mom of 2 teenage girls. She has masters degrees in public health and health administration and is currently the CEO at the Guelph Community Health Centre, which provides comprehensive primary care, wrap-around services, health promotion and harm reduction programs for equity-deserving communities. Melissa completed a fellowship with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 2020.
Minara Chowdhury
Institute for Healthcare Innovation, England
Minara is a Senior Director with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. A healthcare professional with over 20 years’ experience in healthcare operational management, quality improvement and change management. Minara worked with the NHS for 7 years before relocating to Qatar working on various improvement initiatives. In 2018, Minara commenced work with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and relocated to work in Bangladesh on a USAID funded project to improve the Quality of Care for maternal and newborn services in 17 Districts. In 2022, Minara relocated back to the UK and has extended her portfolio working on a range of global projects in the UK, Africa, Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. Minara has extensive experience in designing and implementing interventions that address Quality of Care and is passionate about addressing inequities through these. Minara has a master’s from the University of Sussex in Management of Change and is also a qualified Project Management Professional.
Mirek Skrypak
NHS North East London Foundation Trust, England
Mirek is currently the Director of Quality Improvement at NELFT. Previously he led a portfolio of national projects from the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme. He has also led patient safety, cardiovascular disease prevention and stroke improvement programmes and breakthrough series collaboratives at Academic Health Science Network and Stroke Network organisations. His professional background is as an occupational therapist with clinical rehabilitation and management experience, having worked across hospital and community stroke, neurology and elderly settings in Australia and England. His interests are in collaborative approaches through meaningful partnerships to embedding innovation, continuous quality improvement, involving patients in service redesign, and leadership of teams in healthcare particularly the application of learning from elite sporting teams and athletes (which he has lived experience of when he was somewhat younger).
Mondher Letaief
Regional Advisor for Eastern Mediterranean Region, World Health Organisation, Egypt
He is Regional Adviser at the Department of Universal Health Coverage Health systems responsible for Healthcare Quality and Safety programme at the Eastern-Mediterranean Regional Office of the World Health Organization.
Dr Mondher Letaief is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University Hospital of Monastir, Tunisia. Dr Letaief’s areas of expertise cover Health Systems development, Quality and patient safety improvement as well as preventive medicine and public health.
Before he joined Who, Dr Letaief occupied the position of regional director of health in Monastir, Tunisia. He also led the coordination of a national research unit on quality and patient safety as well as several academic and international educational activities in the field of public health and healthcare management.
He also collaborated with WHO and other international organizations on several projects in the areas of Quality and Patient safety as well as Public Health and Health systems development.
Dr Mondher Letaief is a member of the MENA Health Policy Forum and the editorial board of the Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, a member of the International Academy for Quality and Safety, an expert reviewer for the International Society for Quality in Healthcare, reviewer for several international journals. He published more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed international journals.
Muhammad Hasan Abid
Armed Forces Hospitals Taif Region - Saudi Arabia Ministry of Defense Health Services, Saudi Arabia
Dr. Muhammad Hasan Abid is the Regional Patient Experience (PX) Head; Chair of Continuous Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQI and PS) Scientific Research and Education, and Regional CQI and PS physician expert at the Armed Forces Hospitals Taif Region – Ministry of Defense Health Services, leading the development and implementation of the Regional CQI and PS department’s PX strategy. Dr. Abid is a Fellow and Mentor at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP) from the Patient Experience Institute, a Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) from the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety, a graduate of Harvard Medical School Masters of Healthcare Quality and Safety (MHQS) program with a Gold Medal Award, and recipient of the Powell Impact and Sustainability Scholarship Award for the Quantic School of Business and Technology’s Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program. He is also a Patients for Patient Safety US Champion and an Editorial Fellow at the Global Journal on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. Having a wide range of experiences in multiple QI domains at benchmark healthcare institutions in the US (including Massachusetts General Hospital, Houston Methodist Hospital, and IHI), Middle East, and South-East Asia, he has worked to date at the intersection of medicine, clinical operations, patient safety and quality improvement science, and technology to improve healthcare delivery system-wide with a meaningful impact on people’s health and healthcare experience by developing cost-effective strategies. His areas of interest are leadership, whole system quality and safety, and person-centered care.
Nana Twum-Danso
Senior Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), USA
Dr. Nana A. Y. Twum-Danso is a physician executive with more than 20 years of experience working at the interface of health care and public health in a wide range of political, socioeconomic, cultural and linguistic contexts in Latin America, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the USA. Her technical areas of expertise include quality improvement, patient safety, learning systems development, large-scale change management, health systems strengthening, community health, maternal and child health, parasitic disease control, and pharmacovigilance. She has applied her skills and talents to public health policy and practice, strategy development, monitoring, learning, evaluation, research, and philanthropy at local, national, and international levels, including several years as a social entrepreneur in health transportation in northern Ghana. Currently, Dr. Twum-Danso is Senior Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) where she has top-line revenue responsibility for IHI’s consulting portfolio that assists health care and public health systems around the world to improve outcomes that matter to patients, families, communities, and the health workforce. She serves on IHI’s Executive Team. She is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the US. Since 2008, Dr. Twum-Danso has served on advisory committees for global health institutions such as the World Health Organization, the US National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine and the Canadian International Development Research Centre. She was also a Commissioner for the seminal Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era which was published in 2018. Dr. Twum-Danso received her undergraduate and medical education from Harvard University and her public health and preventive medicine residency training from Emory University. She has been a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine since 2006 and is a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the International Society for Quality in Health Care and Health Systems Global.
Nandi Simpson
Nandi is Director: Implementation at the NHS Race and Health Observatory. She has a background in large strategic health systems partnership programmes, including developing and implementing strategy at the interface between the NHS and Higher Education sector. Nandi joins the NHS Race and Health Observatory from King’s Health Partners Academic Health Science Centre, where she led the development and implementation of a strategy focussed on embedding research in the NHS with a view to improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities for women and children. Nandi has extensive experience of working collaboratively with stakeholders across systems to identify and implement common objectives, including on national and international clinical-academic partnership programmes.
Olesya Vynnyk
Coordinator of Medical Initiatives, Ukrainian World Congress, Ukraine
Coordinator of medical initiatives Ukrainian World Congress Olesya Vynnyk, MD, healthcare consultant is a physician, coordinator of medical initiatives of World Congress of Ukrainians and doctorant of bioethics at Loyola University. She is a Fellow of the National representative of Canada-Ukraine Surgical Educational Mission, Head of Medical cluster at Lviv International Literature Festival, Fellow at International Society for quality in healthcare.
Parveen Kumar
Emerita Professor of Medicine and Education, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, England
Worked in the NHS for over 40 years, mainly northeast London at the Barts, Homerton and Royal London hospitals, as a physician and gastroenterologist. She has also been a non-executive director at two acute teaching hospitals, at Barts and the London and recently at St Georges University Hospital Trust. Her academic research interests were in small bowel disorders. She co-founded and co-edited the textbook “Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine” (currently in its 10th Edition) which is used worldwide. She has also published many other textbooks on medicine. She has taught, lectured, and examined for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in this country and abroad.
She was President of the British Medical Association, the Royal Society of medicine, the Women’s Medical Federation, and the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund. She chaired the BMJ eLearning committee and the BUPA Foundation for research. She was a founding Non-Executive Director of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) and was Chairman of the Medicines Commission UK.
She was Vice President and censor, CPD director and associate director for international education at the Royal College of physicians. Currently, she is a Trustee of many charities including the British Youth Opera, Barts Charity, BMA Foundation and the chair of BMA Giving. Parveen has received many honorary degrees and fellowships. She was given the BMJ award for ‘outstanding contribution to health’ in 2019. She was awarded CBE in 2000 for services to medicine and DBE in 2017.
Parya Rostami
Sheffield Health and Social Care, England
Dr Parya Rostami is the Head of Continuous Improvement at Sheffield Health and Social Care and a UK registered independent prescribing pharmacist. She has worked in healthcare for over 15 years in various settings including community pharmacy, hospital, and general practice. She has also worked in academia and evaluation in various roles including as a research associate and evaluation lead.
Parya has experience in evaluating quality improvement (QI) initiatives at local and national levels and is passionate about helping teams to show the impact of transformation using QI methodology, and ultimately improving outcomes for patients.
Parya has been an invited speaker/judge at numerous national conferences, including the 2 nd national patient safety conference in Brazil and the Bristol Patient Safety Conference. She has a number of peer reviewed papers and reports and has delivered various QI training including for The Health Foundation’s Scaling Up Improvement programme.
Parya is particularly passionate about supporting underrepresented groups within patient and staff communities. She has been involved in various charity work to support this, including widening participation work in secondary schools, but also race equity projects in mental health. She is passionate about gender equality and is currently the co-chair of the Women’s Staff Network Group at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Pedro Delgado
Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Northern Ireland
Pedro Delgado oversees IHI’s portfolio of work in three regions (Latin America, Europe, and Australasia) and the IHI Open School. Based in the United Kingdom, he has been a driving force in IHI’s global expansion. From work on reducing C-sections and healthcare-acquired infections in Brazil and several Latin American countries, to improving early years education in Chile, to improving patient safety in Portugal and mental health in London, Mr. Delgado has led the key senior relationships and design and implementation of large-scale health system improvement efforts and networks globally.
Penny Pereira
Q Managing Director, the Health Foundation, England
Penny leads Q: a community of thousands of people across the UK and Ireland, collaborating to improve the safety and quality of health and care. Q includes a participatory
grant funding programme, Q Exchange and Q Labs, bringing people together to make progress on complex challenges. We also generate insight through the community on key
issues.
Penny previously led the Foundation’s work on patient safety; improving flow, leadership development and achieving change through networks. She’s co-author of the Foundation’s reports on the challenge and potential of whole system flow and on developing learning health systems in the UK.
Before joining the Health Foundation, Penny was the Director of Strategy and Service Improvement at a hospital in East London. Penny has spent her career leading improvement work at local and national level in the English NHS, with particular expertise in process and system redesign and leading strategic change across organisations.
Penny Phillips
Patient Advocate
Penny Phillips is an Independent Patient Advocate. She is part of the Learn Together programme (supporting involvement in incident investigations), as a co-design partner, and member of the Patient and Family Advisory Group. Penny is passionate about embedding diverse lived experience in healthcare systems, and improving care and safety through collaboration, partnership and evidence-based research. Penny is also a Patient Safety Partner, a Public Governor for an NHS Foundation Trust, and holds lived experience advisory roles within the VCSE sector.
Perla J. Marang-van de Mheen
Associate Professor Quality of Care, Delft University of Technology; Senior Methods Editor, BMJ Quality & Safety, The Netherlands
Perla J. Marang-van de Mheen, PhD is an epidemiologist interested in quality and safety of care, with a special focus on methodology to improve clinical practice. She also serves as Senior Methods Editor for BMJ Quality & Safety, where she is passionate in using her broad expertise on epidemiological and statistical methods to improve methodological rigor in quality improvement work. Her research focuses on topics such as hospital performance measurement in surgical specialties, implementation & de-implementation, and methodologies to improve our ways to measure and evaluate quality of care such as funnel plots around the median rather than a dichotomous outcome. Dr. Marang-van de Mheen was a member of consortium Quality of Care of the Netherlands Federation of Universities from 2011 to 2017 and currently serves as a member of the methodological board of the Dutch Institute for Clinical Auditing, and on the expert panel Health and Health Care of the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Pierre Barker
Institute for Healthcare Improvement, USA
Pierre leads IHI’s commitment to use effective improvement science methods to achieve its mission of improving health and health care worldwide. Dr. Barker oversees IHI’s cutting-edge innovation, design, and learning activities, ensuring that we maximize the opportunities for impact and that practical improvement methods and tools are accessible to all who seek to improve health and health care. He has extensive experience in designing effective health improvement interventions across a variety of health systems and economies, and has worked closely with the World Health Organization to help develop a global implementation strategy to improve quality of care for mothers and newborns. He attended medical school in South Africa and has practiced pediatrics for more than 30 years in South Africa, UK, and US. Before joining IHI, Dr. Barker was Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Director of University of North Carolina (UNC) Children’s Hospital clinics. He has extensive experience in basic, clinical, and implementation science research and is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Maternal and Child Health Department at Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill.
Poonam Gupta
Improvement Advisor, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, England
Poonam Gupta is a physician and is currently serving as an Improvement advisor at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. In her previous role as the Program Director for Value Improvement at the Heart Hospital of Hamad Medical Corporation in Doha, Qatar, she demonstrated exceptional leadership and expertise and achieved significant results. She has extensive experience in designing and leading large-scale improvement collaboratives and serves faculty for the Efficiency improvement collaborative with the Center for National Health Insurance (CNHI), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is a faculty for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and served on the leadership team for the Scaling up Quality Improvement Training in 38 District Hospitals of Bihar, India for improvement in the Quality of Maternal and Newborn Healthcare Services and Outcomes project. Her work has spanned India, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom, allowing her to gain valuable insights and contribute to healthcare improvement globally. Dr. Gupta published many papers and abstracts in peer-reviewed journals, along with contributing to teaching resources. She is the Ass. Deputy Editor for the IJQHC, an ISQua Journal. To date, she has earned more than 15 awards for several QIPS initiatives and has been a local and international speaker at various quality improvement and patient safety forums.
Rebecca Coombes
Head of Journalism, The BMJ, England
Rebecca Coombes is head of journalism at The BMJ, where she has been an editor for 13 years. A health journalist for 25 years, Rebecca has produced many successful award-winning investigations for the journal. In 2017, she contributed to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ global investigation into medical devices. Previously she worked as a freelance journalist, as news editor for Nursing Times and for a variety of public sector titles such as Inside Housing.
Rachel Dicker
Product Management Associate, Wolters Kluwer
Rachel Dicker is a Product Management Associate at Wolters Kluwer, Health Learning, Research Practice. She is responsible for creating and implementing product strategies, innovation, and market outreach for new clinical research and information solutions. Her current focus is building a new, innovative application for conducting, storing, and disseminating evidence-based and quality improvement initiatives. She recently received the 2021 Health Learning, Research Practice High Performance Recognition Award and the 2021 Wolters Kluwer Global Innovation Award.
Rachel Power
Chief Executive, The Patients Association
Rachel joined the Patients Association as Chief Executive in 2017and has led changes in the charity, resulting in a more engaged membership and an increase in profile for the Patients Association and its goal of embedding patient partnership in the design and delivery of health and care services.
Described by The Times as, “the UK’s foremost patient campaigner”, Rachel is a passionate advocate for patient-centred care.
Ravi Jayaram
Consultant Paediatrician, Countess of Chester Hospital
Dr Ravi Jayaram is a Consultant Paediatrician at the Countess of Chester Hospital and one of several doctors who raised concerns about Lucy Letby to NHS management. He says whistleblowers are not only being ignored but being portrayed as the problem and is calling for a fundamental change in NHS culture.
Rebecca Lawton
NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (YHPSRC), England
Rebecca Lawton is Professor, Psychology of Healthcare at University of Leeds, UK. She is also Director of the NIHR funded Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration As a behavioural scientist, Rebecca has a particular interest in the emotional, cognitive and behavioural factors that underpin safe care and the local and system level cultures, environments and processes that influence these.
Rebecca Longmate
Director of Nursing, Royal Free Hospital, England
Rebecca is the Director of Nursing at the Royal Free Hospital (RFH). She started at the Royal Free Hospital in 1997 as a specialist nurse in anaemia and has worked in various senior nurse roles managing liver, renal, specialist and cancer services. Before joining the RFH, Rebecca worked in three other London teaching hospitals; Guys & St Thomas’, St Mary’s and King’s College where she worked in various clinical fields including urology, transplantation, high dependency and she has also worked as a site and bed manager. Rebecca spent a year working in Australia in Alice Springs and Sydney as a staff nurse in medicine and surgery. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Nursing in Health Studies and a Master’s degree in Advancing Critical Care Practice and is a qualified coach.
Rhys Hancock
Director of Nursing, Allied Health Professionals and Governance, BrisDoc Healthcare Services, England
Rhys Hancock is the Director of Nursing, Allied Health Professionals and Governance for BrisDoc Healthcare Services. A Social Enterprise organisation, BrisDoc delivers General Practice and Integrated Urgent Care services across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Rhys’ previous background is as a paramedic and in clinical leadership for the ambulance sector. This has borne a passion for collaborative working; he holds a strong belief that working together can achieve more for patients, colleagues and the system. The Integrated Access Partnership (IAP) brings this alive, delivering an innovative approach to urgent mental health care across the South West. Bringing together expertise from multiple partners – weaving together clinical, digital, governance and operational threads – the IAP provides a single co-ordinated response, and thereby meets the patient’s needs as early in the pathway as possible. This has created multi-faceted benefits for patients, workforce, hospitals, ambulance, and police services alike.
Richard Corder
Vice President Healthcare Strategy, Press Ganey, United States
Richard Corder is the Vice President of Healthcare Strategy for Press Ganey, where he supports teams internally and externally to accelerate an improved healthcare experience. Richard works with leaders and organizations to make healthcare more human, more patient centered and safer. By focusing on the humans that deliver care, Richard helps create a culture that allows leaders to craft, lead and sustain organizational systems that generate improved results for both the patient and the organization. Prior to joining Press Ganey, Richard served as Managing Director with TiER1 Healthcare, a division of TiER1 Performance, where he partnered to activate the potential of healthcare organizations through people. Previously on the leadership teams of Wellesley Partners and CRICO Strategies, the risk management and patient safety organization affiliated with the Harvard Medical School institutions, Richard wields over 25 years of hands-on experience. He has held operational roles at both academic and community hospitals, including a role as the Senior Director of Service Excellence at Massachusetts General Hospital. A former senior leader in the luxury hotel industry, Richard sees healthcare organizations through a unique lens. His love for operations, combined with his experience managing, mentoring, and coaching forge the foundation of his belief that improvement is achieved through personal accountability. He has a strong track record of implementing positive change through practical leader- led coaching, a mind-set of personal accountability and a drive for clarity. A frequent national and international speaker, Richard is passionate about personally accountable leadership, improving the patient and provider experience, and above all, creating an environment where people are empowered to create a safe and accountable patient-centric organizational culture.
Roger Kneebone
Clinician and Educationalist, Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science at Imperial College London & the Royal College of Music-Imperial Centre for Performance Science
Roger is a clinician and educationalist who leads the Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Music–Imperial Centre for Performance Science. His multidisciplinary research into contextualised simulation and embodied knowledge builds on his personal experience as a surgeon and a general practitioner and his fascination with domains of expertise beyond medicine. Since 2019 he has been the fourteenth Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Roger’s book Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery was published by Penguin in 2020 (paperback edition 2021) and his fortnightly iTunes podcast Countercurrent features exploratory conversations with unconventional people whose interests and careers cross traditional boundaries. www.rogerkneebone.co.uk
Rosie Bartel
Patient Partner
Rosie is a widow, mother, grandmother and an educator. In August of 2009 she underwent a total right knee replacement that developed into a MRSA staph infection. This healthcare acquired infection has led to 58 surgeries, over 200 hospitalizations, 100 blood transfusions, a right leg amputation six inches above the knee, then two years later a total hip amputation with the removal of part of her pelvic bone during another surgery. She also experienced sepsis and septic shock fourteen times.
As Rosie continue to battle this infection in her body, she is driven to share her story of survival. Everyday she uses the story of her journey to advise or advocate for others. Rosie believes in helping patients and caregivers find their voices. As a educator, she used stories to teach children and adults. Today, she uses her story to co-design with medical professionals and researchers and to advise and advocate for patients and their caregivers.
Rosie Bedi
London Borough of Bexley
My name is Rosie Bedi and I have been in Bexley children social care for 34 years and counting. I have worked on number of community projects and have assisted in development of services as part of my role as practitioner/leader. I hold qualification in counselling, Family therapy ,social care and community engagement. I am thrilled to be a part of The International community Forum to bring professionals and communities together to explore and advance the frontiers of health & wellbeing excellence. As a qualified social worker and proud team manager, my journey has been marked by a commitment to fostering positive change in the lives of individuals and communities.
Leading the Staying Together team has been a privilege, and I am delighted to share that our collective efforts have been recognized. The team’s dedication to social care has earned us a nomination for a prestigious Social Care Award. This acknowledgment speaks volumes about the passion and impact of the Staying Together team in promoting community well-being and support.
The opportunity to attend this forum is both an honour and a responsibility. It provides a platform to engage with global thought leaders, share experiences, and contribute to the on-going dialogue on enhancing the welfare ,equality, safety and healthcare of our communities and impact of our services. I am eager to exchange insights, learn from diverse perspectives, and explore innovative approaches that can further elevate our collective impact.
Over the years, we have been awarded for our community engagement and bringing families and communities along in our vision. Social Care Award serves as a testament to the dedication and hard work of the Staying Together team. It is a recognition of our commitment to excellence in social care and reinforces our shared vision for creating positive change. I am excited about the prospect of learning from fellow professionals, sharing our experiences, and collectively working towards shaping a brighter future for social care in healthcare.
I look forward to the rich exchange of ideas, collaboration, and inspiration that The International Forum promises. Together, let’s embark on a journey of continued learning, collaboration, and advocacy for the highest standards in healthcare and social care.
Rustam Zhurayev
Head, Salutas Medical Centre, Ukraine
Rustam Zhurayev, MD, PhD, Doctor of medical science, MBA, is Head of Salutas Medical center. Dr. Zhurayev received a degree in medicine from the Lviv National Medical University and is board certified in internal medicine. He completed his PhD program and Doctor of medical science program at Lviv National Medical University and served as associate professor in 2017-2020. He is a Fellow of the Ukrainian Medical Association in Lviv, the European Society of Cardiology and the Shevchenko Scientific Society. He is an active speaker in different medical conferences and meetings.
Ruth Dales
Senior Improvement Manager Medicines Safety, National Patient Safety Team, NHS England, England
Ruth Glassborow
Director of Population Health and Wellbeing, Public Health Scotland, Scotland
Ruth has extensive knowledge and experience of effecting change through both influencing national policy and translating policy priorities into national change programmes that deliver meaningful sustained improvement across public services. With a passion for person centred and evidence informed change, Ruth is committed to ensuring people who need, use and deliver services are at the centre of the design and delivery of the work.
As Director of Place and Wellbeing at Public Health Scotland, Ruth provides strategic leadership for the translation of public health data, evidence, intelligence and knowledge into effective improvements in policy and practice with an overall aim of reducing Scotland’s health inequalities and improving healthy life expectancy. In her previous role as Director of Improvement at Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Ruth provided strategic leadership for the development and delivery of a range national programmes and approaches that enabled the application of quality improvement and large scale system redesign methodology to key health and social care system change priorities.
Ruth has a Masters in Public Administration from Warwick Business School and a Masters in Leadership (Quality Improvement) from Ashridge Business School. She is also a Health Foundation Generation Q fellow, a Health Foundation Sciana fellow and a qualified executive coach.
Salli Midgley
Sheffield Health and Social Care, England
Salli is the Executive Director of Nursing, Professions and Quality at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust and has over 30 years of experience in mental health clinical services.
Salli is a proud registered mental health nurse who has worked within in a range of mental health services across Yorkshire and the Humber. Predominantly, her clinical practice was focussed on inpatient services with adults and older adults. Latterly, Salli led work nationally on reducing restrictive interventions with NHS England, as well as leading national quality improvement projects in child and adolescent mental health services and learning disability and autism services. She has delivered focussed projects related to human rights, patient experience and seclusion. This includes leading a national taskforce for children and young people’s mental health inpatient services, whilst also leading the Improving Quality Team in the national Learning Disability and Autism Programme which she still advises on.
Salli is a Fellow at the Yorkshire and Humber Improvement Academy, a Trustee for the Restraint Reduction Network and a member of the national HOPE(S) programme to reduce segregation across England. Salli also co-hosts the national positive and safe working group for mental health providers in England.
Salli is particularly passionate about improving quality for the people who get the worst quality of care, including those from ethnic and racial minorities. She is extremely passionate about co-production and believes that it is central to the way that healthcare improvement should work. This includes co-production that involves service users, carers and families, and frontline staff.
Sally Greensmith
Ashford & St Peters NHS Foundation Trust, England
Sally leads the Improvement Partnership Team at Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust (ASPH) Surrey, UK. The team provides project management and Quality Improvement expertise across the organisation; promoting a consistent, data driven and people focussed approach to improvement. After a 20-year clinical career in Physiotherapy, Sally had the opportunity to participate in a post- graduate National Clinical Leadership Fellowship Programme in 2011. This led her to take on a new role in healthcare improvement. Over the past 12 years, Sally has developed in her improvement career and has a track record of successfully leading large and small-scale improvement projects. Sally is a compassionate leader who seeks to engage and equip people to be able to identify and carry out improvements wherever they work. This is demonstrated by her involvement in developing and championing the ASPH ‘Be the Change’ programme which enables any member of staff to come forward with a change idea and to be able to access support to carry out the project. Sally lives in Surrey with her husband and has two grown up daughters.
Sana Gul
Staff Nurse and MSc Midwifery Student, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, Nursing Now Challenge Regional Hub Lead
Sara Nelson
Joint Head of Children and Young People’s Transformation programme, NHS England, England
Sara is Joint Head of Children and Young People’s Transformation programme for NHS England- London region. She trained as a nurse at Westminster Hospital and the Royal Brompton. She was the Registered Nurse on the Governing Body at Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group from 2012- 2020 and awarded the title of Queen’s Nurse in 2015 from the Queens Nursing Institute.
Sara has held a variety of innovative operational and strategic roles within primary, secondary and tertiary care. From local practice nurse to Associate Director of South London Cardiovascular and Stroke Network, she has been involved with the national Primary Care, Coronary Heart Disease and Healthier Community Collaboratives and was Programme Lead for Healthy London Partnership, Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme, Homeless health and Good Thinking. She established nurse-led cardiothoracic preadmission clinics and was the first thoracic surgical assistant in the country in the 1990’s. She is an NHS App ambassador, editorial board and founding member of the British Journal of Cardiac Nursing and has published in both medical and nursing press, including two books chapters.
More recently she has led the development of the London asthma programme and the Babies, Children and Young People’s Improvement Collaborative During Covid she was part of the HSJ award winning team that mobilised the homeless from the streets of London into hotels to keep them safe. She is passionate about prevention and improving systems and QI.
Sarah McAllister
Head of Improvement Programmes, East London NHS Foundation Trust, England
Sarah is a mental health nurse by background, an IHI qualified Improvement Advisor and Head of Improvement Programmes at East London NHS Foundation Trust.
Sarah is a strong advocate for service user involvement within QI work. Recently she worked alongside a group of service users, carers and clinicians to co-design an intervention toolkit to improve nurse-patient interactions on acute mental health wards. She has also co-designed and delivered an extensive range of teaching and training sessions related to this and other work. Sarah holds a PhD in Health Services Research, with further skills and expertise in behaviour change, qualitative and quantitative research methods and grant writing. She also has an extensive publication record, many publications which were co-authored with service users and carers.
Scott Ballard-Ridley
Lived Experience Partner
Scott Ballard-Ridley is a qualified Physiotherapist. Not long after graduating Scott suffered a major Stroke which left him with significant physical impairments including the complete loss of his vision.
Scott has worked in NHS Neurology services, for the Stroke Association and since 2016 Scott has been working for the Social enterprise, Bridges Self-Management where he works with healthcare practitioners in practice and research to see how they might be able to adopt a more personalised
approach to their work. Since 2020 Scott has also been working with NHS England to look at how they can bring more of the lived experience element to the development of policy.
Scott is an accomplished public speaker where he uses his healthcare experiences to illustrate both positive and negative healthcare interactions and how we can use these experiences as a spark for change.
Serena Simon
Director of Communities, Westminster City Council, England
Serena is a passionate and experienced disruptive leader in the field of community engagement/development, strategy, empowerment and inclusion. She has worked with diverse and marginalised groups for over 20 years, championing their voices and addressing their needs. She has a strong track record of delivering innovative and impactful projects that tackle social issues such as anti-social behaviour, hate crime, violence against women and girls, and racial discrimination.
She is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of her/department and organisations work and has developed and implemented policies and strategies that foster a culture of respect, dignity and belonging for everyone, supporting this work across Westminster -the council and the place as well as wider in the Local government- as one of the leads under the London Councils Tackling Racial inequality group and the chair of the LC Community engagement forum. Serena is currently the Director of Communities at Westminster city council, where she oversees a range of services and initiatives that aim to enhance the quality of life and wellbeing of residents, businesses and visitors in the heart of London, particularly proud to be leading the charge around tackling the shocking life expectancy gap within Westminster by reducing inequalities. A key leader in the organisational commitment to anti-racism as well as the work to improve equity through ridding the organisation of ethnicity and gender paygaps, Serena leads with her heart on her sleeve. Serena is a keynote speaker across a national and international field and an active member of the Health led work to bring about improvement in the quality of life of patients and communities.
Shay Bluemer
Shift, Jamaica
Shay Bluemer-Miroite has 20 years of experience with capacity development, monitoring and evaluation, and complex health systems improvement. She serves as the Director of Programs at Shift, an organization that weaves together improvement and human-centered design to transform systems for equity. Shay provides leadership and technical oversight for the programs team to create inclusive design spaces, trainings, and collaboratives. Shay’s journey in improvement began as a monitoring and evaluation advisor in Haiti, where her experience evaluating clinical mentoring programs led her to quality improvement. Her passion for using quality improvement to make systems more equitable was ignited while leading a large multinational network to improve health outcomes with and for people living with HIV in the Caribbean. Since, Shay has harnessed this passion to design and lead quality programs across education and health systems in the United States and globally.
Sheona MacLeod
NHS England
Professor Sheona Macleod is NHS England’s Director of Education and Training. She worked clinically as a General Practitioner, an Occupational Health Advisor to a number of regional industries, as Clinical Assistant in the local community hospital, and as a Medical Officer for Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) service. She was appointed as GP Dean in 2009 and Postgraduate Dean in September 2012. She was also the Regional Director of Education and Quality from 2013 to 2014 and was appointed as Deputy Medical Director in October 2017. Sheona covered the Interim Medical Director and Director of Education and Quality role in HEE during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 and was responsible for the successful development and delivery of COVID 19 Training Recovery programme in HEE. Sheona led the Future Doctor review and leads a number of national working groups focussing on how to accelerate improvements in education and training including the Enhancing Doctors Working Lives Programme and the Educator Workforce Strategy Implementation.
Shevaun Mullender
Head of Clinical QI Capability, Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, England
Shevaun is a compassionate and experienced NHS Senior Nurse Leader and Improvement Specialist with a breadth of knowledge and experience across acute, tertiary and community services. She has a Master of Science (MSc) focused on Healthcare Leadership from University of Birmingham /NHS Leadership Academy. Extensive experience of leading complex teams and designed both complex transformation and local quality improvement programmes in large organisations. Faculty lead for QSIR programmes and has a special interest in Human Factors and civility.
Sian Hodgkinson
People Participation Lead for Environmental Sustainability, East London NHS Foundation Trust, England
As a People Participation Lead, Siân supports service users and carers to participate in ELFT’s sustainability initiatives. These include sustainable quality improvement projects, training opportunities, and green plan workstreams. Siân has lived experience of mental illness, and of using mental health services. With this experience, she aims to empower others into service improvement as a tool for their own recovery. She believes that the expertise of service users and carers are essential in effecting meaningful change within healthcare systems. Siân has long been concerned about the climate and ecological crisis, which inspired her to complete a BSc in Biology from the University of Bristol.
Siri Wiig
Stavanger University, Norway
Siri Wiig (1977), PhD, MSc, is Centre Director at SHARE – Centre for Resilience in Healthcare, at the University of Stavanger (UiS), Norway. The SHARE centre is the largest research group in Norway doing research on quality and safety in healthcare. Wiig is full Professor of Quality and Safety in Healthcare Systems at the Faculty of Health Sciences, UiS. Key research interests are resilience in healthcare, patient safety, quality improvement, safety investigations, user involvement, risk regulation, leadership, and learning in socio-technical systems.
Wiig is Adjunct Professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Haugesund, Norway and Honorary Professor at Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Australia and at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has been member of national public commissions reporting to the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services (2013-2015) and to the Ministry of Defence (2015-2016). Wiig has been actively involved in the creation of the Norwegian National Independent Accident Investigation Board in Healthcare (2018). Wiig has been involved in several national and international research projects as project manager, principal investigator, and researcher. Of the most important Wiig is leading the SAFE-LEAD study focusing on leading quality and safety in nursing homes and homecare (2016-2023), funded by the Research Council Norway (RCN). Moreover, Wiig is leading the RCN project Resilience in Healthcare (2018-2024). The RIH project develops a new theoretical and translational framework for resilience and includes an international comparative study across six countries including Australia, England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, and Norway. The RIH project let up the EU Grant Support4Resilience-Strengthening resilience and mental wellbeing through the Support4Resilience toolbox for leaders in elderly care (2024-2028). EU HORIZON-HLTH-2023-CARE-04-02. University of Stavanger/SHARE Centre for Resilience in Healthcare is coordinator of the consortium of 14 partners from 9 countries, and Wiig is leading project starting 1st March 2024.
Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Siri-Wiig
Open access book: Wiig, S. & Fahlbruch, B. (eds). Exploring Resilience: A Scientific Journey from Practice to Theory. Springer Open. Open access: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-03189-3.pdf
Sophie Lowry
Health Innovation Network, England
Sophie Lowry is the Implementation and Involvement Manager at the Health Innovation Network South London (HIN) and a member of NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) South London’s Implementation & Involvement Team. Sophie has a BSc in Medical Science from the University of Exeter, an MSc in Implementation and Improvement Science from King’s College London and a background in operational and project management in both acute and community settings. Her role focuses on supporting the involvement of people with lived experience at a project and strategic level across both organisations as well as the translation of evidence-based research into practice.
Sophronia Samouti
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, England
Sophronia Samouti, is a 4th year medical student at Barts and the London school of medicine. She is a board member of the international institute of compassionate care. Has published a paper in “cultivating a therapeutic relationship with our patients the 3S approach” and has also co-authored in a book published with springer “The Art and Science of Compassionate Care a practical guide”. She has delivered both national and international presentations on compassionate care. She is also in the leading student team of the Trauma Sciences and Care of the Injured Patient program. She delivers teachings on trauma care and organizes the “Trauma Lates” conferences. She is also a co- founder of “Gratitude Innovations” and “Healthy” app aiming to address health challenges and wellbeing.
Stuart Duncan
Deputy Director, Leading Improvement Team (LIT), Scottish Government, Scotland
Stuart leads a team of improvement advisors who teach, coach and mentor improvement science across Scotland’s public sector. Prior to joining the LIT in 2017, Stuart authored The Digital Strategy for Justice in Scotland and has led some of the most significant reforms to the structure and process of criminal justice in the country. He is Chartered Quantity Surveyor having over 30-years’ experience in general management, programme & project management, and construction & facilities management. He is a Non-Executive Director of the Institute of Continuous Improvement in Public Services (ICiPS). He has an Executive Masters Degree in Public Services Management; a Masters Degree in Facilities Management, and Bachelor of Science Degree in Quantity Surveying.
Sue Holden
Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA), England
Sue has worked in the NHS for over 40 years after initially starting her career as a librarian. Sue trained as a nurse, then midwife and worked clinically for over 15 years before developing her interest in OD and learning. Sue worked as an Executive Director in a Teaching Trust before moving to become the Lead Improvement Director for NHSI in 2015. For the last five years Sue has worked with Trust in Quality and Financial Special Measures and latterly as the National Director
for Intensive Support.
Sue is committed to providing support to organisations and systems to improve and has developed a flexible and responsive offer which has involved developing a team approach to intensive support. Sue believes it is more ‘how’ we go about supporting organisations than ‘what’ we do as a key part is enabling organisations to learn how to improve and sustain improvement. Sue, has a particular interest in how we support leaders in these most challenged organisations and systems be their ‘best self’, looking after their own wellbeing whilst role modelling the leadership we need for collaboration.
Sue was appointed as Aqua’s Chief Executive in June 2022.
Susan Hannah
Senior Director, Europe Region, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Scotland
Susan Hannah, MSc, Senior Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has a background in high-care nursing. Prior to joining IHI, she was a lead for patient safety and clinical improvement in the Scottish health care system, responsible for the delivery of a safety programme across an NHS health board. Having trained as an Improvement Advisor with IHI, Ms. Hannah worked in the Scottish Government for seven years, performing improvement and leadership roles to influence the adoption of quality strategies in government and across public services in Scotland. She designed and led a national QI programme for schools and merged this with the Early Years Collaborative to establish and lead the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative, a large-scale national programme delivering multiagency QI across boundaries, including health, other public services, and the third sector. Ms. Hannah joined IHI in January 2019 and works in the Europe Region and with global Strategic Partners. Her work involves leadership on delivery of complex multi-year partnerships with health care systems across Europe, and delivering quality improvement training. Susan is a Health Foundation Fellow with an MSc in Leadership and Quality from Ashridge Hult Business School. Susan lives near Glasgow in Scotland with her husband Ken.
Tahreema Matin
NHS England
Dr Tahreema Matin is an award-winning medical leader with a strong commitment to patient and public empowerment for driving healthcare innovation. She is a board certified Consultant Radiologist with 17 years’ experience in NHS frontline healthcare. As Associate Medical Director at NHS England, Tahreema has expertise in healthcare workforce, education and digital healthcare having authored 10 internationally cited white papers and lead transformation in these fields. She is the clinical lead for the NHS Enhance programme and has upskilled more than 750 multi-professionals in contextual leadership, digital and population health to support delivery of integrated person-centred care and realise the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan ambitions. She is a certified Clinical Safety Officer, Board Member for the Institute of Engineering and Technology’s Healthcare Sector Executive committee, Scientific Editor for European Radiology and Trustee for the Picker Institute Europe.
Tanya Verrall
Saskatchewan Health Quality Council, Canada
Tanya joined the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council (HQC) in 2005, bringing extensive experience in coaching, facilitation, and evaluation of health improvement initiatives to research and leadership roles within the organization. As Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Tanya is passionate about challenging the status quo and finding innovative ways to accelerate the improvement of health and well-being for the people of Saskatchewan. She leads HQC’s work to build strategic relationships with external partners, identifying promising approaches to large-scale change that will inform HQC’s strategy. Tanya holds a Ph.D. in Nutrition from McGill University as well as a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science from the University of Saskatchewan. She is a graduate of the Improvement Advisor and Graduate Advisor programs from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) as well as a certified Lean Leader. From 2008 to 2013, she served as an Institute Advisory Board member with the Canadian Institute of Health Research.
Tao Xu
Mount Sinai (US)
Tao Xu, MD is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine physician practicing at the Mount Sinai Hospital. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Xu earned her medical degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and completed her Internship and Residency at the New York University Langone Medical Center. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, and faculty in the Division of Hospital Medicine, a part of the Department of Medicine for the Mount Sinai Health System. From 2013 to 2018, Dr. Xu served as the Medical Director of the Mount Sinai Hospital 9-West inpatient medicine unit. She was the leader of multiple unit-wide as well as departmental Quality and Patient Safety initiatives, including Hand Hygiene, Hospital Acquired Infections, Throughput Metrics, Transitions of Care, and Patient Experience. Her close collaboration with multidisciplinary Quality and Patient Safety teams led to her receiving the Department of Nursing 31st Annual Physician of the Year award in 2018. From 2013 to 2019, Dr. Xu served as faculty mentor for residents in the Mount Sinai Internal Medicine Residency Program, and has been a member of the annual Internal Medicine Residency recruitment committee since 2013. She is the Co-founder and Director of the Division of Hospital Medicine Onboarding Program. Dr. Xu is a senior faculty who is a member of the Division of Hospital Medicine core leadership group.
Since 2018, Dr. Xu has served as the Medical Director of Mount Sinai International, overseeing Quality and Patient Safety training, education, program development, and Joint Commission International accreditation preparation for its global partners. In her leadership role as the Medical Director, Dr. Xu has assisted two hospitals in China to establish improvement processes in multiple aspects of their quality and safety programs. This includes selecting, monitoring, and designing improvement plans for hospital-wide quality metrics, developing a quality and safety program governance structure for the partner hospitals, and engaging hospital leadership, management, and frontline staff on the recognition of culture of safety. Dr. Xu has used the process of preparing for the Joint Commission International survey to coach hospitals in China, India, Guyana, Paraguay, and Finland in quality and safety improvement, working with each culturally-unique healthcare organizations to identify gaps, and bridge them with tailored best practice from the Mount Sinai Health System.
The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated healthcare system providing exceptional medical care to our local and global communities. Encompassing the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, eight hospital campuses in the New York metropolitan area, and a large regional ambulatory footprint, Mount Sinai is internationally acclaimed for its excellence in research, patient care, and education across various specialties. The Health System includes over 7,400 physicians, general practitioners and specialists, featuring a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including 198 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island.
Mount Sinai International (MSI) is an organization within Mount Sinai Health System focused on developing international healthcare partnerships. Over the years, MSI has established diverse short-term and strategic long-term collaborations in Europe, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean with partnership organizations ranging from national governments to private institutions. Central to the engagement with the partner hospitals, Mount Sinai Health System experts assist with hospital operations, clinical programs, department development, and attaining international-standard quality and safety management and protocols. Mount Sinai International is committed to helping our global partners achieve the highest international standards of quality, safety, and equity in patient care, ultimately leading to healthcare delivery transformation.
Tom Bell
Lived Experience Partner, Author, NHS whistleblower, England
Tom is a business consultant, speaker, trainer, and former NHS manager who lost his job after whistleblowing. He now uses his unique mix of learned, lived, and professional experience to help healthcare organisations provide safer services. A regular speaker at the annual Patient Safety Congress, Tom has sat on numerous steering groups contributing to nationally significant topics including Open Government, the Justice System, and NHS leadership. He believes improvement begins with understanding and our ignorance is the greatest enemy we face. In the wake of the Lucy Letby case, he was invited to comment on NHS culture for Newsnight and LBC.
Tom has authored two books, No Wealth But Life – What’s Gone Wrong with Healthcare in Britain & How We Can Save the NHS (2023) and Lions, Liars, Donkeys and Penguins – The Killing of Alison (2020), a critically acclaimed true story of the events preceding the suicide of his sister following her abuse by a nurse in an NHS mental health hospital.
Tom is a Fellow of the Institute of Management, an AQUA (Advancing Quality Alliance) Associate and an NHS Leadership Academy Facilitator. He holds an MBA, an MSc, and a postgraduate certificate in digital health.
Tony Sparkes
Assistant Professor, University of Bradford, UK
Tony works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Care at the University of Bradford. He leads on the Department’s mental health modules and is Director for the Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) Programme. Tony has worked within mental health services since 1989, in many different community settings and in many different roles. His last role was working for a local authority as case manager / deputy manager, and his role before that was as a mental health social worker / assistant team leader. In between these two roles, he took time out to undertake a PhD on the topic of personal recovery in secondary mental health care (https://www.researchintorecovery.com). Tony is currently working alongside colleagues from Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust on Serious Incident Investigation (SII) process following community-based suicide.
Tracey Herlihey
Head of Patient Safety Incident Response Policy, NHS England, England
Tracey Herlihey is the Head of Patient Safety Incident Response Policy at NHS England (NHSE). At NHSE Tracey is responsible for the day to day strategic leadership and subject matter expertise for the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework. Tracey is a chartered Human Factors Specialist, Chartered Psychologist and has a PhD in Applied Psychology from Cardiff University specialising in Human Perception and Performance. In 2020 Tracey was awarded the title of Visiting Fellow in Human Factors in the School of Design and Creative Arts at Loughborough University. Before joining NHSE Tracey worked at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), first as a National Investigator and then as Head of Safety Intelligence. Prior to HSIB Tracey was a Senior Human Factors Specialist at Healthcare Human Factors based in the University Health Network, Toronto, Canada.
Tracey Sherin
CEO, Saskatchewan Health Quality Council, Canada
Since joining the Health Quality Council in 2005, Tracey has become an accomplished and experienced leader with expertise in research and analysis, measurement for improvement, quality improvement methods, coaching, teaching, and facilitation. During her time at the Health Quality Council, she has worked in a variety of areas including drug management in long-term care, chronic disease management, Clinical Practice Redesign, quality improvement teaching and coaching, and leadership for improvement.
Prior to becoming the Chief Executive Officer, Tracey was the Director, Data Analysis and Research Partnerships, where she led a diverse and talented team of researchers and research analysts to generate evidence to enable improvement in health and health care.
Tracey also serves on the Oversight Committee for the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient Oriented Research (SCPOR). SCPOR is one of 11 SUPPORT Units established across the country as part of Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research, led by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Tracey holds a Bachelor of Science (high honours) in microbiology and immunology from the University of Saskatchewan and a Master of Science in health care and epidemiology from the University of British Columbia. In 2009, Tracey completed the Advanced Training Program in Health Care Delivery Improvement from Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Trine Holgersen
CEO, Primary & eHealth Care, Region Zealand, Denmark
Trine Holgersen is a trained nurse and former senior Vice President at NSR (Næstved, Slagelse, Ringsted) Hospital System, Region Zealand.
She has also been Head of Hospital at Aleris Hamlet Hospitals which is the largest supplier of private healthcare in Denmark and part of the Aleris Group, one of Scandinavia’s leading private healthcare companies.
Region Zealand is one of five regions in Denmark. Population: 821.000
Region Zealand has the highest proportion of patients with chronic illnesses in the country. Many have comorbidities. These factors are driving the transformation underway in Region Zealand. With so many vulnerable people in the population, the region is facing challenges that require innovative solutions and Trine Holgersen is among the frontrunners in that change, spearheading the hospital-at-home-process in the region.
Vera De Troyer
Advisor on Quality in Healthcare General Hospitals, Zorgnet-Icuro, Belgium
Degrees: BSc. Registered Nurse, MSc. Management in Healthcare
Working experience: for 12 years, Vera was a nurse on a paediatric ward in a general hospital. After three years working as patient safety coordinator, she started as an advisor on quality (general hospitals) at Zorgnet-Icuro (2010). She supports hospitals in improving quality of care, coordinates networks between hospitals to share expertise and represents members in negotiations with government.
Vibeke Rischel
Deputy CEO, Head of HealthCare Improvement Danish Society for Patient Safety, Denmark
Vibeke Rischel, Deputy CEO, Head of Healthcare Improvement. Vibeke Rischel, RN, BA, MHSc. RN, IHI Fellow has more than 30 years of experiences as a nurse and has been with the Danish Society for Patient Safety (PS!) since 2007. Vibeke is the overall lead of the portfolio of improvement and capacity building programs in PS!. The improvement work has been recognized, especially the elimination of pressure ulcers in hospitals and home settings where PS! Is an international lead. In the collaboration between IHI and PS! In partnership with Norwegian colleagues Vibeke has developed a Scandinavian Improvement Advisor program. Vibeke is an international acknowledge expert and presenter in patient safety and health care improvement. She serves on several advisory boards in Denmark, within improvement and innovation in safety and health care.
Vijay Patel
Head of Safeguarding, SCIE
Vijay joined SCIE in August 2023. He has a breadth of practice and policy experience having worked with children, young people, their families and adults in a range of operational and strategic services (including safeguarding boards, local authority, civil service and third sector). He is a registered social worker who has worked in England and Scotland. Prior to joining SCIE he was Head of Safeguarding for an NHS trust where he supported the Trust in meeting its statutory obligations. Prior to that he was the strategic business manager for two safeguarding boards (children and adults). In these roles he successfully supported initiatives such as the implementation of a neglect assessment tool and a social media communications campaign targeting young people. He has in other roles been involved in developing practice guides for social workers on supporting people with dementia and a service development tool to improve support for BME disabled children. As a civil servant in Scottish government, he led the development of the GIRFEC assessment framework. He has been involved in learning and development for a number of years with a keen interest in ensuring anti discriminatory and anti-racist policy and practice.
Wendy Korthuis-Smith
Executive Director, Virginia Mason Institute, USA
Wendy Korthuis-Smith, Ed.D., M.S., is the executive director at Virginia Mason Institute. Wendy provides leadership and oversees the development of new products and services to strategically assess, identify improvement opportunities, develop and implement transformation and transition plans, and continually evaluate continuous improvement for clients worldwide. Wendy holds significant experience developing and implementing large scale transformation and transition plans. Wendy came to Virginia Mason Institute from Deloitte Consulting, and spent several years prior with the Washington State Governor’s Office where she led state government transformation through the development and implementation of Results Washington, a performance improvement initiative incorporating 53 state government agencies, boards and commissions across five priority goal areas. She worked with Virginia Mason early on in her career as a leadership development consultant. Wendy is trained in the Virginia Mason Production System®.
Yetsa Tuakli-Wosornu
Yale School of Public Health
Yetsa A. Tuakli-Wosornu is an Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health (adjunct), physician, and Chair of the forthcoming global consensus on interpersonal violence and safeguarding in sport. As an athlete, she represented Ghana in the long jump until 2016, training under coach Loren Seagrave. As a physician, she practices sports medicine. As a researcher, she founded the Sports Equity Lab (SEL) in 2017, an interdisciplinary nonprofit organization driving social justice and decency in sport. Through research, community engagement, and creative content, SEL answers the anchoring question, how do we make sport feel more like home for equity-deserving athletes.
Yvonne Ridge
Head of Product, BMJ Digital Health, London, England
Yvonne is a Product professional involved in researching and developing products in healthcare for over twenty years. She is Head of Product at BMJ with a focus on digital health. Prior to joining BMJ, she was at Elsevier as Product Director working on numerous knowledge-based products including ClinicalKey clinical decision support, clinical trial software, medical education and reference.
Zarina Siganporia
Innovation and Collaboration Manager, The Health Foundation, England
Zarina is an Innovation and Collaboration Manager in the Q team at The Health Foundation. Her key area of work is the Q Lab programme, where she supports diverse groups of people to come together and work collaboratively to take action on complex, shared health and care challenges. The current Q Lab project is focussed on reducing waits in elective care. Prior to working at The Health Foundation, Zarina worked as a Programme Manager in the Improvement team at Diabetes UK, and as a Social Researcher within the Health and Social Care team at Ipsos MORI.
Zoe Lord
NHS Horizons, England
Zoe is the Deputy Director at NHS Horizons, bringing with her 20 years of experience within health and care. She co-leads the team and plays a pivotal role in leading health and care improvement initiatives that have positively impacted tens of thousands of staff and patients. Specialising in the design and leadership of large-scale change initiatives tailored to complex environments, Zoe draws from her background in applied psychology. She firmly believes in fostering collaborative and ownership-driven approaches that make a tangible impact on healthcare systems, staff, and the communities they serve. Zoe brings practical expertise in Liberating Structures, vertical development, public narrative and the psychology of change to make these ideas work in practice. At the forefront of numerous nationwide initiatives aimed at enhancing systems, care, and staff well-being, Zoe’s diverse portfolio includes leading the national COVID-19 staff health and well-being community, driving culture change programs, contributing to board development, and redesigning health and care services.
Twitter: @ZoeLord1
LinkedIn: Zoe Lord