Leadership Fellows 2008-2010

Kerstin Oestreich, Consultant Plastic, Reconstructive and Hand Surgeon, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

Kerstin Oestreich has been a consultant plastic, reconstructive and hand surgeon at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust since 2007. Kerstin went to university in Germany, Ireland and Singapore and trained in general, plastic and hand surgery in Germany before moving to Salisbury in 2007.

Kerstin works in a department which is a centre of excellence for burns, plastic and reconstructive surgery including microsurgery with approximately 3000 elective and 1700 trauma cases each year. In the 16 months since arriving from Germany she has already established a new wrist surgery service for the trust. Kerstin is further a fellow of the prestigious business school INSEAD/France, where she has attended the European Healthcare Leadership Programme. She also has a master degree in healthcare management and number of qualifications in quality management allowing her to bring together her medical and management expertise to the benefit of the NHS.

Gillian Urwin, Consultant Microbiologist, Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust
                                                                                                                             
Dr Gillian Urwin is a consultant microbiologist at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust. She is part of a team providing a comprehensive medical microbiology service to the hospital and local primary care trust.

Gillian has led a group that successfully cut healthcare acquired infection clostridium difficile at the trust from 23 per month in 2007/08 to four per month from April to July in 2008. She is also the antibiotic lead for the trust and has reduced spending on antibiotics by £3.45 per patient. She is now leading a group to reduce MRSA infection in the hospital and has recently been appointed as associate medical director for patient safety. Gillian graduated as a doctor from St Thomas’ Hospital, University of London in 1986.

Louisa Wickham, Consultant Ophthalmologist (Vitreoretinal surgery and Medical Retina), Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
 
Louisa Wickham is a consultant Vitreoretinal surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital and St Georges Hospital. Since graduating from Imperial College Medical School, London, Louisa has completed an advanced research degree (MD) in the efficacy and outcomes of clinical management strategies for the treatment of proliferative vitreoretinopathy. In 2007 she took a masters degree in Health Services Management, completing a dissertation on 'the perceptions of quality in ophthalmic services by consumers of health care leading to selection of elective care with choose and book’.

Louisa now leads a change project at Moorfields Eye Hospital to introduce prospective audit of surgical and clinical outcomes to help prepare the Trust for the production of quality accounts in 2010. Louisa plans to use the fellowship as a means of support during this process of cultural change within the hospital. Additional responsibilities include; mentoring junior colleagues, surgical training of junior doctors and the development of the multidisciplinary team. 

Dr Kenneth Deacon, Associate Medical Director, South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, GP Partner, Greenridge Surgery, Birmingham. Medical Director, Greenridge Healthcare Ltd.
 
Ken completed his training as a GP in 2000, having graduated with a degree in medicine from Birmingham University in 1996. He currently combines his clinical job as a GP partner in a busy surgery in Birmingham with his part-time role as associate medical director for the PCT where he acts as a 'clinical champion' for the Quality and Outcomes Framework, the system by which GPs are rewarded for providing high quality patient care. In a short time in this role, Ken has produced a policy to manage the performance of independent contractors such as doctors, dentists, opticians and pharmacists.

He is currently exploring ways to measure quality in primary care, and to share this information with patients to help them make informed choices about their care. During his previous employment with the PCT, Ken introduced the use of portable plethysmography equipment to assess patients with suspected deep-vein thrombosis in their own homes, reducing hospital admissions by 70%. Ken is also a member of the British Association of Immediate Care, a network of doctors who support ambulance crews by responding to road traffic accidents. He is also the course director for the Resuscitation Council UK and the team England doctor for the Rugby Football Union for Women. He recently established Greenridge Healthcare Ltd, and was successful in bidding to open a new GP surgery under the Equitable Access to Primary Care programme.

Victoria Alner, Consultant Physician in Geriatric Medicine, Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust
 
Dr Victoria Alner is a consultant physician in geriatric medicine and the clinical director for medicine at Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust. She graduated from Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School in 1995 and later took a masters degree in medical ethics and law at King's College London. Dr Alner has established a new orthogeriatric service at Hereford Hospital since her appointment in 2005 and provides inpatient care for frail older patients following falls and fractures. She has a particular interest in falls and osteoporosis and has established a new fully integrated service in falls and bone health at her trust.

Dr Alner is the clinical lead for falls prevention in Herefordshire and co-ordinates falls services between primary and secondary care in partnership with the county falls practitioner, GPs, public health and the falls strategy group. She has also successfully led a business case to bring a bone density scanner to the hospital, which has improved the accessibility of the service to the population of Herefordshire who previously had to travel out of county. Dr Alner has developed and leads the local osteoporosis service since the scanner was installed in 2008, and is soon to be joined by a clinical nurse specialist in osteoporosis and can therefore further develop fracture liaison and fracture prevention services.
 
In September 2008 Dr Alner was appointed as the clinical director for medicine at Hereford Hospital. This challenging new role involves leading the department of medicine to ensure provision of excellent clinical care, delivering trust objectives, delivering service improvements and eliminating clinical risk. This role is supported by the business unit director and medical director. As a geriatrician Dr Alner also has a specific interest in improvement of the patients experience as an inpatient and streamlining the discharge process. She is the clinical lead for the discharge project within the trust-wide emergency pathway project. She is initiating innovative discharge improvement ideas with excellent engagement from the senior management team and looks forward to progress over the next few months.

GP Jim Gardner is Medical Director and Professional Executive Chair at North Lancashire Teaching Primary Care Trust

He graduated in 1988 and trained in hospitals in London, Australia and the Lake District before becoming a GP. Jim was a GP partner in Kendal, Cumbria for a decade, combining his clinical work with management and public health roles with various local PCTs.

As medical director, his main responsibilities are to ensure the safety and competence of GPs, dentists, optometrists and pharmacists contracted by the trust. This role also includes leading a quality and standards directorate that works to improve the quality of care across the whole community. As Professional Executive Chair, Jim’s main roles are to drive clinical leadership across the trust and assure clinical quality and safety. Among the projects he is currently leading include a whole-systems approach to reducing the healthcare associated infection clostridium difficile across the community, and commissioning screening for venous thromboembolism, where a dangerous blood clot formed in a vein can break away into the circulatory system, for all patients admitted to hospital. Jim returns to his work as a GP for one day a week.

Dr Yasmin Ahmed-Little, Clinical Adviser to Dr Ruth Hussey, NHS North West (CMO's Clinical Adviser Scheme), National Leadership Council Fellow, BAMMbino Board Member
 
Yasmin graduated in medicine with an MBchB from Manchester University in 2000, and gained a masters (with merit) in Health Service Management from Manchester Business School in 2007. Having completed pre-registration house officer posts at Royal Bolton NHS Trust and Manchester Royal Infirmary, she took up a job as a medical adviser to the North West Regional Health Authority and Deanery in August 2002. A year later, Yasmin became project director on the European Working Time Directive for NHS North West, a position which she held until August 2008 when she started her current job as a clinical adviser to Dr Ruth Hussey at NHS North West, on the CMO's Clinical Adviser Scheme.

Yasmin's key achievements include securing funding to set up a team of junior doctors to achieve the requirements of the EWTD a year ahead of national schedules, for which she was awarded the HSJ Award 2008 for Workforce Development, as well as highly commended for Secretary of State's Award for Excellence in Healthcare. She has also helped to develop medical leadership skills among junior doctors.

Yasmin is also a Board member of BAMMbino (the junior division of the British Association of Medical Managers) and has recently been appointed as a Fellow for the National Leadership Council. Yasmin will be started as an ST1 trainee in Public Health at Mersey Deanery in August 2009.

Mr Simon Plummer, Physiotherapist, Lead Allied Health Professional, Learning Disabilities, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
 
Simon graduated from Salford College of Technology in 1984 with a graduate diploma in physiotherapy. He has been in his current Trust since 1996 and is currently the Lead Allied Health Professional in the Learning Disabilities service. In this role he has responsibility for developing learning disabilities services and also acts as a leader for Allied Health Professions across the trust. Simon is currently redesigning the service pathway in the learning disabilities service, to make it more effective and centred on the people who use the service. 

He is also working on the transfer of an 8-bed learning disability low secure unit from Huddersfield into a refurbished building in Wakefield. He has also helped to develop the leadership skills of clinicians in the trust, with some of them progressing to take on leadership roles of their own. Over the longer term, Simon is continuing to lead work with colleagues in the learning disabilities assessment and treatment service that will improve the care that people receive when using the service. He is an advocate of supporting others to be involved in making improvements following the early involvement of clinicians in the design of the Horizon Centre assessment and treatment unit, a building project that has been recognised when the assessment unit was 'highly commended' in the 2004 Building Better Healthcare Awards. Simon is also currently studying for a professional doctorate in health and social care at the University of Salford, from which he gained an MSc in Collaborative Health Care in 2005.

Jonathan Willis, Ward Manager, Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust
 
Jonathan Willis is seconded to the role of project lead on patient safety at the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust [RUH]. His main focus is in detecting and intervening on patients who deteriorate in the ward environment. Until recently he was acting modern matron responsible for the respiratory, gastroenterology, and dermatology departments. During that period Jonathan's role ensured the provision of good quality care for the patient in a safe environment by linking the work of clinicians, senior managers and nursing staff.

Improvements instigated by Mr Willis have radically speeded up the admission of patients from A&E and freed up 15 hours of nursing care a day that can be spent on patient care.

Jonathan qualified as a nurse in 1996 after previously working in a bank and as a financial consultant. Among his achievements at the RUH, which he joined in 2002, have been improvements in the medical admissions unit. This included extra help for patients during mealtimes, training and appraisals for staff and better organised rotas.
 
Susan Wood, Acting Modern Matron/Senior Nurse, Rehabilitation and Recovery Service, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust
 
Sue qualified in 1989 and has since developed a career as a mental health nurse gaining a BSc (Hons) in nursing studies from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1997. During her career Sue has held a variety of positions both clinical and non clinical. In her previous post as a project nurse she led a number of quality based projects including implementing a staffing acuity tool and undertaking a review of the boundaries of the Community Mental Health teams according to deprivation levels and need.

More recently, in 2006, she took up a post as acting modern matron for the Rehabilitation and Recovery Service with additional responsibility for the electro convulsive therapy department and the clinical coordinators, who provide 24-hour senior nurse cover for the Harland’s site. One of Sue's key achievements in this post has been leading a repatriation project. This involves identifying patients who are currently receiving care in out of area placements, developing and maintaining strong links with them and their care providers with the aim of facilitating a prompt and coordinated return to North Staffordshire. This has the effect of reducing costs and also improving patients' experiences.

Mr Tim Donaldson, Trust Chief Pharmacist/Associate Director of Medicines Management, Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
 
Tim gained an honours degree in pharmacy in 1986. He undertook a postgraduate diploma in Clinical Pharmacy in 1993 and then completed a Masters Degree in 1995. More recently, he completed a Masters level postgraduate course in pharmaceutical public health in 2008. In the early part of his career Tim worked within the pharmaceutical industry and in community pharmacy before undertaking training and management roles within hospital pharmacy and medicines information. He in his current role as Trust Chief Pharmacist at Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust since January 2010.

Tim has a particular interest in collaborative working with primary care colleagues in designing systems to improve access to, and the safety of , medicines which are initiated by specialists and continued by GPs (‘shared care’ arrangements). His work on shared care prescribing has led to better and safer access in Newcastle and North Tyneside to NICE-recommended drugs for Alzheimer’s disease and has been commended by NICE and the Departtment of Health. This has been achieved through the joint development of local shared care guidelines, and supported through a commissioning agreement with local PCTs which has also reduced health economy-wide expenditure on these drugs.

Tim also has a keen interest in continuing professional development and is a local therapeutics facilitator and author for the National Prescribing Centre (www.npc.co.uk), a department of a health-funded NHS agency which delivers a range of services and products designed to improve quality in prescribing and medicines management. In these roles, Tim leads a clinical network of ‘NPC Associates’, comprised of senior prescribing advisors from a number of primary and secondary care organisations across the north east SHA, and develops learning materials for NPC’s online learning environment NPCi (www.npci.org.uk) .

He has been an active member of the Northumbrian branch of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain since 2001 and was branch chairman between 2006 and 2008.

Stephen Wild, Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Clinical Director, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
 
Stephen came to medicine later in his career. Having already enjoyed a career in banking, public relations and marketing, he graduated from Leeds University with a MB ChB in 1997.

He then undertook his junior doctor rotation posts in the North East before being appointed to his current post as a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology in 2006 with clinical lead responsibility for the labour ward. He also runs the maternal medicine service at the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton-on-Tees.

Stephen is also the Clinical Director for his department, a managerial role to which he was recruited to at a relatively early stage in his medical career. In this role, Stephen is currently involved in planning obstetric and gynaecological patient care at a new hospital building which will involve combining the services of two sites. He is also actively involved in the development of community gynaecological health services in partnership with primary care in line with Darzi aspirations. Stephen is finding his previous career experience is of great value in this work. Stephen has previously benefitted from leadership training during enrolment on the Fit to Lead programme established by the British Association of Medical Managers. Stephen also has an advanced diploma in obstetric ultrasound from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

David Small, General Manager Edinburgh Community Health Partnership, NHS Lothian
 
David Small is General Manager of the Edinburgh Community Health Partnership of NHS Lothian. This means he is responsible for all primary care services, community services, community mental health services and non acute hospital services for Edinburgh and several services hosted for the south east of Scotland and nationally.

His achievements so far in the post include development of Edinburgh long term conditions programme, improving child protection arrangements, improving mental health services, development of an integrated sexual health service and meeting financial targets. David plans to use his fellowship to learn from examples of best practice outside Scotland and apply it to Edinburgh especially in developing primary care and in relations with acute services. He also hopes to develop relationships with the local authority and councillors to extend the work carried out by the partnership. David graduated from Edinburgh University in 1984 in politics and history and joined NHS Scotland as a national management trainee that year.

Elaine Lorton, Head of Practice Based Commissioning, NHS Swindon, Swindon PCT
 
Elaine gained a postgraduate diploma in healthcare management in 2005 and has been in her current job as Head of Practice Based Commissioning since 2009. Her previous job as Practice Manager was at a practice of six GP partners and 14 staff serving 10,000 patients. Under Elaine’s management, patients benefited from a more flexible appointments booking and the surgery was among the first to adopt the Choose and Book system used to refer patients to a specialist.

She has also initiated an informal information sharing and support group for practice managers in Swindon and set up a weight loss clinic between the surgery and pharmacy. Elaine has also been a tae kwondo instructor which has helped to build her self-confidence and leadership skills. She has been an independent voluntary mentor since 2004 and also has experience in the not-for-profit sector, managing an advice centre for students and in coordinating a youth housing project.

Nina Patel, Nurse Consultant Diabetes, Brent Community Services

Nina registered as a nurse in 1978 and as a midwife a year later. She then went on to qualify as a health visitor and worked as a specialist paediatric health visitor working with children and families with long-term conditions. During this time she came across families with children who suffered from sickle cell and thallasemia. Her next job was as a heamoglobinopathy counsellor at the Brent Sickle Cell and Thallasaemia Centre.

As a sickle cell and thallaseamia counsellor Nina was involved in helping to developed community education and screening services for these conditions and also helped to develop ante natal counselling services for prenatal diagnosis. Nina worked in Africa and India to deliver education and training for health professionals on genetic counselling. She has gained numerous diplomas and a masters degree in health sciences.

One of her main achievements in her current post was to ensure diabetic patients receive the same standards of care from different clinicians. Nina achieved this by encouraging clinical staff across primary and acute care to attend behavioural change therapy sessions. Nina has also helped acute care consultants to set up a transitional clinic for young people with diabetes.

In Nina's previous post as a secondment to community care for diabetes service development she managed to convince her PCT to establish five grade H nursing posts and a diabetes community consultant physicians to create a community-based diabetes team, which led to the PCT implementing the Diabetes National Service Framework.

Nina was also accepted to join the Johnson and Johnson Nurse Leadership programme run by the Kind Fund in 2001.