Judith Proctor Chief Officer

About me

Judith is a GenerationQ Fellow and Chief Officer at Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership.

At the time of her fellowship, she was Director of Planning and Head of Strategic Planning, Commissioning and Performance in a joint post across NHS Dumfries and Galloway and Dumfries and Galloway Council. Her responsibilities included health and social care planning and commissioning, and leading the integration of adult health and social care.

Judith qualified as a general nurse in 1994 and worked in neurosciences before going on to train in midwifery and district nursing. In 1997 she joined NHS Shetland as a District Nurse/Community Midwife, working on the remote island of Unst and then on mainland Shetland.

Recognising the impact of being able to work at a community level on population health, Judith moved to a public health role at NHS Dumfries and Galloway in 2001. While in this post, she undertook a secondment to work on community planning implementation with the then Scottish Executive. In 2004, Judith became Joint Planning and Commissioning Manager at NHS Dumfries and Galloway and Dumfries and Galloway Council, focusing on services for adults with learning disabilities.

Judith has a degree in community health studies and a master’s in public heath. She also has an SVQ level 5 in management.

For Judith, what makes GenerationQ different to other learning experiences is the way it blends academic learning with practical application. 'It has without a doubt been the best development programme I’ve been involved in. I’ve been encouraged to experiment with different approaches to leadership and quality improvement in my day to day work, and that’s led to some big changes in my working practices.

'I’d say I’ve become more thoughtful about how I approach things and how I engage colleagues. I do a lot more co-productive work and I’m finding that appreciate inquiry is a valuable tool in these financially difficult times – framing conversations in a positive way helps us all to come up with more innovative responses. I’ve also developed greater personal resilience, which is an important and powerful attribute to have when leading large-scale change.'

One area that Judith is exploring through GenerationQ is how the two organisations that she works across can reach a shared definition and understanding of quality and care improvement. 'Different types of organisation have their own ways of talking about these topics, but if we’re to work in a truly integrated way, we need to speak the same language.'