Karen Evans Assistant Director of Community Services

About me

Karen is a GenerationQ Fellow and Assistant Director of Community Services at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

At the time of her fellowship, she was the Operational Director for the integrated care directorate at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, responsible for managing a wide range of hospital and community-based services and a workforce of over 1,000 staff.

After qualifying as an occupational therapist in 1988, Karen went on to spend 12 years in clinical practice before moving into management roles and specialising in service improvement.

From 2010-12 she was Assistant Director for Quality and Innovation at South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to that she spent two years as Head of Improvement and Innovation at Calderdale Primary Care Trust and four years as Head of Service Improvement at Leeds Primary Care Trust.

For Karen, GenerationQ offered the opportunity to develop stronger leadership skills to complement the quality improvement skills that she has built throughout her career. 'My current role is my first at director level and it’s a step up from my previous positions which have focused on service improvement.

'I’m enjoying the challenge of managing a wide portfolio of services, but I want to learn more about effective leadership. I’m particularly interested in understanding more about how to involve teams in developing ideas and supporting them to put them into practice. I think that the skills and confidence that I develop during GenerationQ will be invaluable as I continue to develop my career.'

During her fellowship, Karen explored how to improve the flow of acute medical inpatients through the hospital. 'I want to support the redesign of the care pathway that takes patients from the community, through the medical wards and back into the community.

'I’d like to see more community-based services and lower rates of hospital admission, shorter waiting times in the emergency department and on the admissions ward, and more effective discharge planning. These changes have the potential to deliver higher quality care, better patient experience and more efficient service delivery across the trust.'