Lesley Kay National Clinical Lead for Rheumatology

About me

Lesley is a GenerationQ Fellow and National Clinical Lead for Rheumatology at NHS Improvement.

Lesley Kay has two roles at the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Consultant Rheumatologist and Clinical Director for Patient Safety and Quality. In her role as Clinical Director, to which she was appointed in June 2013, she works alongside governance teams to improve safety and quality across the trust.

Previously Lesley was Clinical Director for Musculoskeletal Services at the trust, and Head of Service for Rheumatology. Since September 2013, she has also been Vice Chair, Northern Clinical Senate Council, NHS England, and is Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Institutes of Clinical Medicine and Health and Society, Newcastle University.

To help in her relatively new role as Clinical Director for Patient Safety and Quality, Lesley is interested in learning about models and research around safety and quality improvement, as well as case studies and learning from peers, via the GenerationQ fellowship: ‘We have a real opportunity at the trust to establish quality improvement as ‘business as usual’ for all of our staff. This requires my enthusiasm to be backed up with significant skills and knowledge, and the ability to support the development of safety and quality improvement measures throughout the organisation.

‘I have seen the variety of work in different parts of the trust, and I want to help our best performing teams maintain their strengths, and our less organised ones to learn from them. With increasing clinical pressures and concern about standards and morale in the NHS, this needs to be done sensitively and effectively, without stifling innovation.’