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#NHS70
Celebrating 70 years of innovating in the NHS
 Tamsin Holland Brown"May I always act so as to preserve the most responsible digital health interactions of my era despite a lack of policies or regulations to adhere to, and may I long experience the joy of healing those by e-consultations and personalised healthcare who seek my help" Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust & HearEarGlub |  Kiyara Fernando"Growing up in Sri Lanka during a 30-year civil war, I witnessed the health impacts of war on a nation. This experience alongside working in low-tech, underfunded and overcrowded government hospitals, has shown me the realities of medicine in developing nations" Bristol University |  Rupa Sarkar"I love reading about science and learning new things so the move to scientific publishing made sense for me, as I get to read, learn and blather on about science all day. I can't say it was a calculated move, like everything in life, being in the right place right time, taking all the opportunities and being open minded helped me to find what I love doing." Lancet Digital Health |
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 Nasrin Hafezparast"My value-based healthcare journey began when, after 7 years as a medic, I realised that healthcare providers are incentivised to treat people when they are sick, but not incentivised to keep people well and healthy. I was shocked! Having changed career paths on a number of occasions, from Computer Science, to online start-ups, to Medicine, leaving my job as a junior doctor was not something I thought twice about" Outcomes Based Healthcare |  Emma Millington"I love that by volunteering I have the flexibility to follow my interests and to work with a team to create new opportunities and connections for myself and for others" Modular |  Ishani Patel"I am a member of the Harvard Medical Innovators and Leadership alumni, as it is important to have a global lens when it comes to technology, entrepreneurship and innovation in healthcare. This has also been recognised by the RCGP and I will be supporting the CIRC programme offering mentorship to future innovators. I have been shortlisted for Asian Woman of Achievement in Science and Technology 2018 and winner of the Medic-footprints Diversified Medic of the Year 2017" Lantum |
 Kenji Takeda"Neurodiversity is a topic that is close to my heart. Differences between us are not always visible. We need to try harder to have a better understanding and awareness of each other’s talents" Microsoft Research |  Mary Ethna Black"My family history spans the entire life of the NHS – my grandfather was an army doctor in the trenches in WW1, and came back to a poor area of Greenock in Scotland, then campaigned to start the NHS. Both my parents served as NHS doctors and my niece is an aspiring surgeon in London. The conversation around our kitchen table has always been about healthcare and the NHS" |  Selina Patel"I’m currently an early career researcher working on my PhD using data on antibiotic use in hospitals to improve patient care in the NHS. So far, I have worked in areas of policy, public health outreach and academia. Part of my plan is to promote data informed decision-making through my work at all levels, from the individual through to high-level policy making, for the advancement of public health" UCL & The Royal Society |
 Pashmeena Danwar"I am a software developer, an aspiring data scientist, and a tech geek. When I started building small software and web applications, I used to question myself If I can ever work on some super cool stuff that will change the world?" |  Grace Annan-Callcott"Using DNA data to define people’s identity will only serve to reinforce historic biases and oppression. And using science to simplify, organise and codify race and identity has proved destructive in the past. Identity cannot be reduced to a few data points" Projects by IF |  Nicole Mather"My career began focused on the impact and opportunities of genomics with a Neuroscience DPhil from Oxford University, researching the consequences of a single gene deletion on development. It is thrilling today to see how that science has moved into the clinic and is changing patient care" IBM |
 Lucy Wills"As a systems designer and an autistic expert patient, I have read widely, am highly observant by nature, and the way that my brain builds cognitive models, means that I am well placed to spot patterns and to recognise linked issues that might generally be missed" Globefox Health |  Inara Khan" I recently spent time with The Stroke club at Manor Gardens -- this offers a place for people who have suffered from strokes to spend time taking part in activities such as bingo and really feel like they belong to a community. For all the complex strategy and programmes I work on, something so simple can mean as much as rehabilitation services. I’ve only just scratched the surface of the NHS, and there’s a whole world of health that lies beyond it" NHS Strategy |  Zoe Clarke"I am extremely passionate about Electronic Assistive Technology. As well as advocating for the empowering effect it can I have, I also understand the importance of this technology being appropriately developed and provided in order fit the needs of the diverse range of individuals who may potentially use it. I have a specific interest in the use of electronic assistive technology with people with learning disabilities" Barnsley Assistive Technology Team |
 Anne Cooper"So now I am facing the end of my formal nursing career and I look back and realise how lucky I have been. At the beginning it was very lonely but now I see an emerging generation of amazing people and know that the drive to ensure we use technology and data for the benefit of citizens and patients will continue and is in safe hands" |  Paul S Weston"The experience of growing up gay, coming out and creating a joyous life has given me the attitude to take positive steps into the unknown, build networks of support and be passionate about who I am" |  Hannah Harniess"I wanted to step outside of secondary care and was able join a charity where I set up and ran a mental health wellbeing project for young women in east London (shout out to Comic Relief for funding it!), whilst continuing to practice part-time as a physiotherapist. My interest in the wider determinants of health and experience across acute and community care led to my decision to study an MSc in Social Epidemiology at the London School of Economics" DigitalHealth.London |
 Natalie Banner"I’ve always enjoyed building bridges, which might sound oddly practical from a former philosopher. For me, the most interesting (but difficult to construct) bridges are those that are possible between different islands of expertise, where different perspectives, languages and assumptions reside. I have always worked in interdisciplinary spaces, trying to work out how to get different islands to understand and learn from one another" Understanding Patient Data, Wellcom Trust |  Susan Hamer"I have a confession to make: I like change and I like evidence-based change even more! That’s not so outrageous,is it?! Well, it is a confession if you have then spent the next 30+ years trying to achieve evidence-based change, and feel in some ways you're no closer now than when you started. So... am I slow learner, have I over-complicated things, what needs to happen for me to be successful?!" NIHR Clinical Research Network |  Naureen Bhatti"IT has extraordinary potential, but must be part of a toolbox of different types of healthcare advice. And when needed it will be a trusted GP, not a bot, who gives wisdom, kindness, touch and humanity. Julian Tudor-Hart’s inverse care law will continue to apply, as he himself paraphrased: “if healthcare becomes a commodity it becomes distributed just like champagne. That is rich people get loads of it. Poor people don’t get any of it" |
 Abeyna Jones""I'm a just a girl" from London with an eclectic career spanning medicine, healthcare, music and more recently pop-up home art galleries! I founded Medic Footprints in 2014, as a consequence of my own career exploration off the beaten path coupled by a desire to discover my niche in this world" Medic Footprints |  Katja Behrendt"I now work in a partnership organisation that strives to innovate and collaborate for a healthier population, Imperial College Health Partners. Here, I have an exciting opportunity to work with our 20 partner organisations on integrating care and empowering clinicians to deliver the best care to their patients. Working across a whole health system is a new area for us and it's exciting to be developing and expanding, so we're becoming the leading expert in this area" ICHP |  Angela Hobbs"Triteq supports start-ups to develop ideas, from concept through to manufacture, and every stage in-between, and works alongside established companies on adapting and redesigning existing products. Triteq work to the highest medtech standards and have helped many of their clients achieve CE Marking for their medical devices and products" Triteq |
 Christl Donnelly"But what do I actually do? I use statistical and mathematical tools to understand how infectious diseases are transmitted, how an ongoing epidemic is likely to unfold (how many cases next week and the week after?), and how well particular control measures might work at reducing transmission" Imperial College London |  Silja Litvin"While working with NELF, I could see that the NHS is doing a great job: every therapist is dedicated, compassionate and really interested in helping people. It was wonderful to work in an inspired environment like that. But it was also easy to see that there were more clients than therapists. My colleagues were doing their best, but often felt like they needed to do more, or that they needed to get more helpers" eQuoo |  Clare Delmar"It’s a cruel irony that some of the greatest innovation in diagnosing prostate cancer has been led here in the UK. New pathways based on mpMRI imaging have been developed at UCLH and Imperial, yet are available and accessible in only a very small percentage of NHS hospitals. It’s also an area where AI can help change this for many NOW, and with the support of the clinical community" Nuada Medical |
 Stephanie Kuku"An aspiring innovator and clinical associate consulting for a Health Analytics Platform, I remain passionate about women’s health and am currently creating a digital platform to educate, inform, empower and connect women to health and wellness services. In the future, I hope to also be an advocate for improving health inequalities and awareness of the social determinants of health" |  Lena Chauhan"I created and developed bespoke programs for >30 people with dementia and tracked positive qualitative results. These included increased cognitive function, decreased emotional outbursts and lower reliance on prescribed medications. However, it was all done with heavy intervention from myself and I suffered fatigue and exhaustion. The next step was to develop a scalable tech-based solution that helped the pain points I had found" RiseIQ |  Joanne M. Hackett"My passion is creating collaborations and relentlessly pursuing better health for all – and this is what I do everyday. Genomic medicine has been a major part of my life as I have Coeliac Disease and this is only diagnosed by sequencing. While a bit dramatic to say it – genomic medicine has saved my life. It is now my duty to pay it forward" Genomics England |
 Jo Garland"I also think that there is a huge opportunity to use technology to share information across teams, both within the hospital setting and between primary, secondary and social care teams. I would like to genuinely involve patients in their care, allowing them up to date access to at least some of their data and the ability to have easy communication with healthcare professionals" |  Sarah Moorhead"From the women who make sure the 3.4 million patients records are stored securely, retrieved and provided to the right department on time for your appointment, or the ladies that make sure that thousands of beds and hundreds of theatres are cleaned daily and millions of meals are catered for" Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trusts |  Manpreet Bains"In 2016, together with one of my colleagues Jon Holley, we set up TEDxNHS, a platform for sharing ideas to inspire those working in healthcare to think differently, dream bigger and design better for the population we serve. The model enables a new team to get involved in event organization each year, with each annual event attended by NHS staff and livestreamed across the four nations of the NHS" Imperial College Health Partners |
 Jill Ridley-Smith"So I smile as I watch these tech entrepreneurs get hooked on healthcare, just like I did. And I thoroughly enjoy supporting them navigate the world in which they've chosen to operate, with the knowledge that we are working to truly change lives for the better" |  Mary Dixon-Woods"If you ask people to describe the future of healthcare, they might offer a shiny vision of new treatments and technologies. These kinds of innovations are important. But sometimes what’s needed for better care is much more mundane" THIS Institute |  Tina Woods"My epiphany moment came when I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TEDTalk Schools Kill Creativity, which gave me the idea to set up my education social enterprise, ColliderSCIENCE – to inspire kids in science and technology, and also to say good bye to the organisation I was working for at the time, and do something where I felt I could really make a difference and bring innovation from the outside, via the start-up community, into big organisations" Collider Health |
 Claire Giantzides"My job is very much my passion, I eat sleep and breath health, wellbeing and fitness empowerment. I am incredibly lucky to work among like-minded people and to be given the freedom to challenge the status quo and focus on peoples needs and wants rather than existing infrastructures and processes" Evergreen Life |  Charlotte Guzzo"Heterogeneous allows users to gain personalised insights on their genetics and to support relevant research projects around the world by sharing their data securely and anonymously. The platform benefits the future of medicine by raising individual awareness on preventable risks and by advancing medical research through relevant data for better patient stratification, drug development and custom prevention plans" Heterogeneous |  Nusrat Latif"Around the same time my eldest sister's health was deteriorating from a bunch of diseases and I was banging heads with clinicians trying to get them to share learning with me and vice versa. It’s where I identified a gap for NHS shared learning" Medlearn |
 Jenny J. Thomas"Who am I? I’m a new mum, passionate about improving healthcare for everyone. I love and sustain the founding principles of our unique and wonderful NHS. I’m currently discovering it’s tricky, but possible, to write a bio with a one year old on your knee" DigitalHealth.London |  Mary Akangbe"As a Nurse Specialist Practitioner in minimally invasive surgery, I have over the years watched how patient experiences and clinical outcomes improved due to advancement in technology, from less time in surgery to enhanced recovery" |  Liz Ashall-Payne"I realised early in my career as a clinician that, although I enjoyed working on a one to one with patients, what really drove me was seeing an impact on the wider community or populations I served. I quickly become interested in transformation and innovation, which took me on to my interest in mental health apps" ORCHA |
 Ali Sturgess-Durden"As a non-techie woman, I often wonder how I came to be working in a software business. But I have seen first hand the disproportionate impact that a small but forward thinking, collaborative, and values-based enterprise like Mayden can have on health and wellbeing. In fact, despite my lack of technical expertise, my colleagues say I’ve been a big part of enabling that contribution at home and now abroad" Mayden |  Lucy O'Neill"While I’m not from a scientific background, I enjoy interpreting technical and dry (I won’t say boring!) concepts into something that appeals to people personally. It is rewarding speaking to clinicians in the NHS and getting them excited about the potential of tech research and the enthusiasm I have encountered has definitely made me appreciate how much people, despite being busy, are willing to work together on something that will make a difference" King's College London |  Yinka Makinde"My career trajectory has been motivated by the early discontent I experienced during my Pharmacy career, which shone a light on the unsustainable down-stream costs of disease management. Since then, my mantra has always been ‘prevention is better than cure’ and it was this that inspired and catapulted my away from Pharmacy into the new world of health tech with Accenture, as a Consultant, where I was able to explore new possibilities made conceivable through technology innovation" DH.L |
 Lydia Torne"I am a lawyer who focusses on life sciences’ IP transactions and regulatory compliance, with a particular interest in digital health. Unlike many other lawyers operating in this field, I chose not to pursue sciences or medicine as a degree. Instead, I studied Law and French Law at University College London and the Universite Aix-Marseille III before qualifying as a lawyer at Simmons & Simmons LLP" Simmons & Simmons LLP |  Pam Garside"Investing came later, when I became an accidental angel, taking equity in a company instead of fees. Investing on a small scale is what I spend a lot of time doing now, which I find really exciting. I meet many many founders of new companies, and mentor on some of the NHS and other general start up accelerators. I am also a member of Cambridge Angels, the longest established angel group in the country. All of this is in health, which is the sector I know and love, as it were" Angel Investor |  Wendy Tindale"I love to champion the work of scientists in healthcare – they are integral to a huge number of diagnoses and treatments in so many medical specialisms, and yet all too often they lack visibility. There are some great development opportunities for female scientists and I enjoy providing a helping hand along the way, through mentoring, removing barriers or sometimes simply making introductions" |
 Karen Hodgson"But just as importantly, difficulties in dealing with depression can be compounded by the common misunderstandings that surround mental health issues, often fuelled by ill-informed newspaper headlines. My hope is that beyond the high-tech healthcare goals of my research, better knowledge of the biology involved can help patients understand their illness and tackle the stigma of depression" King's College London |  Ellie Bragan Turner"I am super passionate about measuring things that matter, and measuring them properly. That’s why I instantly felt at home at Outcomes Based Healthcare. As is well known in the system, the NHS is swimming in data and measurement. There are thousands of indicators published on NHS performance every year, but very few of these correspond to things that people receiving care would say are most important (like not becoming seriously ill in the first place)" Outcomes Based Healthtcare |  Beverley Bryant"My ambition is to enhance the daily working lives of healthcare professionals through the introduction of usable technologies. Technology has the potential to support its transformation by giving clinicians and users access to necessary information and knowledge to speed up diagnosis, maximise effectiveness and meet patient expectations. The opportunity to help make this happen in a system as complex as the NHS was impossible to resist" System C and Graphnet Care Alliance |
 Kate Daley"I’m a psychologist and unashamed digital health tech geek. I’ve been lucky enough, by some stroke of luck, to find a job which neatly combines these two passions. I work for an NHS Accelerator, and my role is a “NHS Navigator”. I have to admit that my friends think is a made up job, but I can assure you it is real and is actually pretty cool (if I do say so myself)!" NHS Accelerator |  Wendy Dearing"I started my career as a cadet nurse – great times – after qualifying as a registered nurse. I have been a ward sister, a clinical teacher in the private sector, and then returned to the NHS to lead the new implementation of NVQs in Care which gave me one of my biggest wows –developing Health Care Assistants, who had a desire to qualify as registered nurses but didn’t hold the relevant qualifications to apply" NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) |  Kathryn Jeffreys"I am often described as the ‘glue’ that holds everyone together because I’ve worked hard to build trusted relationships across local government and the NHS – often in very testing and pressurised times. I’m a team player, where I treat people like I want to be treated, which means, I adhere to a work ethic and set of values on how to behave and strive to approach things in a positive way." Public Health Leeds & Leeds CCG |
 Christine Outram"I’m proud to have been a manager in the NHS for over thirty years, supporting our wonderful staff to provide and improve services for patients. Thirty years is a long time and much has changed: there is still a lot to do, but the service we can provide now is so much better than when I started out, that it is barely recognizable – more staff, more expertise, more equipment, better buildings, more treatments and, above all, better outcomes for our patients" The Christie Hospital NHS Foundation |  Christiana Melam"The right training, tools and support from the outset are critical to ensure that the introduction of link working helps, not further hinders, successfully delivering such an important role. You cannot serve from an empty bowl and you cannot certainly give what you don’t have. Link workers within the NHS are predominantly in the band 1-4 bracket and often have no voice; hence their struggles rarely represented" Connect Link and First4Health Consultancy |  Virginia C. Patania"I'm passionate about Quality Improvement in primary care, which led to a nationally acclaimed programme (EQUIP: Enabling Quality Improvement in Practice), which aims to make general practice in Tower Hamlets the best place to work and receive care in the country. Joy in the workplace is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and I've had the pleasure of spending much of my time trying to understand and enable the components of joy in GP surgeries" Jubilee Street Practice |
 Louise Fellows"One of the critical services that we support is our incredible NHS. Not only in my day job do we try to deliver great solutions to meet the ever demanding outcomes of the NHS and their patients and families, but outside of work I am proud mum to the Wellity Kids – my second hat." Public Sector Services & Wellity Kids |  Katherine Ward"We are the first company in the world to be CE accredited for using the smartphone camera as a clinical grade diagnostic device – digital urine testing at home, integrated into the clinical record – and I am loving working with the NHS to establish use cases. Supporting pregnant women or kidney patients to reduce their visits to hospital, and am delighted that 80 year olds are describing the kit and app as ‘easy to use’" Healthy.io |  Kath Mackay"I am a stem cell scientist by training, and have had commercial biotech roles, which have given me an appreciation of the life sciences industry, both in the UK and the USA. Moving to Innovate UK was a natural progression -- I’m instinctively curious about new technologies and by finding new ways to do things, and have worked for the types of business that we look to support." Innovate UK |
 Helen Shaw"The last 12 years across public sector, specialising in Healthcare and the NHS, trying to understand how mobile technology can transform clinical working and enable better outcomes for citizens and patients. This led me to my current role, at Samsung, to lead Samsung Health in the UK and where I really believe, with collaboration, we have the ecosystem and capability to help the health service transform and evolve into a world leading care system" Samsung, UK |  Sheena Visram"It really is all about people. I’ve partnered to explore telemedicine opportunities, consulted on a healthcare accelerator and worked with colleagues in North America on ‘joy in work’ to open a dialogue on the role of staff burnout and patient safety. Above everything else, I’ve had the chance to carve out the person that I am proud to be and so much of this is thanks to those experiences and the seamless generosity of those people who have invested in me." DigitalHealth.London |  Ruth Palmer"When I started out everything was paper, duplicate, triplicate, faxing, often at times failing. The evolution in care is driven by science and technology. Data isn’t a static entity that sits in a filing cabinet, it drives workflows, treatments and operational practice. Used well, it drives effectiveness and efficiencies and is becoming far more relevant and powerful. We need to harness it. As Harold Wilson once said, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” |
 Krista Burslam"I am the Clinical Lead for Urgent and Emergency Care at eConsult. In the small time I have been there, we have pioneered an exciting redesign of a patient’s journey through urgent and emergency care using digital technology to automatically check in patients, validate their IDs, take their history and triage according to need – all within minutes of them arriving at the Emergency Department’s door. A small thing, but helping to ‘do my bit’ :)" eConsult |  Niamh McKenna"We’re at an exciting point where all this new technology is democratising everything. Technology is starting to adapt to us rather than the other way around. If you studied sociology or psychology you’re used to asking questions like: Why do humans do the things they do? Why are we interacting in the way we are? These kinds of questions are so important when we think about new technology – it shouldn’t be new for new’s sake but because it helps us get the job done better" Accenture |  Yvette Coldicott"I’ve always seen the role of a doctor as more akin to a coach; to help people understand - and not to fear - their condition, and how they can control it. A doctor can’t be there all day every day, but we can help our patients develop the confidence and the tools they need to manage things themselves" Synergix Health |
 Nicky Runeckles"Personally, my most important role is as a Mum. Although finding sobriety, training for triathlons and being a school governor are all pretty key for me too. A tough collapse in my own mental health two years ago is probably the personal experience that’s shaped me the most. It taught me so much – to face in to things, however hard, and how to actually look after myself" |  Jen Martin"People are sometimes surprised about my switch from military technology to healthcare, but there are actually quite a few commonalities between the two. In both, the people on the ‘front-line’ are provided with a kit which they usually haven’t had any choice about and which often hasn’t been designed with them in mind. They’re then required to make the best use of it they can and just get on with the job – often in highly stressful, life-threatening situations" MindTech |  Rachel Murphy"My love for the NHS really came to the fore when my step daughter Charlotte got sick with Meningococcal Septicaemia when she was 14. Fast forward 13 years, and she is still with us, has just had a baby boy and had the most incredible care imaginable that ran into the millions, it was during that 12 month period (ICU for months, and then different hospitals around the UK) that the power of the NHS really touched me." Be Difrent |
 Shreena Chavda"My journey into the world of healthcare analytics, as many journeys are, hasn’t been a direct route. I began my career in pharmaceutical sales, where I quickly progressed into consulting for the pharma and oil & gas sectors. It was within pharma that I began to understand the power of data -- its ability to back up anecdotal evidence, as well as uncover previously hidden insights. This, combined with my desire to do some good through my work, led me to the healthcare sector" Dr Foster |  Nadine Hachach Haram"I knew by the age of 14 that I wanted to be a surgeon and when I learnt how powerful reconstructive surgery is, I was hooked -- I knew plastic surgery was for me. Throughout my life I’ve always had a desire to make things better, to challenge inequalities and to look at problems not as end points, but as the catalyst to invent new solutions" NHS Plastic Surgeon & Co-founder of Proximie |  Juliet Bauer"Now I work with a brilliant team of women and men at NHS England, NHS Digital, the Department of Health and Public Health England . What brings us together is the absolute passion to make the digital experience of the NHS what it should be. And whilst doing so, to enjoy our work, support one another and maintain a healthy and happy work-life balance (the latter may be easier said than done sometimes!)." NHS England |
 Claire Cater"I would love to see more ‘Design Leaders’ that have the skills to collaborate and design solutions as every day behaviours. The learning. Know when to stop, focus on the potential and make the big dreams possible. Don’t let 30 years slip by" Social Kinetic |  Suzy Foster"21 years on, I work for Microsoft, running our healthcare business in the UK. What I love about what I do, and the people and organisations I work with in healthcare, not just clinical health providers, but also industry partners, is the shared connection everyone has to the NHS and how that manifests itself in what they are doing, and the outcomes they are working towards. Sure, there are a lot of frustrations, but there is also a seemingly unending flow of passion and commitment" Microsoft |  Mirela Noble"My journey into healthcare IT started over 12 years ago, with Cerner UK working in partnership with NHS Trusts managing deployments the infrastructure and clinical systems (EMR). The opportunity presented itself, and I ended up working in the Middle East to activate and deploy a state of the art hospital using the latest IT technology & medical equipment -- totally loved the hot weather and cutting edge technology." HCA, Healthcare UK |
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