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I have been a fellow since June 2021
Within the Manchester Hub, myself and our co-curator Alex Hernandez are working on a campaign around recruitment and the importance of diversity within careers in Health tech.
We are both passionate about women in tech and we are running a series of interviews/ blogs around the journeys that various key people in Digital Health in Manchester throughout their careers. We hope that these interviews are interesting to others as they go about their own careers, highlighting that no one takes a ‘normal’ trajectory. People can start their journey in their careers in many different ways and all overcome various different challenges but still have successful careers in digital health.
When not at work I can be found in various different places. My home life is very busy as mum to three kids, ten-year-old twins Willow and Sebastian and 12 year old Zak. I start most days with a 5K run with two running buddies and my dog Daisy a lovely Border Collie. I go to the gym three times a week and as a vegetarian I like to focus on my health and well-being. Being Mum to three kids who in turn all have busy lives can be hectic when combined with my day job as MD for Evolution’s NHS Business. Willow competes national within the Latin and Ballroom dancing arena and this can involve travel to lots of competition’s round the country at weekends. My boys are into Tennis, Football, Hockey and Scouts and they also keep me busy ferrying them to and from these things. As a family we love Paddleboarding in summer and very much enjoy our winter Ski holidays with myself and my Husband Snowboarding and the children Skiing.
The two words that describe me are Effective and Driven.
Effective as I have to make my time count due to demands on me both professionally and personally and I need to fit a lot into every day.
Driven as I am responsible for guiding a leading our business to success, we work in a competitive environment where the best quality service and standard’s are expected.
My interest in Healthtech is derived from my work in the NHS. On a daily basis my team and I interact with Tech stakeholders in the NHS to deliver skilled interims to the NHS across acutes, CSU’s and the ICS’s. We work with trusts to understand their digital agenda and support them with the people elements of these agendas.
My team runs a podcast which brings together the people who work in the digital space in the NHS. We discuss anything related to digital in the NHS on these podcasts from Mental Health to Female Leadership, from Data to EPR implementations and anything in between. Link to our Spotify podcast below.
Health tech needs to be more diverse and inclusive for so many reasons. The people that work in health tech need to reflect the population they serve. With patients and citizens coming from all areas of society, the people making decisions about their digital pathway in the NHs must come form a variety of background in order to consider all aspects that effect the patient on this patient journey. It is no good for example for someone from a privileged background to make decisions about someone who has come from a poor socio economic background or someone from a non LGBTQ+AI background to make decisions for people who do come from this background as they simply will have blind spots when making these decision’s. We know that of the 226 CIO’s in the NHS 72 of them are women. This is not bad when we consider the wider tech industry but if we consider the proportion of male to female nurses or back office staff we still have a way to go in redressing the balance in the tech space.
My guilty pleasure is playing pop tunes very loudly in the car on the way too and from work. I literally blast them out and sing very badly along to the tunes. My kids cant believe how loud the radio is when they get in the car. Its de compression time for me on my commute!
My favourite age so far has definitely been my early twenties, I spent much of them travelling around South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It was a really great time with minimal responsibility and myself and my husband spent time seeing amazing places and doing fantastic things like learning to dive and snorkel, learning to snowboard, met some great people and enjoyed a stress free existence.
I think the key to living a good life is balance. Too much of one thing isn’t great whether that’s food, alcohol, exercise, work, balance is key. I try to manage this as I go about my daily life but its not always possible!!!