I’m an engagement specialist. I listen to patients and residents and find out what they want from their local health services at design stage, before launching into market.
In Essex I led the design and services consultation for a new community mental health hub, providing holistic services for older people closer to where they live. I designed and facilitated engagement events for a wide range of stakeholders, often presenting to large groups of residents. I prepared reports on the engagement process for executive teams to show progress, flag risks and issues. The new hub opened in 2024.
In Bexley I worked at pace to win back the confidence of GPs and practice teams to deliver the enhanced access contract across primary care networks (PCNs). I provided advice to GPs and practice teams on effective communications with patients and worked with web providers to develop a demo website for practices to duplicate. The landing page is now part of most Bexley GP practice websites.
After listening to patients, residents and GPs talk about how important joined-up mental health services are for people with severe mental illnesses, I documented feedback and championed their views and helped launch Integrated Recovery Hubs in Kingston and Richmond. This service transformation made the journey in and out of mental health services much smoother for patients.
In Haringey I spoke to patients and staff about their ideal inpatient facility. I documented feedback and championed their views to inform the design of the new inpatient building at St Ann’s Hospital. The design feature patients wanted the most was independent access to outdoor space, that would help promote mental and physical wellbeing and reduce pressure on staff. Tour Blossom Court here.
In Enfield, I spoke to staff and patients about what aspects of a mental health home treatment service was important to them and why. Based on their feedback I helped launch this new service into market.
In Merton, I conducted focus groups with Year 5 and Year 8s to gather insight into language and understanding of mental health and emotional wellbeing, so young people’s voices were at the heart of a campaign that promoted online support.
In Hackney and Waltham Forest, I visited GP practices and helped them to developed audit tools so they could find patients at higher risk of cancer and set up recall alerts in patient records. These tools helped GPs to select cases that had the most learning potential about what went right and what they could have done better. My work was evaluated and the findings revealed less variation in terms of the timeliness of cancer diagnoses across the boroughs that received the engagement.
At the University of Brighton, I was part of a research team that secured funding from the European Commission to coordinate a work-package for a European pilot project exploring the feasibility of business social responsibility as a HIV prevention strategy. We explored the feasibility and acceptability to businesses of developing and implementing a European model of HIV prevention that provides common HIV/STI prevention standards across eight countries. I designed and delivered a train-the-trainer programme in social mediation to build the capacity of these organisations to effectively design and implement HIV prevention strategies at a local level. My training was translated into 8 languages to enable local organisations to build the capacity of other organisations through training and workforce development.