Laura Allison - Head of Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Laura is responsible for overseeing the delivery of all nationally taught quality improvement training and development programmes. She has over 25 years’ experience working as a registered nurse, and since 2011 has focused on building capacity and capability in the Scottish workforce using quality improvement as a method to embed change. During this time, she has worked across territorial and national health boards, Scottish Government, Criminal Justice, Education and third sector organisations. She established the Scottish Improvement Leader programme in 2014 and continues to work as faculty delivering on all national programmes. Laura trained as an Improvement Advisor with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in 2010, has a master’s degree in Systems Thinking, and is an accredited Executive Coach.

Kim Britton
Senior Educator, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Kim is the lead for the Scottish Coaching and Leading for Improvement programme (SCLIP) for the Quality Improvement Team and also works across all QI educational Programmes. She has 11 years clinical experience as a nurse, primarily working in surgical areas where she was introduced to QI methodology and led many projects. Before moving to NES QI team Kim worked as an Improvement advisor with the Patient Safety and Improvement team supporting projects, coordinating and facilitating the delivery of the SCLIP programme within NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

Emily Brown
Senior Educator, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland 
Emily is the lead for the Scottish Improvement Foundation Skills (SIFS) programme for the Quality Improvement Team and also works across all QI educational Programmes. She is a registered occupational therapist, with 17 years clinical experience in a range of settings, laterly specialising as a Macmillan OT and AHP practice education lead. She has led many improvement projects within the occupational therapy and specialist palliative care settings and is passionate about supporting others to improve how our public services are delivered in Scotland. 

Joe Hands
Principal Lead, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Joe leads on the Value Management collaborative at NHS Education for Scotland and also works as teaching faculty across all QI education programmes.  He has worked in the NHS for 20 years across acute and primary care and mental health in a governance/improvement role for NHS Lanarkshire.  He has extensive experience as a Data and Measurement manager and has an interest in supporting meaningful measurement for improvement and assurance, reducing variation and improving patient outcomes. He is a graduate of the ScIL programme (cohort 1).

Catriona Hayes
Improvement Advisor, Leading Improvement Team, The Scottish Government
Honourary Teaching Faculty, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Catriona is the national lead for measurement for improvement and a cohort lead for ScIL. She also supports SQSF and other QI training developments. She completed the IHI Improvement Adviser programme in 2012 and is a statistician by background, starting in academia before joining the Government Statistical Service in 1999. She works in the Leading Improvement Team in Scottish Government providing support to apply improvement thinking across a wide range of policy areas.
 

Jenny Ingram
Associate Director of Quality Improvement and Assurance NHS Grampian
Honourary Teaching Faculty, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Jenny’s passion is building a culture of quality care and safety through demonstrable change and improvement and is lead Faculty working with NHS Education for Scotland developing our Scottish Improvement Leaders (ScIL). Her professional background is as a Chartered Physiotherapist working in NHS Grampian both in Acute and Primary Care before moving into Risk Management. She took up a full time role in improvement as the Scottish Patient Safety Programme Manager for NHS Grampian in 2008.  Jenny is a graduate of the IHI Improvement Advisor Programme.

Fran Kerr 
Senior Educator, Quality Improvement team, NHS Education for Scotland
Fran joined the Quality Improvement Team at NES in October 2019 and teaches across a range of QI educational programmes. She is a pharmacist with 20 years experience, most recently as Antimicrobial Pharmacist in NHS Lanarkshire. She is passionate about quality improvement and is a Quality and Safety Fellow (Cohort 11). She has led multiple quality improvement projects focused on improving antibiotic prescribing both locally within Lanarkshire and nationally working within the Scottish Antimicrobial Prescribing Group (SAPG).      

Julia Mackel
Principal Lead, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Julia Is Principal Lead for Access QI, a new programme supporting clinical teams to improve clinical pathways and reduce waiting times. Julia is also faculty on NES QI programmes such as SCLIP and ScIL. She has 20 years clinical experience as a Dietitian and is passionate about continuously improving patient care.  She has previous experience being a Quality Improvement Advisor on the Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) and a QI Coaching Lead within NHS Lothian. This included developing and expanding the QI coaching network, support local QI training and coach groups/individuals. She is a ScIL graduate (cohort 5) and also accredited Lean Green Belt and has a certificate in professional coaching.

Shaun Maher
Principal Lead, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Strategic Advisor for Person-Centred Care, The Scottish Government Health Directorates
Shaun works part-time in the QI team as a cohort lead and also a range of other related QI activities. He is also a professional advisor in the Scottish Government Healthcare Quality and Strategy team.   His professional background is in nursing where he worked as a senior nurse and specialist practitioner in critical care for more than 20 years. More recently he has worked on a number of national quality improvement and education programmes and specialises in person-centred approaches to QI. He is a Scottish Quality and Safety Fellow and a qualified executive and team coach.

David Maxwell
Principal Lead, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
David is the Professional Lead for the Scottish Improvement Leader (ScIL) programme, joining the team at NES after working as an improvement advisor for the Scottish Patient Safety Programme. David commenced his professional career as hospital pharmacist in Australia, specialising in infectious diseases and Quality Use of Medicines. He has led a number of state and national initiatives to improve medicines use in the acute care setting, supporting frontline staff to use quality improvement methods as part of daily practice.

Sharon Millar
Principal Lead, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Sharon is passionate about building workforce capacity and capability for living with constant change and in her role as Principal Lead for Board Development, she provides educational interventions to enable Non-Executive Board Members to enhance their ability around QI, leadership and governance so that NHS Boards effectively govern the quality and performance of health and care delivery to the people of Scotland. She has 40 years of experience and academic achievements relating to three distinct and complementary careers in Community Psychiatric Nursing, Health Promotion and Human Resource Development. 
 

Gavin Russell
Senior Educator, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Gavin is Faculty lead for the Scottish Flow Coaching Academy and the Primary Care SIFs Programmes. He is also Improvement Coach for NES, providing support and advice for internal improvement programmes. Gavin graduated  from the IHI Advisor course in 2014 and is a qualified Executive Coach. He has worked as an Improvement Coach using QI and EFQM methods since 2010. He is passionate about improving public services and has supported improvement programmes in Local Authorities, Health and Social Care Partnerships, NHS Boards and in national roles while working for HIS and the Scottish Government. 
 

Shobhan Thakore 
Associate Medical Director for Quality Management, NHS Tayside
Consultant in Emergency Medicine, NHS Tayside
Clinical Lead, Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship Programme, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Shobhan is an Emergency Medicine Consultant and  Associate Medical Director for Quality Management in NHS Tayside where he helps to shape future service configuration by ensuring improvement science expertise supports operational teams. As Clinical Lead for the Scottish Quality & Safety Fellowship programme his aim is to enhance the expertise of Fellows so that their skills are recognised as essential in meeting the challenge to deliver excellent care at an affordable cost. This includes training in technical improvement skills but also leadership training that helps participants understand the importance of team engagement and the psychology of change.
 

Kat Dobell
Business Partner - Board Development, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Kat has been working in the QI team for almost 2 years firstly as a Safety Administrator for the ScIL and SIFS programmes and now as the Business Partner for Board Development. Before working in the QI team she worked as a public servant in Australia at local and state level. She is passionate about development and collaborative working. She manages a range of projects on behalf of the team including Web developments, communications and training and development for Non-Executive Board Members.

Teresa Genovese
Safety and Improvement Administrator, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland 
Teresa started working with the Quality Improvement team in October 2019 within the role of  administrator, taking on administration for ScIL programmes and updating TURAS for QI. Before working for NES she worked for a private investment bank for 10 years and has extensive experience in customer relationship management.  Always looking to improve her own personal development she is enrolled on the SIFS programme starting February 2020.

Alexander Harris
Modern Apprentice, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland 
Alex is the modern apprentice for the Quality Improvement Team starting in April 2021. He is in the process of completing his business and administration level 3 qualification alongside supporting a range of QI programmes. By gaining invaluable experience working with NES he hopes to have a lifelong career in the NHS. Having come fresh from high school he has an appetite to learn and thrives in a hardworking environment.

Ruth Mackie
Safety and Improvement Administrator, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland 
Ruth is a Safety and Improvement Administrator who supports the ScIL and SCLIP Programmes. She has been working in the QI team since mid 2019 and before that was a part of the Property and Facilities department in NES for 14 years. This experience and knowledge of the organisation has been invaluable to the team and she is looking forward to learning more about how Quality Improvement is improving outcomes for the people of Scotland.

Eilidh Manson
Senior Officer, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland
Eilidh has worked in NES since 2014, and started in the QI team in January 2019, firstly working as an administrative assistant supporting the ScIL and SIFS programmes, and is now a Senior Officer supporting ScIL and the Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship. Eilidh really likes the range of work that she is involved in, and particularly enjoys speaking with participants and stakeholders every day. 

Janice Walker
Business Partner, Quality Improvement Team, NHS Education for Scotland 
Janice is the Business Partner for the QI team. Her role focuses on finance and communications and also includes oversight of the operational team. Prior to this role she worked within NES as Team Leader in Training Management based in Glasgow. She has successfully completed the Scottish Coaching and Leading for Improvement Programme (SCLIP) and is enjoying using Quality Improvement methodology in her role.