Improving health and wellbeing for women and girls in Dorset

Heather Stacey

Senior Programme Manager Innovation Adoption

Heather initially joined Health Innovation Wessex in February 2021 to support the Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme and Managing Deterioration (Children and PEWS). Since then, she has moved to the Innovation and Adoption Team, with a focus on supporting the Dorset system.

She is an Occupational Therapist, completing her training in London, before moving to Edinburgh and then Dorset in 2007. Heather has a Masters in Advanced Mental Health Practice and has worked within the NHS for 30 years, mainly within mental health services in most settings including acute assessment, community and outreach posts - working clinically and in leadership roles.

She undertook an HEE-funded Patient Safety Fellowship which focused on learning from staff reflections to focus on how patients and families are supported around the time of death. Heather is keen to address the key themes from this within her work: improving system working, communication and staff wellbeing. She has just completed her ILM level 5 coaching qualification.

Robert Payne

Programme Manager Innovation Adoption

Rob studied Ancient History at Swansea University and graduated in 1998.

He spent four years working for a regional publication in Liverpool as a sales rep before moving to Australia in 2004.

Rob then spent ten years living and working in Australia (Melbourne) and has nine years of experience working in the travel industry and managing a business (Flight Centre). He has an FA level one coaching qualification and is involved with coaching his sons' football team.

Rob loves to travel and has explored much of Australia as well as many other destinations in Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and America.

Linda du Preez

Programme Co-ordinator Innovation Adoption

Linda is a Programme Co-ordinator for Innovation Adoption.

Linda is an experienced Occupational Therapist who worked for over 20 years as a clinician and team leader specialising in supporting those living with frailty to stay independent at home for longer and live the lives they choose. Prior to joining Health Innovation Wessex, she worked in a training role educating managers and staff on the importance of managing wellbeing in their workplaces. Her current role enables her to combine her passion for innovation and evidence-based practice, with her skill and experience.

Linda's role involves supporting the work of the Innovation Adoption directorate by co-ordinating spread and adoption of health and care innovations across Wessex.

Nicky Smith

Innovation and Adoption Programme Manager

Nicky joined the organisation in July 2024 and recently completed an MSc in Health Sciences in 2024 from Oxford Brookes University.

She has a background in adult nursing working in the community, primary care and with children and young people. She has experience in transformation, innovation and engagement supporting populations and communities working collaboratively with the NHS Integrated care system (ICS) including local authority, social care, communities, and voluntary sector with a successful track record of delivering transformation capability, population health improvement and empowering and engaging communities to improve their health and wellbeing. Additionally, she has experience supporting families, children and young people and primary care delivering the UK childhood immunisation schedule (and covid vaccination) addressing health inequalities alongside outreach vaccination and tailored support to under-represented communities, advice and education for parent/carers, communities, and the voluntary sector.

Catherine Henderson

Patient Safety Programme Manager

Catherine is a Patient Safety Programme Manager who has joined HIW from a national patient safety investigation body, where she was a Safety Insights Analyst.

Her safety career began in commercial aviation where she spent 15 years as a maritime surveillance pilot, flying instructor and examiner. As an aircraft Captain she developed a keen interest in understanding how and why things go wrong at a system level, and how people respond in abnormal or emergency situations. After further training and experience, she took on the additional roles of Flight Safety Manager and Human Factors Instructor.

Catherine was interested in patient safety, so she started working in the NHS in 2016 to get first-hand experience of the complexities of healthcare, whilst bringing her knowledge and experience of a different safety critical industry with her. She completed a BSc in Adult Nursing whilst working in acute hospital care, and more recently completed an MSc in Human Factors and Ergonomics.

Catherine keeps a focus on system thinking, just culture and human factors in her patient safety work, and keeps current in aviation by regularly flying and maintaining a vintage light aircraft.

Grace Smith

Programme Manager- Patient Safety

Grace started her career in the NHS in 2006 as a Therapy Assistant and continued this role whilst studying to become a physiotherapist. Having graduated in 2013 Grace went on to specialise in acute respiratory care, stepping outside the traditional role of a physio and becoming a Clinical Matron leading an acute respiratory ward, for which she won a national Advancing Healthcare award. Before joining HIW Grace gained a fellowship at Health Education England (South East) as Regional Allied Health Professional (AHP) workforce fellow where she led the regional implementation of the nationally commissioned AHP support workforce transformation programme and AHP apprenticeships, before joining the NHS Frimley AHP workforce team.

Grace is in the final stages of completing an MSc in Professional Practice in Healthcare with her dissertation due in January 2025. For this, Grace is conducting primary research utilising mixed methodology to explore the ‘The lived experience of AHP support workers in the NHS’.

Meet our Industry and innovation team

Emily Jiggens

Programme Assistant – Industry and Innovation - NAS

Emily began her career with a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences from 2018 - 2021, publishing her dissertation on the role of CDK4 in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer. She then went on to study the Global Master of Public Health at Imperial College London, where, alongside special interests in infectious disease modelling and health protection, she conducted a research project on the barriers to physical activity among young women and girls. Alongside her master's studies, Emily volunteered with Cherwell District Council and Oxfordshire County Council, getting involved in a range of health promotion, community engagement, and health inequalities projects. During this time, she also worked as a health advisor at NHS 111, starting off her NHS career.

After completing her Master's degree, Emily was accepted onto the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme in Health Informatics, based in the south east. This course spanned two years and consisted of three placements across Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's Data Quality Team, Torbay Council's Public Health Team, and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board's Population Health Analytics Service. During the graduate scheme, she also completed two further postgraduate qualifications in Healthcare Leadership (Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Award from the University of Birmingham) and Health Informatics (PG Dip from University College London and the University of Manchester).

Emily has joined the Industry and Innovation Team as a Programme Assistant focusing on the needs assessment (NAS) element of the NHS Innovation Service.

Claire Martin

Programme Manager - HealthTech Innovation Strategist

Claire joined the Industry and Innovation team in January 2024 from her clinical role. She is currently working as a Programme Co-ordinator within the team supporting with programme delivery and innovator support. Claire has 12 years’ experience working clinically as a physiotherapist in the NHS, across multiple different specialities, her clinical experience has included working in community, outpatient and inpatient settings in addition to experience with team management, service development and quality improvement. Over the six years she has specialised in respiratory medicine including positive pressure ventilation, tracheostomy weaning and co-ordinating complex discharge planning in addition to being in a team leader role. During her clinical career she has been involved, and assisted leading, in the development and adoption and implementation of a cancer prehabilitation service and has recently led in the design and development of a discharge bundle for complex respiratory patients.

Prior to her role at Health Innovation Wessex, Claire has completed two Msc modules in innovation in healthcare through Buckingham New University (and Oxford AHSN as it was then).

Anna Wykes

Programme Manager - Industry & Innovation (Cancer Innovation)

Anna initially joined the Wessex Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) in August 2019 as a programme coordinator. After working on the COPD Discharge Bundle project and Medicine Safety in Care Homes Programme, she moved to work on the urgent Covid Oximetry at Home programme during the autumn of 2020. Anna then moved to a new post, hosted by Health Innovation Wessex (at that time named Wessex AHSN) and jointly funded by Wessex Cancer Alliance to facilitate the adoption and spread of proven innovations that support earlier and faster diagnosis of cancer.

Anna has worked for various NHS healthcare services as a Registered Children’s Nurse. She has worked in both tertiary and community settings, in a variety of clinical roles, and has a passion for delivering and supporting healthcare services to deliver high quality patient care.

Most recently, as a Nurse Educator, she was responsible for leading the development and implementation of the first regionally delivered Paediatric Nurse Preceptorship Programme in England. This programme harnessed the expertise of the different paediatric teams throughout Wessex to provide standardised study days and documentation that promoted the delivery of high quality training and support to any new children’s nurse employed within the region.

Gemma Snell

Senior Programme Manager Innovation & Industry Needs Assessment Service

Gemma is an Innovation and Industry Programme Manager. Her focus is to support innovators and to foster more innovation in the NHS to improve health outcomes. She is part of the NHS Innovation Service working with colleagues in Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria to assess the needs of innovators wishing to enter or develop within the NHS.

Gemma has a background of working as part of networks, initially the Cardiovascular and Stroke Networks in London seeing the city-wide transformation of stroke services to set up Hyper Acute and Acute Stroke units. She has also worked on pathways for cardiac surgery, both reducing waiting times for elective treatment at tertiary centres but also facilitating inter-hospital transfers for emergency procedures across London.

Gemma was Regional Lead for Diabetes in London working with all areas of the system from public health and primary care to vascular surgery, as well as considering the educational needs of patients and healthcare professionals to manage diabetes. Latterly she was part of the team that set up the first National Diabetes Prevention Programme to reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases.

During the Covid pandemic Gemma was instrumental in supporting University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust to set up its staff and patient testing programme. She was also closely involved in the trials seeking to understand the most effective testing mechanism and protocols.

Gemma has worked closely with various National Clinical Directors and participated in the HOPE Exchange programme, which took her to Sweden for a whistle-stop tour of the Swedish health and social system. When not working, she thoroughly enjoys outdoor pursuits including cycling, skiing, paddleboarding and trying out different cuisines from around the world.

Peter Rhodes

Senior Programme Manager Industry & Innovation

Peter is Senior Programme Manager for Industry & Innovation. He joined Health Innovation Wessex in 2018 after a 30-year career as a Pharmacist in five frontline technological roles, four in the NHS and one in the pharmaceutical industry.

His professional specialism is in pharmaceutical manufacturing and quality management, but broad experience in secondary care means he can support technology across the clinical disciplines. He is well placed to quickly understand the place an innovation could have in the health system, and to draw together the support needed to bring innovations to fruition.

Peter is committed to supporting healthcare innovators to bring products and services to market that the NHS needs.

Ani Haughton

Industry and Innovation Support Assistant

Ani joined Health Innovation Wessex from University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, where she held several administrative roles across various departments.

Ani started her NHS career working in Radiology in Royal Surrey County Hospital before moving to Southampton. Her career with University Hospital Southampton began in the Breast Imaging Unit working with teams covering routine imaging and referred testing. She then moved to Southampton Medical Examiners and assisted with the documentation and registration of the deceased from the hospital, linking her with a wide range of colleagues across numerous departments.

Ani then moved to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Saliva Testing Lab based in Chilworth, working directly with the Managing Director and Senior Leadership team to deliver Covid-19 saliva testing across organisations in the area. Here, Ani found her passion for supporting projects that advance our understanding and use of technology to better our community.

How can we help you?

If you’d like to get in touch please
email enquiries@hiwessex.net