Medicine Safety Improvement Programme

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.

Jo Murray

Associate Director Innovation Adoption - Strategic Programmes + Patient Safety Lead

Jo Murray is the Associate Director for Innovation Adoption - Strategic Programmes and Patient Safety Lead. She has a portfolio of projects delivered through the Wessex Innovation Adoption and Wessex Patient Safety Collaborative teams, including cardiovascular disease and the national priorities laid out in the NHS Patient Safety Strategy covering deterioration, maternity and neonatal, medicines, and system safety improvement programmes. She is also a national co-lead for the maternity and neonatal workstream.

Jo joined us from Oxford AHSN (now Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley) where she was the workstream lead for sepsis and deterioration for five years. During the pandemic she played an instrumental role in the Covid Oximetry @ home project. She has a clinical background, working as a Respiratory Physiotherapist in several London teaching hospitals before moving to Hampshire and beginning her journey in patient safety and clinical governance at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is trained to Masters level in patient safety, quality improvement methodologies, facilitation and network weaving and is an ILM level 5 coach.

Jo is passionate about adding value and working collaboratively to achieve service-user centred care.

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.

Sarah Willis

Genomics Innovation Director

Sarah joined Health Innovation Wessex in September 2024. She has over 20 years of experience in the NHS, working in clinical, operational and transformation roles. Sarah has a BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy degree from the University of Hertfordshire and is currently undertaking a Master’s degree in business administration. She’s held roles including Acute Therapy Services Manager, and Complex Discharge Manager, before transitioning to transformation. Prior to joining the organisation Sarah worked as Senior Programme Manager with the Central and South Genomic Medicine Service Alliance since 2021. She continues to partner with them in this joint role as Genomics Innovation Director.

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.

Simeon Kent

Innovation Adoption Programme Manager

Before joining Health Innovation Wessex, Simeon was working in one of the UK's Lighthouse projects setting up an automated Covid-19 mass testing facility in response to the Covid pandemic. Simeon's role within this team was as the Laboratory Operations Manager, ensuring the streamlined implementation of automation including liquid handling robots and loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) technology.

Before this he was working with Southampton Primary Care Ltd as part of the Business Development and Support team who pioneered the 'out of hours' primary care service using 'Hubs' for Southampton.

Simeon is passionate about pioneering technologies and even more passionate about seeing them used to improve the experience of NHS patients.

How can we help you?

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

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