Nightingale Frontline: Leadership Support Service Facilitators

Dr Gemma Stacey is a Mental Health Nurse and, prior to joining the Florence Nightingale Foundation, was employed as an Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. Her research and practice is underpinned by a critical consideration of the organisational, relational and professional factors which influence the expression of values in healthcare practice. She is committed to the premise of education as a vehicle to promote the emancipatory practice and has developed a program of externally funded applied healthcare research focused on approaches which enable transformational learning.

As Director of Public Engagement, she offered strategic leadership in this area at an executive level and motivated diverse teams to implement significant programmes of work aimed at enriching and animating the work of the University to improve its accountability, relevance and responsiveness to wider society. Her commitment to creating relationships with a vast range of partners in diverse sectors has resulted in co-designed knowledge exchange, research and educational innovation which has impacted on curriculum, policy, professional regulatory guidelines for nursing at a national and international level. Her credibility and influence is externally benchmarked by her accreditation as a Principle Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

She is currently Director of the newly formed Florence Nightingale Foundation Academy where she will lead a strategy to establish the Academy as an independent ‘go to’ service for leadership development opportunities, identifying and exploiting evidence, and the provision of expert, well informed opinion and advice on issues that impact on patient care and experience.

M.Cooper RGN BSc MSc

Marie is a nurse with many years’ experience of clinical and executive leadership and also an accredited Coach Practitioner with the European Mentoring and Coaching. Having delivered change in her previous roles, she now loves working with both individual and groups who want to develop themselves and their practice . Such opportunities have given her a clarity about the many issues nurses, be they practitioners or leaders, engaged in care delivery face today.

From 2014 to June 2019, Marie was Practice Development Lead for Hospice UK, which enabled her to work with hospice executive clinical leaders and national organisations to champion the delivery of high quality, accessible palliative care. Since June 2019, Marie works freelance with several organisations. In addition to being an Associate Facilitator for the Florence Nightingale Foundation which she loves, she works with St Christophers Hospice on exciting new initiatives to advance contemporary Nursing in palliative and end life care.

Amy Dunmall

Amy’s 24 years’ experience as a Nurse, NHS Leader and Educator enables her to bring humanness and intuitivity to her coaching, consulting and facilitating. Committed to enabling cultures of care and compassion, that enable human thriving and flourishing, she trained in Deeper Listening, Non-Violent Communication, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Advanced Facilitation and as an Executive Coach and Mentor.

She works part time within the NHS, scoping, designing and leading large transformational leadership and development programmes. She has a particular interest in staff well-being. She works independently, coaching individuals and teams with a focus on communicating with compassion. She is also an Associate Facilitator with the Foundation of Nursing Studies (FONS) and Florence Nightingale Foundation.

She trained as a Nurse, District Nurse, Clinical Facilitator, Educator and Service Improvement Facilitator. She is currently Head of Nursing Professional Development at Leeds Teaching Hospitals responsible for co-producing and implementing the Nursing and Midwifery strategy for a workforce of over 4000 staff. She designed and leads the Leeds Excellence in Practice Programme which has seen over 200 staff developed in Improvement Methods and Compassionate Leadership, enabling them to demonstrate clinical excellence.

Jackee Holder

Jackee works with directors, senior leaders, board level executives and emerging leaders in the NHS. She is an accredited coach, coach supervisor and therapist. Her thought leadership focuses on wellbeing for leaders in a range of different systems and cultures.

Jackee’s skills extend to and includes design and delivery of accredited, high quality coach training and leadership programmes, facilitating team coaching and action learning sets, women’s leadership and career advancement along with coaching around diversity and inclusion.

Jackee portfolio career in organizational development includes a combination of a therapeutic understanding of human behaviour, a keen interest in reflective practice as a resourceful leadership developmental tool supporting individuals to become stronger, resilient leaders. Jackee skillfully coaches around change, difference and challenge.

Valerie James

Valerie James is at the forefront of innovation in the UK in developing health service leaders. A Senior Fellow in Leadership at the King’s Fund for 10 years, she worked with over 800 senior clinicians and managers on groundbreaking interventions. These included the Top and Senior Manager Programmes, Athena for executive women, Management for 500+ Specialist Registrars and, with Dr Eden Charles, the Transformational Leadership Programme for senior BME leaders in the NHS. Professor Alimo-Metcalf independently evaluated TLP as outstanding. As a result, Valerie and Eden were nominated by over 100 people for the national Leadership Awards 2009 and again in 2010 (Partnership Category) for enabling multiple, sustained personal and organisational improvements.
A full time independent consultant since 2010, clients include two international order of nuns, the Department of Health and Department for Education, King Fahad Medical City – 8 hospitals in Riyadh, The Health Foundation, on patient safety and board leadership, and the national college of police leadership on partnership working. She wrote the first QI strategy in the NHS, working in partnership from Board to Ward to create demonstration projects.
Previously she has been a chief executive grade in the NHS and an academic. She has two clinical trainings, three behavioural science degrees, three postgraduate clinical diplomas and a PGCE. Accredited by CEDR International as a mediator, she specialises in mediating with doctors. She works creatively with transformational change, inequality and conflict. Valerie has been an executive coach to many senior figures and has taught coaching skills for over eighteen years. She has a passion for partnership working across systems and for bridging differences.
Independent Consultant: Corporate Psychologist
Visiting Senior Fellow, Kingston University and St George’s, University of London
Consulting Editor, International Journal of Public Leadership

Pippa Gough

Pippa has a varied career as a nurse, midwife, health visitor, manager and development consultant in both the public and voluntary sectors at local and national levels. Previously Director of the RCN Policy Unit from 1998 to 2001 and thereafter Senior Fellow at the King’s Fund in Leadership Development, Pippa also led a Policy Team exploring the health workforce, within the KF Policy Directorate.
Pippa is an experienced coach, both with individuals and teams. Her expertise also encompasses designing, commissioning and delivering innovative leadership and organisational development programmes within the health service and other parts of the public sector. This includes managing and facilitating large scale, whole systems events, and working with executive and senior teams to develop strategy and improve effectiveness.
Pippa is currently a Trustee and Vice Chair of the NSPCC and Chair of the NSPCC Policy Committee. Prior to this, Pippa served as a Trustee and Vice Chair of the Alzheimer’s Society from 2011 to 2017 (she has personal experience of caring for both her parents with dementia).
Pippa is a Fellow of the Queen’s Nursing Institute and Fellow of the Royal Society of Art. She is the author and editor of a number of books on nursing and policy and numerous articles and other publications on leadership, change, development and health workforce. In her spare time Pippa is a writer of fiction and has two short stories published in anthologies.
Pippa Gough MA, MSc, PGCEA, RN, RM, HV, FQNI, FRSA
Executive Coach, Leadership and Organisational Development Consultant

Claire Henry RGN BSc(hons) PGDip

Claire has worked in healthcare for over 30 years predominately in Palliative and End of Life Care covering clinical, managerial, and quality improvement roles within the NHS and 3rd sector. She has led national implementation and improvement programmes alongside an independent review “National Choice offer for end-of-life care “.

Claire has been actively involved in leading national quality improvement programmes and community engagement and developments nationally including Dying Matters which she led for 3 years. She was also co- founder of the National Lung Cancer Forum for Nurses.

In 2013 Claire was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to improving end-of-life care and in the same year received a lifetime achievement award from the International Journal of Palliative Nursing.

More recently Claire has been working independently supporting health and social care organisations in a variety of aspects relating to quality improvement, coaching, mentoring and  palliative and end of life care, alongside Visiting Researcher University of Cambridge Palliative and End of Life Care research group and Visiting Fellow at the Open University.

Natalie Yates-Bolton R.G.N., M.Sc., Ph.D.

Natalie is a senior lecturer in Nursing at the University of Salford and an Associate Consultant with HammondCare International. In her role as a senior lecturer Natalie teaches under-graduate nurses, post-graduate nurses and supervises senior nurses undertaking Professional Doctorates. Natalie is the International Lead for the School of Health and Society at the University, leading on projects where staff and student international mobility facilitates knowledge development of professionals and students.

Natalie was awarded both Florence Nightingale Leadership and Travel Scholarships which developed her experience and knowledge of both dementia care and leadership. The learning from these scholarships led to her pivotal role in establishing the Salford Institute for Dementia of which she was Interim Director. In her role as an Associate Consultant with HammondCare International Natalie is involved in knowledge translation and evaluation projects related to dementia care and support in the UK and Australia.

Natalie’s Ph.D. study explored the enhancement of meaning and purpose in care home life. This has led to her role as the university’s workforce development lead in the Greater Manchester Teaching Care Homes project. Through this work Natalie has been collaborating with leaders of the teaching care homes of Schelgel Villages, Canada.

Natalie was part of a recent British Council delegation that collaborated with the Saudi Patient Safety Centre in Riyadh. Natalie has recently developed collaborations focused on the empowerment of nurses and patients for the Saudi Patient Safety Centre and Motaafi, a cancer survivors’ charity in Riyadh. Natalie has also trained as personal and professional development coach supporting the development of NHS leaders, future leaders and academics.

Fiona Sheppard DHSci, MA, BSc, SCPHN – HV, RGN

Dr Fiona Sheppard is a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse – Health Visitor and practised for 23 years in various community settings. During her time with the NHS she undertook a strategic role supporting the implementation of clinical supervision in practice, across NHS Trusts in the East Midlands. Latterly, she worked the final 12 years of her career as an educator within the School of Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham. She helped to shape the integration of clinical supervision across the pre-registration nursing curriculum for all fields of practice. This work informed her Master’s in Human Relations and her doctoral thesis. In addition, she has complimented her supervisory facilitation skills with an ILM accredited coaching qualification and practised as a coach and mentor. She has particular expertise in facilitating groups.

Throughout her career, the values that underpinned her practice have focused on enabling and empowering nurses and allied health professionals in their professional capacity, through the practice of facilitated reflection.

Fiona recently retired from full time employment but still works in a part time capacity as an independent consultant. She continues to be registered with the NMC and her professional organisation.

Joanna McCormick

Joanna is an experienced nurse leader with more than 30 years in clinical and leadership roles in the NHS. She has expertise in managing change and improving the clinical environment through process redesign. Joanna was the 1st Critical Care Nurse Consultant in N.Ireland (NI), established the 1st Critical Care Outreach Team in NI and was a professional lead on the regional group which designed and established the Critical Care Network for NI

An accredited coach with the ILM, Joanna is passionate about people, effective team working and facilitating individuals and teams to achieve personal and organisational effectiveness.  

Until January 2020 Joanna was Divisional Nurse for Acute Services working as part of a collective leadership team with professional responsibility for approximately 1000 Nursing staff. She now provides coaching and mentoring support for a number of QI programmes and has a particular interest in initiatives supporting Joy in Work. 

Joanna is a fellow of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme (cohort2) and a Florence Nightingale Foundation Scholar (2015).

Gill Rogers BA, RN, MSc

Gill is and independent consultant, facilitator and systems leader who specialises in bringing teams together to improve outcomes through working with individuals. She is passionate about improving individuals’ potential and works at all levels to achieve this.

Gill, BA, RN with an MSc in Management Development and Social Responsibility (Bristol University) and is a CEDR accredited mediator. She has worked as a nurse and held several senior management roles in a variety of NHS and private organisations. Gill is an accredited Time to Think facilitator and coach.

Gill is particularly experienced at working with staff in Primary Care organisations often helping organisations in a fragmented system value their most precious resource – staff.  She is adept at helping professionals and leaders make sense of complexity so that they can manage the landscape and politics to deliver high quality of care.

Gill was Director of General Practice Nursing at Londonwide Local Medical Committees establishing leadership forums for General Practice Nurses and Practice Managers in London. Gill was   Programme Director for an academically accredited foundation level programme created to help nurses new to General Practice. Gill is skilled at making sure that people are valued, and their views are heard and acted upon.

Gill currently leads the GPN programme for Capital Nurse and NHSE / I (London) on workforce initiatives regionally and nationally. During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Gill chairs a leadership group for General Practice Nurses in London which has enabled the nurse’s voice to be heard for the benefit of patient care and nurses working in the pandemic in London and nationally.

Pauline Milne

Pauline is an experienced nurse leader with particular expertise in the nursing workforce.  She has worked in a range of senior nursing leadership positions spanning acute clinical care, nursing management, nursing informatics and nursing workforce policy and planning.  Pauline has experience of working at local, regional and national levels.

Pauline currently works as an independent healthcare consultant and has supported NHS Trusts with quality improvement initiatives, including Care Quality Commission preparedness.  She has direct experience of leading the nursing response to COVID in an acute trust in London during the first wave of  and consequently has a good insight into the challenges currently faced by nurses and midwives.

Pauline has a long-standing interest in safe staffing, workforce development and staff wellbeing.  She led the initial Nursing and Midwifery Workload and Workforce Planning project in NHSScotland and the development of National Quality Board staffing guidance in response to the Francis Inquiry in England.

In 2015 Pauline was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to nurse education. In 2020, Pauline was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to research suicide in nurses.

Pauline is a member of the Chief Nursing Officer’s Exceptional Leader’s Network, the Florence Nightingale Foundation Alumni, England Executive Nurses’ Network and the Harvard Kennedy Women and Power Alumni.

Mike Attwood

Mike is an experienced coach, mentor and facilitator working from “Ward to Board” with particular experience of coaching front-line clinicians and Non-Executive Directors and Directors with a clinical background.

Mike draws from his career experience to combine empowering coaching flexibly with mentoring on “real life” problems, especially personal resilience; safety and speaking out; clinical team working; financial turnaround; service integration; making a reality of community, clinical and political engagement in the face of complex and challenging change.

As a coach, Mike began his journey in 2011 having qualified with The Performance Coach, completing a year-long programme academically moderated by Portsmouth University and recognised by European Mentoring and Coaching Council. He was faculty member for London Darzi Fellows Clinical Leadership Programme for two academic years, delivering 1:1 coaching/learning sets for two years for the Centre for Innovation in Health Management and has worked with People Opportunities as a team coach and facilitator for the joint leadership programme in London for Directors of Public Health, Adults and Children’s Services.

With 26 years’ experience as an NHS Leader, he joined the organisation as a graduate management for finance in 1985. He has had a successful Board / Top Team career since 1996 which has included work as both a provider and a commissioner; Chief Executive of two Primary Care Trusts (Slough/Coventry); Operations Director – Brent community services; mental health Divisional Director in South West London; Programme Director-Total Place radical integration programme for children’s and local authority shared services across 11 West Midlands public sector organisations.

Emma Wadey RN MH

Head of Mental Health Nursing NHSE/I  & Member of the Technical Advisory group on mental health impact of COVID-19 across the European region for the World Health Organisation.

Emma is a mental health nurse with over 20 years of experience across a wide range of health, emergency care and criminal justice settings. Maintaining clinical practice throughout her career has always been a priority and Emma continues to work as a consultant Nurse in a local Psychiatric liaison service. Passionate about the provision and transformation of effective and recovery based mental health services she has led the development of new and innovative services for the most vulnerable in our society. More recently she has been the clinical lead for the National Mental health, learning Disability and Autism COVID-19 response cell, providing expert clinical oversight during the pandemic.

She is leading the national program of work on reducing suicides in Nursing and Midwifery and is a member of the expert advisory group and Nurse representative on the design and implementation of an enhanced mental health and wellbeing offer for healthcare staff.  Emma is committed to continual professional development and advanced practice and has developed clinical academic pathways for mental health nurses and contributed to the development of competency frameworks in advanced practice.  Key to improving patient care is ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of Nurses, with this in mind she has worked with the National Midwifery team building on the success of the Professional Midwifery Advocate program to develop a Professional Nurse Advocate program. By the end of March 2022, over 5000 nurses across all fields of practice and in al healthcare, settings will have been trained.

Jessica Read RN RM BSc (Hons) MSc

In over 30 years as a midwife Jess has worked across all aspects of maternity services covering clinical, managerial and regulation roles.  Jess has experience in regional, national and international health strategy, and has authored chapters in recent publications of ‘Mayes Midwifery’ (2017) and Myles ‘Professional Studies for Midwifery Education and Practice’ (2019) as well as articles for journal publications.

As a member of the RCN Midwifery Forum Steering Committee Jess represents the RCN on the Council of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and is a member of the ICM Regulation Committee. Jess is a coach and a mentor and has a particular interest in enabling others to reach their full potential.

During the past 6 years Jess has experienced the challenges of translating policy into practice by leading on the development of a new national model for clinical supervision and support for midwives, (A-EQUIP) she also developed a platform for support, recruitment and retention for midwives working in London (Capital Midwife) and supported the delivery of national ambitions for maternity services across the NHS in England (Better Births).

Jess has been in the role of Deputy Chief Midwifery Officer for England (Leadership and Professional) since November 2019 where she plays an integral role in supporting the delivery of the national ambitions of Better Births and the NHS long term plan and securing the highest quality of maternity services for mothers and their babies whilst supporting the Chief Midwifery Officer’s vision for England to be one of the safest countries in the world to give birth.

Dr Neslyn Watson-Druée, CBE

Neslyn has a long track record in the nursing and the NHS as a former nurse, midwife, health visitor, health promotion officer, deputy director of nurse education and non-executive director in the NHS, including 10 years as Chair of NHS Kingston.

Neslyn is a business psychologist, accredited executive coach who mainly works with senior civil servants U.K Gov. Neslyn laid the foundations for Leadership Development for the  NHS in 1993 when she piloted Leadership, Career and Personal Development for NHS staff. Her work formed the foundations for the NHS Breakthrough Programme and subsequently the current NHS Leadership Academy.

Neslyn has a portfolio career inclusive of Patron to Media Organisations, Trustee, Leadership Development Consultant and Public Speaking. Within Neslyn’s coaching practice she focuses on High Performance, Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Neslyn holds qualified European Test User Certificate (level 2): Work and Organisational Assessment.  Also, Licensed to deliver Lumina Spark, Lumina Leader, SDI, MBTI, Orpheus, Benchmarks, CPI, FIRO-B, Margerison McCann: TMP, TWP, QO₂ and Linking Skills. MLR: Situational Leadership, Negotiating skills and Influencing skills profiles.