Adam has used his clinical background to improve the quality of services within healthcare organisations.  He leads the national QSIR programme, the most well-recognised NHS-owned brand for QI-capability building across the service

He is highly skilled in the design and facilitation of large complex change programmes that help support groups of clinical and managerial staff from across local systems and regions to identify improvement opportunities, design improvement interventions, create capacity and capability for sustainable improvement, and evaluate the impacts of those improvements.

He is skilled in the management of quality, and as a registered nurse, he utilises his skills to analyse where improvements need to be made and whether, as an organisation, they have been achieved.

During his time in the NHS, Adam has worked collaboratively with a range of stakeholders, from chief executives to the cabinet office and clinicians across the country, to coach them and deliver effective processes.

Annie joined Aqua in 2023 as an Administration Assistant to support the Aqua Corporate Team and the Safety & Mortality, Capability, and Person Centred Care Portfolio. Her role includes administrative and finance work, as well as assisting programme delivery.

Annie graduated from Chang Gung University with a degree in Physiotherapy. Prior to Aqua, her work focused on improving Accessibility and Quality of Life through education and innovation. She designed and delivered programmes for patients and healthcare workers in hospital and university settings. She continued her work in supporting community programmes after she moved to Manchester.

Outside of work, Annie loves learning about language and history. She also enjoys theatre, food, playing with animals, and starting new crafting projects every week.

Before joining Aqua, Amaan studied Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University and worked at an Estate Agency Firm working in Accounts and Lettings.

Amaan joined Aqua as a Programme Support Officer in 2022, supporting the Quality, Safety & Person-Centred Care portfolio to deliver output on Aqua’s improvement areas across the North-west and beyond. He now works within the Analytics and Evaluation team as a Business intelligence Analyst.

Outside of work Amaan like to enjoys eating out (he knows all the best places to eat in Sale), travelling, and watching the football.

Amanda is a Senior Improvement Advisor for Mental Health, Flow & System Transformation teams covering the entire Aqua offer. Her background is nursing and health visiting. Prior to joining Aqua, Amanda had over 20 years’ experience in acute, community services and public health. She has experience as a provider and a commissioner as well as working in leadership and governance roles.

More recently, Amanda has worked in service development, redesign and improvement. She also has experience of developing innovative ideas, enabling systems via large scale IT programmes and also is a good communicator (she used to co-host a regional radio show). Amanda is passionate about ensuring patient safety and quality and is driven by the motivation of reducing inequality. In 2012 she was awarded the title of Queens Nurse for innovative patient centred work in the community.

Outside of work, Amanda enjoys exploring new places, fostering hedgehogs, learning Ukulele and Welsh (not at the same time!)

Amy joined Aqua as a Digital Communications Officer in December 2022.

She studied for her degree in Edinburgh for 4 years and had the opportunity to spend a year of her studies in Kuala Lumpur. After leaving university she worked in a Foodbank as a Marketing assistant with the aim to encourage donations and users to approach the service. Her last role was with NHS Scotland as a Graduate Communications Officer. She had the responsibility of creating website pages, graphics for posters, social media and newsletters, writing press releases and conducting research into the public’s experience with health and social care. She had to record, analyse and translate data into evidence base decisions for future improvements. This gave her the necessary experience to move into her role here at Aqua and she is excited to see where this opportunity takes her.

Amy’s interests outside work include travelling, festivals, photography and drinking cocktails! She also loves trying new cafés and taking her dog Luna on walks with her friends.

Andrea is a Registered Nurse and has an MSc in Strategic Leadership and Change. Andrea has an extensive background in safety and quality improvement and has over 30 years’ experience working clinically and in senior management roles within the NHS. Since joining Aqua over 10 years ago, Andrea has led national improvement programmes, including those supported by The Health Foundation and NHS Improvement.

Andrea’s role includes the Lead for NHS Quest network and she is the Head of Improvement at Aqua. Andrea’s experience in safety and quality improvement roles includes responsibility for scoping, designing, delivering and evaluating programmes that enhance the development of safety and quality improvement capability and capacity for organisations. Andrea’s skills include working and collaborating alongside organisations and teams to define and improve outcomes both for people experiencing and people working within services.

Andrea sees her role clearly linked to supporting people and organisations to deliver on the critical challenges facing health and care services today.

Andy is Head of Financial Reporting at Aqua. This includes monitoring and reporting on Aqua’s financial position, reporting to Board, budget setting, financial project work and long term financial planning.

Andy is a qualified accountant (ACCA) with 8 years previous experience in the NHS and over 10 years in NHS consultancy specialising in long term financial forecasting, business cases and patient level costing.

Outside of work he enjoys watching most sports and recently managed a Sunday League football team. He’s previously played cricket, golf, squash and chess to a decent level but mainly stays active nowadays by going to the gym on a regular basis.

Becci is sociologist and NHS quality improvement professional with a background in academic health and care research, teaching and quality improvement. Her doctoral research explored the process of engagement amidst older service users with complex healthcare needs, which was enriched by programme management and quality improvement roles both in community and acute NHS organisations. As a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, she taught qualitative and quantitative research methods and is now an ambassador for the NHSE/I Making Data Count initiative. She has expertise in change and programme management, human factors and is an advocate of speaking up within health and care, having previously worked as a Freedom to Speak Up champion.

Becci has played touch rugby for approximately 9 years and has recently completed her Level 2 England Touch Association refereeing certificate and Level 1 Coaching Certificate. She also enjoys speaking with her cat on a daily basis through the webcam she had installed in her living room.

Bella has 25 years of experience in the NHS and is committed to personal values of integrity, respect, and communication as the bottom line to build on for a solid foundation of value-based behaviours in her career.

During the last 13 years, Bella has developed as a credible senior clinical and operational improvement leader with board level experience in acute provider and regional transformation programmes, and over the past 5 years as a facilitator and transformation change agent in national roles at NHS England working with organisations and systems building improvement capability and implementing specialist care pathway programmes.

Bella has 21 years frontline clinical care, managerial and strategic responsibility of specialist Head & Neck cancer dietetic services, and has been acknowledged as an inspiring team leader, innovative role model and advocate for patients, carers, and health care colleagues. Driving cancer improvements, transformational change and multidisciplinary working from the frontline, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Bella is known to be the ‘glue’ with her family and friends, and ‘umbrella’ in her nieces and nephews lives! Also, Bella is a keen photographer, garden landscaper and ice cream cake maker.

Bethan joined Aqua in November 2021 and leads on the design process for communications and marketing materials, platforms and campaigns. Her role involves designing and producing external and internal materials in multiple formats to engage our audience.

Bethan has been working in the communications and marketing sector since graduating in 2019 with a First Class BA (Hons) degree from the University of Huddersfield in Graphic Design. Her previous experience has been within digital design agencies across the North West and within the education sector.

Outside of work Bethan enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, and going on walks with her Sprocker Spaniel, Bruno.

Binoy is a continuous improvement and transformation specialist with over 20 years’ experience in engineering, manufacturing, and the healthcare sector.  Originally from India he is a mechanical design engineer/ product designer by profession.

Binoy’s career with NHS began in 2009 as a service improvement facilitator. Since then he led quality improvement at various commissioning and provider organisations.  As a senior improvement lead at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Binoy led the roll out Quality Service Improvement and Redesign (QSIR) programme across the Trust and ICS. Binoy joined the national QSIR team in 2018 where he supports the design, delivery and evaluation of QSIR programmes and other capability building programmes such as MOOCs and collaboratives. In 2021 Binoy successfully led the transformation of QSIR College virtual assessment process. More recently Binoy was redeployed as the Head of PMO for the National discharge challenge for mental health and community services.

Binoy is based in Nottingham, with wife Stella, two cats and several tropical fish. Outside of the office, Binoy enjoys DIY, sketching, painting, theatre and travelling.

Brook is a Senior Improvement Advisor at Aqua, working across a range of programmes, and has a lead role in developing the Human Factors programmes and support we offer. She also leads on our Appreciative Inquiry work and enjoys working with people to utilise both approaches for their improvement ambitions. Having initially joined Aqua in 2012 to facilitate on the National Shared Decision Making programme, she continues to advocate for personalised, as well as safe and high quality care.

Brook is currently studying for an MSc in Human Factors at Loughborough University, and is building her portfolio for registration with the Chartered Institute for Ergonomics and Human Factors. She previously studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of York, and also completed a Masters in Practical Ethics at York.

She has two young children who she enjoys making crochet toys and blankets for, although as a keen horse rider she spends much of her time training and competing in eventing, dressage and show jumping. She is vice chair of her local riding club committee and also enjoys volunteering at eventing competitions across the North West.

Cath joined Aqua in 2014 as a Senior Improvement Advisor to the Integration programme.  In 2016 became Head of System Transformation, leading the programmes of work concerned with integration, transformation, and system Organisational Development.

Cath has over 20 years’ experience of working in the NHS in a variety of senior roles, including operational management in district general hospitals, as well as acute university teaching hospitals.  She has also worked in commissioning and service improvement and redesign.  A common theme in all her roles has been a keen interest in quality improvement, leadership development and management of change. Cath is also a qualified Coach and is an accredited feedback facilitator for the NHS Leadership Academy Healthcare Leadership 360 Assessment.

Cath is a committed governor at her children’s primary school and plays an active role in school life.  She particularly enjoys cooking, reading and spending time with her family on Anglesey.

Christina joined Aqua in 2022 as a Project Manager, working across the Advancing Quality (AQ) and Analytics and Evaluation programmes to deliver improvements in standards of care and evaluation projects for members.

Christina is a PRINCE 2 practitioner and is qualified in PRINCE 2 Agile project management methodology.  She has several years of project experience, working most recently to support large scale programmes of work for Health Education England and Manchester Metropolitan University. She also has a Masters in English at Distinction level.

Outside of work, Christina enjoys travelling up to Scotland to climb mountains, going out for dinner and drinks with friends, and watching live music. She will be welcoming a puppy into her home next month which will be taking up the majority of her free time very soon!

Dan started his career in the NHS in 2009 and has held various regional and national management roles. In December 2018, Dan moved into the Improvement Directorate as Senior Programme Manager for the NHS partnership with Virginia Mason Institute, before joining the QSIR team in July 2021. His main role in the team has been to lead the QSIR College assessment process, utilising his programme management knowledge and expertise. As an accredited QSIR teaching associate, Dan also supports the design, delivery and evaluation of QSIR programmes.

Dan holds an MSc in Healthcare Leadership and an NHS Leadership Academy Award in Senior Healthcare Leadership having completed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson programme in 2019.

Outside of work, Dan enjoys spending time with his wife, Harriet, and two children, Tobias (5) and Saoirse (2). A keen footballer, Dan will be reluctantly hanging up his boots this season as his focus turns to Tobias’ first season playing in a team.

Delphine comes from Reims, France and joined the NHS in 1992. She joined Aqua in 2019, leading the NHS Quest’s Improvement Science for Leaders (IS4L) programme and delivering QI capability programmes.

Delphine now supports transformation programmes within Aqua across the North West region and leads Aqua’s Lived Experience Panel to ensure programmes are co-produced with the voice of the service users.

Delphine has worked across a number of organisations including The Christie NHS Foundation Trust; Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust where she started her Quality Improvement career managing a variety of programmes such as the Stroke 90:10 project, NHS Quest and others within Haelo. She then joined CLAHRC GM in 2014 to focus on patient centred approaches and research in healthcare focussing mostly on primary care settings.

Outside of work Delphine enjoys gardening, a lot! And “literally spend hours picking, trimming, mowing, just watching my garden!”. Delphine also has a keen interest in painting.

Easha joined Aqua in 2021 as a project support officer and currently supports the Mental Health, Patient Experience and System Transformation portfolio to deliver output on Aqua’s four improvement areas to support members and customers in the North West and beyond.

Outside of work Easha enjoys running, eating out and going to the gym. Easha has also completed the Manchester half marathon for charity.

Eileen is responsible for leading Aqua’s evaluation work, supporting members and partners to design evaluation programmes, manage their delivery and disseminate subsequent learning.

Eileen has a background in applied health research and has successfully delivered a range of developmental evaluations of complex quality improvement initiatives in multiple health and social care contexts. Eileen has a PhD in health services research, a Masters in Health Psychology and an MA (Hons) in Psychology. She is also a qualified PRINCE 2 Project Management Practitioner.

Outside of work, Eileen is a keen fell runner and is a member of her local club.

Elaine is responsible for providing high quality administration support to the Aqua Management Team and to ensure smooth running of the corporate office.

Elaine has extensive PA and office management experience in both the NHS and private sector.

Outside of work, Elaine enjoys travelling to new places and dining out.

Eleanor supports the design and delivery of a wide range of evaluation projects, collaborating with internal colleagues, and external partners and customers as part of Aqua’s membership and consultancy work.

Prior to joining Aqua, Eleanor worked at the University of Manchester for four years, first as a PA and then supporting funded PhD students. Eleanor has an MA in Social Research, on the ‘Environment, culture and society’ pathway. Her BA was in English Literature, Creative Writing and Practice. Eleanor uses her research and writing skills to support programme content development, as well as data collection and analysis. Eleanor appreciates the importance of evaluating the impact of interventions in facilitating knowledge transfer.

Outside of work, Eleanor enjoys Iyengar yoga, cooking over-complicated recipes and ineptly growing fruit and vegetables.

Eric joined Aqua as a Programme Support Officer in March 2023. His role involves organising, planning and monitoring meetings and events to support the set up and delivery of programmes within the Safety & Mortality, Capability and Person Centred Care Portfolio.

Eric studied Linguistics and Language Technology at the City University of Hong Kong. He worked in education and publishing before joining Aqua, with extensive experience of administration and project management. He is keen to work in areas which help advancement and improvement.

Outside of work, Eric has interests in language, travel, movies and music.

Never too far away from a cup of  Yorkshire tea, Georgina has led and supported a number of programmes within the NHS. She co-led the national network programme at NHS Improving Quality from 2013 and joined the QSIR team in 2020.  A career highlight was speaking at the International Network Symposium in Edmonton and contributing to the International white paper. She thrives when working with people creating a positive and inclusive work environment to develop impactful programmes of work.  Amidst the chaos of deadlines and deliverables, she hopes to create a calm work environment which fosters collaboration and a commitment to learning and improvement.

Currently on secondment to the UK Kidney Association, Georgina is leading on the  home therapies programme,  working with patients, front line clinicians, commissioners and kidney charities.

Georgina has two young children, Millie and Hattie, and outside work spends the majority of time ferrying from activities and in a continuous cycle of tidying and crafting! She enjoys to run, bake and order unnecessary home accessories. Her happy place is the South of France where she likes to drink rose, eat croissants and spend her days reluctantly diving for sinkies.

Helen joined the NHS and Aqua in January 2022 as a Project Support Officer and is now a Programme Facilitator in the System Transformation, Mental Health and Lived Experience portfolio.

Before joining Aqua, Helen worked as a secondary school Chemistry teacher for 12 years, holding a variety of leadership positions. During her time in education she led on a number of organisational and local authority wide improvement projects. She has a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry and a PGCE in Secondary Chemistry as well as a NPQML leadership in education qualification.

Outside of work, Helen enjoys baking, reading and spending time with her family.

Hollie joined Aqua in 2018 and is responsible for the operational management of the communications and marketing function. This includes providing communications support to our members and customers across the UK. Hollie is also responsible for the management of our key communications channels, including the website, social media, and much of our content creation.

Hollie has worked in Communications and Marketing for 10 years. Having worked across the education and not for profit sectors, she built up a broad range of experience before joining Aqua. Completing a BA (Hons) in English Literature, she has also completed a CIM Certificate in Professional Marketing.

Outside of work Hollie enjoys spending time with family and friends, eating out, and travelling as much as possible

Jacqui joined the NHS and Aqua in 2013, and supports the Advancing Quality team to deliver outputs in line with the ‘4 pillars’ of the AQ Programme offer to support NHS Hospital teams participating in the AQ Programme within the North-West and beyond to highlight improvement opportunities through the structured use of data. Jacqui facilitates programme administration activity from planning and co-ordinating to ensuring the smooth running of events.

Before joining Aqua, Jacqui worked for a training organisation based in Horwich, Lancashire, delivering government funded apprenticeships as their senior quality administrator.

Outside of work, Jacqui loves horse-riding and country walks with her husband and dog.

Jane is responsible for providing high quality administrative support to the Aqua Corporate Office and Senior Leadership Team.  This includes supporting HR and office management responsibilities, providing PA support to the CEO and Directors, and supporting the Executive Leadership Coaching programme.

Prior to joining Aqua, Jane worked in various roles within the private sector including: dance teacher, civil servant, PA, project manager and senior telecommunications manager.

Outside of work, Jane enjoys creative writing, theatre, cinema, reading, yoga and tap dancing.

Jane is responsible for the day-to-day operations management of Aqua, including leadership of the core admin team. Jane manages multiple elements of a diverse portfolio, including budget management and human resources.  She also provides support to other Aqua teams with their budget management tracking and any issues that may arise.

Jane has been working with Aqua since March 2008, starting as a Project Manager for the Advancing Quality (AQ) Team helping to organise and plan Collaboratives across the North West and also managing the AQ budget expenditure. In April 2015 Jane was appointed as Business Operations Manager for Aqua.

Outside of work, Jane enjoys living life to the full.

Jen is a Programme Manager for System Transformation, leading the Safer Salford programme as well supporting whole system flow and transformation programmes.

Prior to joining Aqua, Jen has experience as a Commissioner and Service Improvement Manager within Clinical Commissioning Groups, Acute Trusts, local authorities and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Jen has worked across a wide range of portfolios including general practice, Primary Care Networks (PCNs), community health and care services, urgent care, elective care, end of life care and children’s health and social care.

Outside of work, Jen enjoys family time, travelling, running and spending time with friends.

Jo’s main role involves working with healthcare teams in the Advancing Quality (AQ) Programme across the North West, to improve the quality of care. This involves using AQ and national data to identify opportunities for improvement, providing bespoke support for local quality improvement and consultancy projects, sharing learning and building improvement networks.

Prior to joining Aqua, Jo worked in the Medical Technologies Evaluation Programme at NICE, helping to develop guidance and advice to encourage adoption of innovative technologies in the NHS. Jo has also worked on national NHS quality improvement collaboratives in a variety of settings, providing data analysis, knowledge management and improvement support, and spent many years conducting academic research in healthcare delivery, particularly emergency care.

When not at work, Jo enjoys discovering new walks around Cheshire and Lancashire and relaxing with a good book.

Josh joined Aqua as a Communications and Marketing Officer in 2022 and is responsible for delivering day to day communications and marketing activities across our range of programmes and communications platforms. This includes content creation for various communications platforms and audiences, leading social media, writing email bulletins, managing the website and more.

Josh graduated from Newcastle University in 2020, earning a BSc in Marketing. He joined the NHS straight away, spending two years working in communications within Primary Care.

Outside of work Josh enjoys listening to music, playing guitar, going to gigs, watching football and spending time with friends.

Katie joined Aqua in 2015 and leads the organisation’s Communications and Marketing functions. Her role is managing all Communications and Marketing activity, both internally with staff and externally with members and customers. With her team, Katie is responsible for publications, branding, social media, marketing and design.

Katie has been working in communications within the NHS since 2006, working in a variety of organisations and roles. A media graduate from the University of Sunderland, Katie is also accredited by both the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

Away from work Katie enjoys travelling to new places, running around after her daughter and learning to sew.

As a clinician, and improvement leader, Laura has worked in the NHS for over 40 years, with experience of working at a frontline, regional, national and international level.

Laura’s interests are in healthcare leadership, leading large scale change, building improvement capability and supporting the development of self-improving frontline teams, the heart of every high performing health and care system.

At a regional level, Laura led the codesign and facilitation of programmes including Developing Day Surgery and Releasing Time to Care Collaboratives, and a learning partnership for 18 executive leaders with a high performing health care system in Sweden.

As a member of the QSIR team, Laura has experience in the co-design and delivery of programmes, including at board level.

Away from work Laura enjoys painting, bargain hunting at boot-sales and auctions, spending time with her family enjoying the outdoor life boating and caravanning and fitting in the occasional day trip to France.

Lee is a pharmacist by background and has worked within the NHS for approaching 30 years. He has significant experience working in senior clinical, leadership and management roles. He has a postgraduate MSc in Clinical Pharmacy and an MBA that focused specifically on healthcare.

Lee is now delivering training and facilitation within our Safety and Mortality team at Aqua; he has a particular interest in Healthcare Safety, Quality Improvement, Innovations via Technology and Mental Health Care.

Outside of work he can often be found watching sport (WBA and LCCC), at a gig or in the cinema and pub quizzing.

Ling joined Aqua as a Programme Support Officer in 2023 where she supports the Safety & Mortality, Capability, and Person Centred Care Portfolio. Her role involves providing administrative support, managing diaries for programme delivery, as well as organising, planning, and monitoring project meetings and events.​

Ling studied Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to joining Aqua, she gained valuable experience as a secondary school Biology teacher. Her experience in education has provided her with the ability to effectively coordinate and manage tasks, ensuring efficient operations and smooth workflow.​

Outside of work, Ling enjoys playing volleyball and spending quality time with friends.

Lisa joined Aqua in 2023 and provides business support for the Quality, Service Improvement Redesign (QSIR) programme. Her role is managing the administration activity, both internally with the QSIR National faculty and externally with QSIR Associates.  Lisa has been working with the QSIR programme 2018.

Lisa has been working within the NHS since 2018, working in a business support capacity across a variety of programmes all with an improvement focus.

Away from work Lisa enjoys long walks in the countryside with her dog Socialising with friends, weekends away, and making jewellery designs into actual pieces of wearable fashion pieces.

Lismy joined the Advancing Quality (AQ) team in April 2022, and her main role is to support the Trusts to implement AQ measures locally via quality improvement initiatives and drive the improvement in standards of care delivery and develop clinical focus areas.

Prior to this, Lismy worked as Project Manager in a commissioning role at the NHS Cheshire CCG from April 2020. Lismy also held a Transformation Project Manager role with the NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG prior to the CCGs merger.  Lismy has worked in the NHS since 2003 and has been part of academic and research teams at the University of Aberdeen and University of Glasgow. Lismy has a publication to her name and can be accessed at: Group-based healthy lifestyle workplace interventions for shift workers: a systematic review – PubMed. Lismy’s experience also covers: Quality Improvement, Knowledge Management, Academic Research, Teaching, and as registered nurse – more than 15 years in NHS and abroad since qualifying as a Nurse/Midwife in 1997.

Outside of work, Lismy enjoys cooking and supporting and actively involving in the local church activities and events.

Louise has over 20 years’ experience in organisational development supporting teams and leaders across the health and social care landscape. Prior to this, Louise worked in a variety of social care roles including supporting those homeless or insecurely housed, drug and alcohol services and mental health services. Treating all people with respect, health inequalities and supporting systems and leaders to create engaging cultures so their teams can offer an amazing service to the communities they serve are what bring Louise to work every day at Aqua.

An experienced facilitator, Louise can bring a range of models and tools to her work including action learning, individual coaching, team coaching and mediation. Working with people in systems Louise loves supporting people to connect, build relationships and have clarity of vision and values. Louise has worked across all levels and sectors, from newly qualified practitioners to chief executives and she loves the range and challenge that this brings.

An advocate of all things organisational development, Louise believes that staff engagement, compassionate and intentional leadership, and positive cultures are the building blocks for any successful service.

Manar joined Aqua in October 2021, and is a creative, committed and motivated professional, with extensive experience working and building relationships at every level within different NHS organisations.

Prior to Manar’s role at Aqua as a Project Manager, she was a Project Support Officer for the Manchester Royal Infirmary Transformation & Improvement Team, working closely with the Transformation & Change Programme Director and the Assistant Director of Improvement alongside colleagues across the hospital and partner organisations to improve outcomes for patients and staff. Working to support the Improvement and Transformation Directors and project leads in creating, designing and providing improvement means and toolkits across a wide range of projects and service delivery tools and systems. Manar’s previous experience extends to cover Senior Leadership recruitment, events and high-level board meetings’ arrangements, Staff development/ improvement through action learning sets, and Improvement workshops.

She plays the keyboard, enjoys city walks and trying different places for eating out. She loves swimming and enjoys pop music.

Muez joined Aqua as a Programme Support Officer in 2023 and is known for his exceptional project management skills. In his role, he provides administrative support, manages diary calendars, and organizes, plans, and monitors project meetings and events for the System Transformation and Integration Team.

With an impressive academic background, Muez completed his master’s degree in project management with distinction at the University of Lincoln. As a PRINCE 2 Project Management Practitioner, he has extensive knowledge and understanding of project methodologies. Prior to joining AQUA, he worked in the construction industry, administration, and real estate.

Outside of his professional endeavours, Muez enjoys watching football, do-it-yourself (DIY), the gym, spending time with family and friends, watching movies, and volunteering.

Neil is responsible for the day to day running and management of NHS Quest. His role also includes report writing, preparing papers for the Board, finance management, the organisation and management of national events, workshops and senior level CEO meetings. Neil also supports programmes within Aqua including the Advanced Improvement Practitioner course.

Neil joined the NHS in 2004 and has had various roles in both primary and secondary care. Neil has experience of working on numerous improvement projects including implementing paper-lite clinics across Salford Royal Hospital. In recent years he has worked in Information Governance at SRFT and has also had project management and event management roles at Haelo Innovation & Improvement Science Centre.

Outside of work Neil enjoys cycling, running… around after his little boy, photography, going to the cinema, and researching his family history. He is also a music lover, collects vinyl and loves going to gigs.

Paul manages the mental health, whole system flow and lived experience programme at Aqua. He has delivered a range of programmes from restraint reduction, physical health and mental health developments, pathway diagnostics and re-designs around whole systems. Paul also supports continuous improvement development across health and care and in particular building QI capability in people with lived experience alongside the Aqua lived experience panel. Paul has published papers on restraint reduction, physical health/mental health and new ways of working in mental health.

He has worked in health and social care for over 35 years as a practitioner (RMN), staff development officer and regional development lead (National Institute for Mental Health, NW SHA). He has led on mental health legislation including the Mental Capacity Act implementation in the region. He has developed skills around workforce development, equalities agenda and co-production over the years at a regional level.

Away from work, Paul loves gardening, art, creative therapies and theatre, and has an eclectic taste in music.

Paula Clare joined Aqua as a Senior Improvement Lead in 2022 and has worked in the NHS since qualifying as a registered nurse in 1997.

For 21 years critical care was Paula’s world where she had varying roles, latterly as a clinical Sister within the department. She co-ordinated the operational activity to ensure the safety of the patients within their care. During her career she has had the opportunity to develop within seconded roles. Firstly, in a community quality improvement team supporting action plans on services following CQC inspection. She returned to her substantive Trust to manage the deteriorating patient portfolio with a focus on sepsis, also returning to Critical Care to support during the two waves of COVID-19. In 2021 Paula moved organisations into a patient safety role and was asked to support the women and children’s department with governance, which enabled her to understand the serious incident process and subsequent investigations.

Paula has two children in university, two stepchildren, two dogs and a tortoise and she tries to squeeze in Peloton sessions when she can!

Rachel joined Aqua in January 2023 as a Senior Improvement Advisor within the Safety & Mortality, Capability and Person Centred Care portfolio. Her role includes leading various capability-building programmes, from ‘Introduction to quality improvement’ to ‘Applying improvement in leadership’.

Rachel is a researcher by background with a Masters in Social Research. She has worked for large blue chip organisations running research programmes, and prior to joining the NHS Rachel worked for a hidden homelessness charity based in Manchester on policy and systems change. Since joining the NHS she has worked at Warrington and Halton NHS Foundation Trust in the Quality Improvement Team, leading and supporting a number of trust-wide and small-scale improvement projects as well as individual improvement coaching. Her most recent role before joining Aqua was at St Helens CCG/Place as a Transformation Manager, where she led several Health and Social Care system-wide improvement projects.

Rachel’s interests outside of work include yoga, walking up mountains, spending time in nature and coffee.

Rachel Bryers is a Senior Improvement Advisor leading on personalised care programmes for Aqua. She is an Occupational Therapist who completed an MSc in Advanced Practice where she developed an interest in shared decision making. This focused on collaboration with older people, managing risk and understanding the application of The Mental Capacity Act to support shared decision making.

With twenty-six years’ experience as an Occupational Therapist, Rachel has clinical experience in both physical and mental health. Her role now involves working with clinicians and organisations to understand universal personalised care, with an emphasis on shared decision making. This involves presenting the case for shared decision making, the competencies required and using QI approaches to embed shared decision making within clinical pathways. She has acted as an expert witness for the shared decision-making panel at the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and is an assessor for the International Network of Shared Decision-Making Practitioners (SHARP).

She has a keen interest in motivational interviewing and using the voice of people with lived experience to influence and support quality improvement programmes.

Rebecca is a System Transformation Improvement Advisor at Aqua, who specialises in improvement and redesign of service offers and pathways. Rebecca has wide ranging experience of quality improvement including in paediatric urgent care, end of life, children and adult mental health, care navigation, pressure ulcer and facilitating QI taught sessions and workshops. She is particularly interested in joining the dots, operationalising strategy, and demonstrating the impact and people side of change.

She aims to help develop and embed sustainable and impactful solutions to system challenges through systems thinking, systems leadership, continuous quality improvement, and innovative and tactical solutions design.

Rebecca is a member of Q and has a degree in Information Systems with International Business. She has over 15 years NHS experience in clinical and admin support, business analysis, process improvement, business change, project management and quality improvement.

Sally joined Aqua in July 2023.  She is responsible for providing quality administrative support to the Aqua Corporate Office and Senior Leadership Team. This includes supporting HR, office management responsibilities and providing PA support to the Directors.

Sally has had various roles within the public sector over the years, mainly with Greater Manchester Police as Investigative Support Officer, and more recently as an Administrator with Occupational Health Team at Stockport NHS Trust.

Away from work Sally enjoys cooking, Pilates, dancing and spending time with her grandchildren.

Sam’s main role within the Advancing Quality (AQ) Programme is to drive improvement in standards of care delivery, develop clinical focus areas and to support Trusts to implement AQ measures locally via quality improvement initiatives.

Sam joined the Advancing Quality (AQ) team on a full time basis in July 2014. Prior to this, Sam held a dual role between the AQ team and St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. As part of this role Sam worked regionally supporting other AQ Trusts with improvement, whilst also managing the Trust’s participation and performance in the AQ Programme and other National Programmes.

Sam has worked in the NHS for 20 years, since graduating from University. Prior to working for Aqua, Sam supported improvement at a Trust level in a number of National audits and local programmes; Myocardial Ischaemia, National Heart Failure Audit (NHFA) National Audit Project (MINAP), National Joint Registry (NJR), National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD), Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS), Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP), Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) care monitoring.

Sarah joined Aqua in 2023 on an 8-week flexi-placement as part of the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme. Sarah has a particular interest in Quality Improvement and Consultancy within Heath and Social Care organisations.

Before joining Aqua Sarah was a Workforce Project Manager at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. During this time Sarah worked with operational HR teams to reduce the number of sickness absence & disciplinary cases across the Trust.

Sarah is currently completing the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson programme and working towards attaining a Level 7 CIPD qualification.

Outside of work Sarah enjoys walking, reading, and socialising with friends.

Sarah joined Aqua in early 2018 to lead the Academy and is responsible for an extensive range of programmes. Her responsibilities span design, delivery and evaluation of programmes that offer QI capability building for individuals through to system level. Sarah also leads the Aqua Leadership for Improvement Fellowship and has a particular interest in developing skills and improvement leadership for all staff.

As an experienced Advanced Improvement Practitioner, Sarah holds a PG Cert in Improvement Science and brings an extensive knowledge of quality improvement methodology and practical experience of providing improvement leadership to a range of programmes. In her early career as a qualified accountant, she supported quality improvement through service change and more recently worked in improvement roles in an NHS Trust for 10 years.

Sarah has been a member of the Academy team since 2012, delivering QI training to members as an Aqua Associate; she demonstrates developed skills as a facilitator and teacher and is qualified to teach in the lifelong learning sector.

Siobhan is responsible for supporting Programme Leads and Quality Improvement Advisers in the Safety & Mortality, Person Centred Care and Capability Portfolio to schedule and manage quality improvement programmes.  She is responsible for the day-to-day office management of the PSO Team and managing the portfolio finances.

Siobhan has worked for the NHS for 12 years in an administrative support role.  She has worked with Active Case Management Team, Practice Education in community and acute services, the Interpretation and Translation service and Dentistry at Health Education North West.

Away from work, Siobhan enjoys knitting.

Stephanie has over 25 years of NHS experience. Previous roles include front-line operational management; accountancy;  service improvement at organisational and regional level; and national roles focused on complex programmes of service redesign, strategy development and implementation.

During the last 12 years, Stephanie has been the QI capability-building lead within NHS Improvement and more recently, NHS England where she led a team focusing on QI, large scale change, system leadership, board QI development, knowledge management and impact/evaluation.

She has worked within major consultancy firms in health and local government sectors to support both local and larger scale service transformations and reviews, including the implementation of new organisational models of service delivery.

As a proud Cumbrian, Stephanie loves to be outdoors and is undeterred by the weather! Now living in Northumberland she enjoys walking with her dogs in the Cheviots and along glorious Northumbrian coastal paths, running and gardening.

Tom is one of Aqua’s Principal Business Intelligence Analysts, providing data, analysis and reporting for the Advancing Quality (AQ) programme, delivering measurement training, presenting at events and supporting skills development in measurement. He contributes to AQ’s research portfolio, supervises data flow and has responsibility for PIQS, AQ’s data entry and reporting system. He also works across Aqua on internal information management processes, providing operational intelligence.

Before joining Aqua in 2017, Tom was Registry Manager at the Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN), managing Europe’s largest database of traumatic injury. During this time, he contributed to a number of academic research papers. He has a Master’s degree in Information Processing and is also a qualified teacher.

Tom has a PhD in Creative Writing and outside of work is interested in books, art and music.

Victoria joined Aqua in June 2023 as a Senior Improvement Advisor. Her role focuses on delivering Quality Improvement and QI capability building programmes along with a core suite of QI programmes.

Victoria started her NHS career working at the North West Ambulance Service where her passion for QI began. Since joining the NHS, she has worked at East Lancashire Teaching Hospitals in the Quality Improvement Team, supporting organisational staff to undertake QI projects and feeding those into the trust wide requirements as well as delivering training and supporting staff in training who are required to undertake a QI project, focusing especially on Medical Students, Junior Doctors and Trainee Advanced Clinical Practitioners. Victoria’s most recent role was Quality Improvement Lead at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals where she led a Clinical Quality Academy which supported 10 clinically led teams to develop their QI project with specialised modules and training from world known QI experts, each project was aligned to the trust values. She also supported different programmes of work including deteriorating patients and reducing harms.

Outside of work Victoria’s interests are running, walking and enjoying time with her family.

Victoria joined Aqua as an Evaluation Manager in January 2023.

She started her career in the NHS as a Graduate Mental Health Worker, treating and supporting people with mental health problems within primary care.

Victoria has recently relocated back from Sydney, Australia where she held the role of Senior Evaluation Officer in the Centre for Population Health, NSW Ministry of Health.  Designing and commissioning evaluations of state-wide preventative health programmes and initiatives. She holds a Masters in Public Health and a Post Graduate diploma in Advanced Mental Health Interventions and has worked across research and evaluation in obesity prevention, alcohol and drugs and mental health.

Outside of work Victoria is a keen runner and enjoys country walks with her English Springer Spaniel.

Bari joined Aqua in 2022 as a Principal Business Intelligence analyst to provide analytics support to our different portfolios, with a particular interest in Quality Improvement and Measurement for Improvement to improve the overall care of patients and stakeholders.

Bari has a background in Data Analytics, software development and Cloud computing. He is a qualified software engineer and further developed his skills studying for a Masters in Information systems and Business analytics to gain first hand insight on how data can help us make informed decisions, understand and translate complex business challenges into workable metrics that drives transformation and create sustainable growth.

Outside of work, Bari enjoys playing ping-pong, football and volunteering.