Meet the team

Dr Carol Rooney

Investigations & Reviews

Job title: Deputy Director

Carol has had a career in forensic mental health nursing in the NHS and independent sector before joining Niche. Carol specialises in complex independent investigations and reviews, and provides supervision and project management for Niche projects. Carol previously worked in clinical risk management, prevention and management of violence and aggression and serious incident management and investigation, and her most recent post before joining Niche was Director of Nursing in an independent secure mental health provider. She has a particular focus on complex investigations across boundaries, including domestic homicide, safeguarding and mental health services.

Qualifications:  Carol has BA in psychology from NUI Galway BA (Hons), a Masters in Nursing and a Doctorate in Professional Practice from the University of Northampton. She maintains her NMC registration as a mental health nurse.

Extensive experience in complex investigations

Carol is a specialist in serious incident management and investigation, with experience in setting up serious incident reporting, investigation and governance systems. She has completed more than 20 independent mental health homicide investigations, and has supervised and project managed over 50 independent investigations through to publication by NHS England.  Carol has experience of working operationally as a senior nurse and manager in forensic services, and as organisational lead for clinical risk management across a national provider.

Carol’s recent experience includes:

• Implementing a structured system for assurance of Trust and CCG action plans following independent investigations.
• Presenting reports at inquests following death in custody reviews.
• Presentation of a case study to North West senior nurses about a mental health homicide involving ‘county lines’.
• Root cause analysis of an early prison release where a mental health bed could not be found for a patient with MHA recommendations in place, for NHSE Health in Justice London.
• A review of mental health care in a combined safeguarding adult and mental health homicide in London for NHS England.
• Domestic homicide independent chair training.
• Chair of joint Domestic Homicide Review and Mental Health Homicide investigations for NHS England North.
• Combined DHR/SGA and SCR reviews for NHS England.