Swansea Bay Independent Maternity and Neonatal Review
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Niche were formed back in 1992 by three individuals who had a vision to create a specialist management consultancy. This would be based on a team of NHS dedicated subject matter experts providing value for money and practical solutions to the problems clients faced. This vision, and the way of working it fosters, still runs through Niche today.
The firm has seen many changes in personnel over the years, and a few revisions to its name. We still retain a base in Manchester though our team are spread wide from Scotland through to the south coast of England.
We are a strongly values driven organisation and exercise our continuous commitment to improving health and social care services in everything we do.
Kate joined Niche having very successfully worked for several years as a Quality Governance Practice Director for Deloitte LLP. Prior to this she worked in a large acute NHS Foundation Trust managing all aspects of patient experience (including complaints, litigation and public involvement). Kate is a strongly values driven partner who enjoys building teams, relationships and supporting the development of others.
Kate specialises in undertaking major multi agency independent investigations, quality assurance reviews and governance and due diligence reviews in line with core regulatory frameworks. She has undertaken many investigations and complaint reviews into serious quality failures including G.P conduct, Never Events, catastrophic incidents and culture reviews.
She has significant experience in analysing the effectiveness of the escalation systems, processes and information from which the Boards derives assurance on quality and particularly on the culture and structures required to deliver excellent healthcare. Within Niche Kate plays a lead role in both our investigations and assurance work, as well as with major investigations, and leads on quality and compliance.
James has been with Niche for over two decades. With a MSc in Evidence-based Healthcare, an MA and MBA, his emphasis is on service evaluation and modelling-based service strategy, grounded in evidence-based practice and sound business approaches. James leads our evaluation and assurance based areas and has a major role in modelling assignments. Prior to joining Niche, James spent 14 years within the NHS, managing mental health and learning disability services in both rural and urban areas of the North West of England.
He has also served as a Director of the National Institute for Mental Health in England and has served as a Trustee of several local charities, and of a charitable company. James has also been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, in recognition of his work in the development of mental health services. Within Niche James plays a significant role in our assurance and Improvement Analytics areas and leads on HR and quality aspects for the board.
Mary-Ann joined Niche from Mazars LLP where she lead the Health Advisory team. Mary-Ann trained as a registered general and sick children’s nurse in London, and a Health Visitor in the North East. She has over 30 years NHS experience predominantly in the community, mental health and primary care space and associated services. She also has an MBA.
Mary-Ann is best known for her work on Mortality Governance – since the high-profile publication of the Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust report she has been working and liaising with over 60 NHS trusts on this subject. This includes speaking widely on governance, Learning from Deaths approaches, thematic reviews of patient safety learning and system wide reviews of deaths to inform joined up learning. Her publicly available work includes a ground breaking system-wide Structured Judgement Review across Leicestershire. Mary-Ann was also a key member of the CQC Expert Advisory Group for the subsequent CQC report commissioned by the Secretary of State – Learning, Candour and Accountability following her work at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.
Mary-Ann is an integral part of our investigations and major reviews team.
Before joining Niche Emma worked as the Clinical Nurse Lead for the Board Advisory practice at Deloitte LLP. She participated in quality, board and specialist governance reviews in line with core regulatory frameworks at more than 100 organisations. She has also been a Patient Flow Manager in a large acute NHS Foundation Trust. Emma has a passion for delivering complex reviews and investigations into clinical practice, governance and culture.
As a former Registered General Nurse, Emma has extensive experience with care of the elderly in the acute setting. Emma now works within the assurance and investigations area for Niche and has worked with a wide range of NHS providers including community, acute, ambulance and mental health undertaking specialist and internal audit reviews and investigations on quality and governance.
She is also a member of the Niche senior leadership team and helps ensure all our work meets the highest quality standards.
Kathryn has previously worked for Mazars LLP and Verita, where she gained extensive consultancy experience. She has operational experience, having worked as the Head of Governance at HCA Princess Grace Hospital. Kathryn also has broad public sector experience, previously working at the Healthcare Commission, and later the Care Quality Commission, in a range of investigative, analytical and management roles.
Kathryn brings to Niche and our clients a wealth of experience in investigations, regulation and governance, gained in the public and private health sector. She is a core member of our team, leading, delivering, and supervising complex Niche investigations across all NHS sectors. She is a member of the Niche senior leadership team.
Danni is an experienced governance and board advisory consultant, who for the past seven years has specialised in reviewing and improving health care governance and leadership arrangements. Danni worked at Deloitte LLP for several years as part of their healthcare advisory practice and has undertaken dozens of Well-led governance reviews as well as strategic, service improvement and assurance reviews with a broad range of clients.
Danni brings a particular interest in staff experience and culture to our investigations and reviews. She is an Executive Coach, qualified with the Institute of Leadership and Management. Danni regularly provides programmes of coaching to Board members and senior leaders within the NHS to support them in undertaking their roles effectively.
Paul is a highly skilled and motivated healthcare analytics and finance specialist, with over 16 years’ experience in delivering complex quantitative and qualitative analysis. He also has several years’ commercial experience in healthcare consultancy delivering high-level projects for public and private sector healthcare organisations, regulators, and government bodies.
Prior to joining Niche he has held roles at the Care Quality Commission, McKinsey and Company, The Nuffield Trust, and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
At Niche Paul leads a team of data scientists supplying a range of analytical services to harness the power of data to generate actionable client insights, enhance strategic decision-making, and drive improvements for organisations and patients. Recent services provided by the team include capacity and demand forecasting, discrete event simulation, evaluation of service initiatives, and patient safety analytics to inform a high-profile investigation.
Paul holds both a BSc and PhD in chemistry from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
Sue has worked for Niche for almost 30 years and manages the day to day running of the office. Sue has a wealth of knowledge and experience in consultancy business management.
She plays a central role in day to day financial and framework management, she coordinates our tender submissions and ensures the business continues to run smoothly.
Sue completed a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and an MSc in Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. She also completed a second MSc in Culture and Mental Health at University College London. Sue is a former senior nurse (prev. RGN and RMN).
Sue has been with Niche for 14 years and has undertaken a wide range of consultancy projects of varying size and complexity. Sue has an interest in acute mental health, forensic mental health and in cross cultural mental health care. Sue is also interested in innovative and evidence-based practice. Sue is an experienced project manager. She has strong analytical, reporting, communication, and interpersonal skills. She can develop positive relationships with a wide range of stakeholders including managers, clinicians, service users, family members, carers and voluntary sector organisations.
Jenny is a former qualified nurse with a wealth of experience across the health sector in clinical, developmental and management roles. She joined Niche almost ten years ago from the Patients Association where she led a national project to improve complaints management. Before this she worked for over ten years at the Audit Commission as a Senior Performance Specialist, supporting a wide range of health organisations, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their services.
Throughout her career Jenny has been interested and involved in service improvement; with a focus on how evaluation and analysis can be used to drive this. She takes a lead role in our evaluation work, with a particular interest and experience in ensuring that patient and carer perspectives are included within it.
Elizabeth has an extensive background in the NHS, particularly in relation to incident management and investigations between health and social care. Elizabeth is experienced at supporting the NHS to implement improvement solutions locally in line with service-level protocols.
Elizabeth is a specialist in serious incident management and investigation, with experience in setting up serious incident reporting, investigation and governance systems. She has completed several dozen Serious Incident Reviews including mental health and domestic homicide investigations and reviews.
Mary is an experienced social worker of 20 years, operating as an Approved Social Worker (ASW) and then Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) under the Mental Health Act. Mary is a qualified Best Interest Assessor (BIA) under the Mental Capacity Act. Over her career Mary has held various senior roles including senior social worker, Caldicott guardian, adult safeguarding lead, service manager, lead AMHP and Head of Adult Social Care. Mary is a Specialist Advisor for the Care Quality Commission, taking part in regulation visits and projects to support performance and delivery of mental health services nationally. Mary completed her MSc in Advanced Interventions in Mental Health during 2011; trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) for people experiencing psychosis and family intervention (FI) and family education for families and people experiencing psychosis.
Sarah is a qualified nurse who has a wealth of experience in health care and health and social care regulation. Sarah joined Niche from the Care Quality Commission where she held senior roles in both mental health and acute sector regulation and enforcement.
Michelle is a highly experienced finance professional and a Chartered Accountant. Before joining Niche she had over 30 years’ experience in finance, governance and performance roles in the public, private and third sector including a successful career in audit/assurance and advisory services.
She has held senior finance and performance roles in community providers, Commissioners and was also a Non-Executive Director at an acute Trust. She has a wealth of experience from working with clients across the health and social care sector.
At Niche Michelle provides financial insight across health and social care policy and a proven track record of working with Boards, senior teams and other stakeholders to improve performance and deliver value for money.
Andrea is a mental health nurse with a wide range of experience in the NHS and independent sector including forensic mental health, liaison, crisis and community settings. This has included advanced practice and clinical and professional lead roles. She maintains her NMC registration as a mental health nurse and non-medical prescriber. Prior to joining Niche, Andrea worked for the Care Quality Commission, developing skills in regulation and enforcement. She has a breadth of experience in managing provider services and partnership working across health and social care. Throughout Andrea’s career, she has driven improvements in the systems in which she has worked, including quality improvement work. Andrea has completed an MSc in Advanced Practice in Health and Social Care and a BSc in Psychotherapeutic Interventions.
Ashley has a strong academic background and has completed a BSc in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Justice. She has a wealth of experience in the education sector and before joining Niche has worked for several years as a Safeguarding Lead in an educational setting. She supports senior consultants in investigations and has a keen interest in applying her learned knowledge and wealth of training in line with statutory legislation and guidance to drive improvements in practice.
Gosia holds a Masters degree in Pedagogy and Health Sciences and Prince 2 Foundation qualifications.
Gosia is an experienced project manager. She joined Niche after eight years of running and overseeing a range of schemes with complex partnership arrangements for a global insurer. Gosia has strong communication and interpersonal skills. She also has extensive experience in information management, including gathering and analysing data.
Gosia manages the project support team at Niche, she works collaboratively with the Board, SLT and project delivery teams to ensure support is coordinated across all work areas.
Gosia typically leads project support on our larger projects and has extensive experience of working with multiple stakeholders, managing large information sets, and coordinating complex projects.
Gosia’s corporate role at Niche includes:
We work with our clients, families and regulators with absolute integrity at all times. We price our jobs responsibly and we deliver within agreed budgets and timescales. Where this is not possible, we communicate at an early stage to address any problems or blocks which may exist on the project.
Our team are amongst the best subject matter expert (SME) specialists in the country and at Niche we work hard to ensure that our clients have the best advice and support available. By becoming a Niche client, you are joining one of the key healthcare quality insight networks in the UK. We keep our clients up to date with regular briefings, thought leadership and knowledge gained from our primary research bank.
We have worked in most parts of the UK, as well as engagements in other countries and we can regularly draw upon this huge base of benchmark data, knowledge and experience to support our clients with their daily challenges. We have also developed unique models to ensure that governance, patient safety and quality improvement are central to the productivity and efficiency agenda in support of the notion that ‘good care costs less’.
Niche has a deep understanding of provider and commissioner services combined with practitioners who have unparalleled subject matter expertise. Our practitioners and associates are amongst the best subject matter expert (SME) specialists in the country and at Niche we work hard to ensure that our clients have the best advice and support available.
The delivery of meaningful outcomes for our clients and families is our most important goal. Importantly, we are committed to working independently, yet alongside organisations building strong collaborative relationships that promote sustainable change and longer-term resilience in services.
We have an extensive team of associates who are subject matter experts in their own fields. We also have excellent links with the Royal Colleges to ensure that if an assignment needs a highly specialist expert we can cover this requirement. All our associates are inducted into the way Niche delivers projects and are fully integrated into the vision and values we hold dear as a firm.
You can therefore always be assured that the Niche Team on any project will fit your particular needs.
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