IBMS Congress 2023

John Ringrow

Senior Assessment Manager Healthcare , UKAS

After gaining a degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Leeds University, John’s first post was as a company microbiologist in a small scientific consultancy specialising in foods, waters, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and sterile manufacture processes. His main interests however were in medical microbiology so he joined Poole PHLS and hospital microbiology laboratories, where he completed the then IBMS Special exam.

John then moved to County Durham, developed an interest in management and quality, gained qualifications in such and held senior, management then quality management posts until the end of 2005.

John joined CPA (UK) Ltd as a full time Regional Assessor in January 2006. CPA is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) and since June 2013 he was an Assessment Manager (AM) with UKAS and from November 2014, promoted to Senior Assessment Manager.  John manages other AMs and is active in various projects, including training in ISO 15189, POCT, transition projects,  and developing training for new AMs. 

During John’s professional career and in his many outside interests and activities, John has always developed his interest in teaching, training and biomedical science promotion and career development and been active in education and development of scientific and support staff. He has actively promoted pathology to a wider audience within the NHS and has been involved in both medical and nursing staff education.

John has been involved in and tutored on courses for the IBMS, been a training/portfolio assessor for the CPSM and then IBMS, panel member for the HCPC and been a lay board member for the Northern Deanery involved with post graduate medical education. John has presented at numerous local and national meetings on both scientific and management themes, and now presents regularly on quality and accreditation themes.

When not working, John has a passion for all things “planes, automobiles, motorcycles and trains”.  He has a private pilot’s licence, although spiralling costs and time constraints have curtailed that pursuit for the time being. He is also planning to restore an MGF car.

Jonny Flanagan

Improvement Manager Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne And Wear,

Jonny has 21 years experience in transformation and service improvement, specialising in lean methodologies and QI toolkits. Joining the NHS in 2005 he has worked nationwide with many providers across both acute and mental health trusts, most recently with Trust Innovation Group in CNTW, joining in 2018.  Jonny also acts as guest lecturer at 4 universities covering topics such as QI and project management.

Hannah Cox

Pathology Programme Manager, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Hannah has worked within the NHS IT sector for over ten years and during this time has led a number of significant strategic digitisation projects across a wide variety of specialties.  After working alongside Pathology colleagues on a number of different key projects, Hannah joined the Pathology team formally in late 2020 in order to lead the procurement and implementation of the trusts ambitious multi year strategic digital transformation programme. 

The programme encompasses the introduction of a new LIMS solution and end to end changes to pathways and workflows.  Hannah holds an honours degree in Leadership and Management, a postgraduate certificate in Leadership and change and is a certified PRINCE2 Practitioner and a member of the Chartered Management Institute (MCMI).    

Stephen Lee

Director, Diagnostics Regulation, Association of British HealthTech Industries

After completing his degree in Biochemistry and Biology at Aston University, Steve trained as a Biomedical Scientist, working in hospital microbiology before moving to industry to work as company microbiologist. Steve joined MHRA in 1996 when it was still the Medical Devices Agency and when the IVD Directive had yet to be implemented.

While at MHRA, Steve worked with manufacturers, Notified Bodies, other Competent Authorities, Trade Associations, standards bodies and government departments. Steve was Chair of the European Commission’s IVD working group when the IVD regulations where being developed.

Steve joined ABHI as Director of Diagnostics Regulation in 2020.

Dr David Ricketts DBMS CSci FIBMS

Head of Laboratory Process Improvement, Health Services Laboratories LLP

David currently works as head of process improvement for Health Service Laboratories in central London, which is part of the wider Sonic Healthcare group.

David chairs the TC212 mirror committee and is head of delegation for the UK on the international TC212 committee. David has experience in writing standards and was the project lead on ISO22870, on the drafting team of the new ISO15189 as well as being involved in many other standards including ISO22367. He has written many expert commentaries for British Standards.

Debra Padgett FIBMS CSci

IBMS President,

Debra is passionate about promoting and recognising excellence in all IBMS members. In her eight years as an IBMS Council member, she has advocated, listened, represented and addressed the issues that are most important to our membership at national, regional and local levels.

Debra started her career as a Medical Laboratory Assistant in Microbiology and has successfully worked her way through the career grades to her current role as Clinical Pathology Lead at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This means that she understands the many routes to achieve a senior management position within our profession, and how management decisions affect every member of the laboratory.

Her post encompasses provision of leadership and management with accountability for the delivery of cost effective, high quality, safe and sustainable services across the Northumbria health economy. These responsibilities give her a strategic insight to deliver operational priorities both for her own Trust and those of National programmes.
 

Alyson Bryant

Healthcare Accreditation Specialist, UKAS

Alyson spent 15 years in NHS cellular pathology laboratories prior to moving to UKAS 7 years ago. She started at UKAS as an assessment manager for ISO 15189:2012 laboratories, during the CPA transition project.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, Alyson was heavily involved in UKAS's response to the Covid pandemic, with particular focus on the private providers of Covid-19 testing since December 2020. She is now working as the Healthcare Accreditation Specialist, providing technical oversight for the whole Healthcare section of UKAS, to ensure they remain up-to-date and responsive to their customer's needs.

Rachel Carter

Director of Patient Safety, Patient Safety Specialist , Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Rachel qualified as a Chartered Physiotherapist in 2004. She went onto work clinically at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals (NuTH) and specialised in Burns, Plastic Surgery and Hand Therapy for 6 years. Whilst she loved her clinical work, there was a lack of opportunity for progression in a clinical role, so she decided to look at opportunities outside of Physiotherapy. In 2011 she moved into a new role of Falls Prevention Coordinator, again at NUTH, it was in this role that she became passionate about improving patient safety. Whilst in this role she studied multiple courses in Quality Improvement, became a Q Fellow and gained a PG Cert in Professional Education. Rachel then went on to expand her role and became the Clinical Improvement Lead for Falls and Pressure Ulcers.

In 2019 Rachel moved into the Head of Quality Assurance role working in NuTH’s Clinical Governance Department. This was a role she enjoyed but she recognised that Patient Safety and Improvement were her true passions and so moved organisation and role in 2021 to become the Director of Patient Safety at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

In her current role, Rachel is responsible for the operational and strategic implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF). She is a Patient Safety Specialist (PSS) and leads 4 other PSS’s at Northumbria. Rachel sees a real opportunity to change the way we respond to patient safety incidents with the implementation of PSIRF, however understands the anxieties that come with such a huge change in process and culture.

Nathan Bourne

Pathology Governance & Quality Manager, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust

Nathan currently works for University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust as the Pathology Governance and Quality Manager since  2018. Previous to this role he was a Biomedical Scientist working in a Microbiology Laboratory. Nathan has been a HCPC registered Biomedical Scientist and Member/ Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences since 2009. Before his time as a BMS he worked at the University of Sheffield researching Alzheimer’s Disease.

Recently his interests have been on merging Quality Management Systems while maintaining accreditation

Dr David Ricketts DBMS CSci FIBMS

Head of Laboratory Process Improvement, Health Services Laboratories LLP

David currently works as head of process improvement for Health Service Laboratories in central London, which is part of the wider Sonic Healthcare group.

David chairs the TC212 mirror committee and is head of delegation for the UK on the international TC212 committee. David has experience in writing standards and was the project lead on ISO22870, on the drafting team of the new ISO15189 as well as being involved in many other standards including ISO22367. He has written many expert commentaries for British Standards.

Debra Padgett FIBMS CSci

IBMS President,

Debra is passionate about promoting and recognising excellence in all IBMS members. In her eight years as an IBMS Council member, she has advocated, listened, represented and addressed the issues that are most important to our membership at national, regional and local levels.

Debra started her career as a Medical Laboratory Assistant in Microbiology and has successfully worked her way through the career grades to her current role as Clinical Pathology Lead at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This means that she understands the many routes to achieve a senior management position within our profession, and how management decisions affect every member of the laboratory.

Her post encompasses provision of leadership and management with accountability for the delivery of cost effective, high quality, safe and sustainable services across the Northumbria health economy. These responsibilities give her a strategic insight to deliver operational priorities both for her own Trust and those of National programmes.
 

Alyson Bryant

Healthcare Accreditation Specialist, UKAS

Alyson spent 15 years in NHS cellular pathology laboratories prior to moving to UKAS 7 years ago. She started at UKAS as an assessment manager for ISO 15189:2012 laboratories, during the CPA transition project.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, Alyson was heavily involved in UKAS's response to the Covid pandemic, with particular focus on the private providers of Covid-19 testing since December 2020. She is now working as the Healthcare Accreditation Specialist, providing technical oversight for the whole Healthcare section of UKAS, to ensure they remain up-to-date and responsive to their customer's needs.

Dr Mairiead MacLennan

Laboratory Manager, Victoria Hospital, NHS Fife

Dr Mairiead is a multidisciplinary Biomedical Scientist qualifying originally in histopathology and cytology now specialising in Microbiology. She has over 40 years’ experience in laboratory medicine, with 23 years of that spent working in veterinary medicine. Her specialisms are education/training and quality management.

Mairiead is Chair of the IBMS Scotland Training Forum and also Vice Chair of the IBMS Scottish Quality Management Discussion Group. She is also a Technical Assessor for UKAS. Her passion is people development and has incorporated resilience training as part of her departmental approach to people management.

In her first role in veterinary medicine she was one of a team of 8 staff manning the veterinary laboratory in what is described on Highland Vet on the TV as the far northern outpost town of Thurso. Truly a department with a limited scope.

Gary Collins

Quality Manager, University Hospital Crosshouse, NHS Ayrshire & Arran

No bio provided

Nigel Coles

West Midlands Council member, IBMS

Nigel is a Fellow of the IBMS and a Chartered Scientist. Since retiring in July 2022 he has been employed part-time at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust as the Quality Manager and Clinical Governance lead for Central & South Genomics Laboratory Hub. Previous to his retirement he was the Quality Manager for West Midlands Regional Genetics laboratory for 14 years.

Nigel has been a member of the IBMS since 1983. From 2013 to 2021 he was Chair of the IBMS Birmingham Branch organising committee. From 2008 to 2013 he also chaired the IBMS West Midlands Regional Committee and IBMS West Midlands Clinical Laboratory Quality Managers Association. For the last 8 years he has been the West Midlands Council member of the IBMS.

Nine years ago, Nigel became a tutor on the IBMS Certificate of Expert Practice in Quality course, an e-learning course run by Ulster University.

His main area of interest is looking to evaluate the value of pathology services to clinical services and ultimately, the patient experience, so commissioners fully understand the value of the service and not just the cost. Nigel is also involved in two groups; one which is looking to implement quality management systems across the NHS and a second group looking at Philosophy and Ethics of Quality Improvement programs.

Dr Brian Herron

Consultant Neuropathologist , Belfast Health & Social Care Trust

Designated Individual HTA

Past President Irish Neurological Association 2017-2018

Previously Clinical Director Belfast Trust

Consultant Forensic Neuropathologist, Department of Justice Northern Ireland

Previously Examiner  Royal College of Pathologists

Jonathan Boxshall

Pathology Quality Manager, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided