Sheila Beckers

Part-time consumer advisor

Sheila is a part-time consumer advisor with a particular interest in bringing the consumer and whānau voice to adverse event reviews and processes. She survived a stroke in 2008, which was caused by medullary infarction. Sheila volunteers for Victim Support (Manaaki Tangata). She is also a part-time music and relief teacher at Clifton School, has three adult children who all live in Wellington and is married to an engineer of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

Jan Dewar

Clinical lead/Lecturer
Auckland University of Technology

In 2020 Jan was the clinical advisor for the Health Quality & Safety Commission’s patient deterioration programme. She recently completed her Doctor of Health Science thesis, focused on the experience of ‘good care’ in medical/surgical hospital settings.

She is a registered nurse with a clinical background in a range of acute hospital settings and nursing leadership, and spent 10 years as nurse director/associate director of nursing at MidCentral DHB. She was the clinical lead for the deteriorating patient programme there, including testing of shared goals of care principles and processes.

Jan is an experienced auditor using tracer methodology to audit the Ministry of Health’s health and disability sector standards audits.

She is currently a lecturer at Auckland University of Technology.

Matthew Drake

Specialist anaesthetist and deputy service clinical director
National Women’s Health Department of Anaesthesia
Auckland District Health Board DHB

Matthew originally planned to train as an obstetrician, however, some enthusiastic obstetric anaesthetists persuaded him that he could combine his interest in obstetrics with a career in anaesthesia.

Originally from the UK, Matthew is currently deputy service clinical director of the National Women’s Health department of anaesthesia at Auckland DHB. He is also chair of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists’ National Obstetric Anaesthesia Network.

Matthew has been involved with the Health Quality & Safety Commission’s Maternal Morbidity Working Group since its inception, and has been the anaesthesia clinical lead throughout the implementation of the New Zealand maternity early warning system (MEWS). National Women’s Health was one of the three early pilot sites for MEWS, so he has extensive first-hand knowledge of the challenges and successes of implementing MEWS locally and nationally.

Laura Ellis

Consumer engagement manager ‒ quality improvement and patient safety
Capital & Coast DHB

Laura has been the consumer engagement manager at Capital and Coast DHB for around two years. Prior to that she worked at the Health Quality & Safety Commission, bringing a consumer perspective to the patient deterioration programme. During her time at the Commission, she championed co-design methodology under the guidance of Dr Lynne Maher, innovation and improvement clinical director at Ko Awatea. Laura took her enthusiasm for both co-design and the Kōrero mai project to her role at Capital & Coast DHB and was lucky enough to be able to support that work.

Laura has worked in health for around 20 years and is committed to the concept of health staff and consumers working together to make health systems better for everyone.

Hayley Gill

Maternity clinical information specialist midwife
Counties Manukau Health

Hayley is currently employed at Counties Manukau Health as a maternity clinical information specialist midwife. She has a strong clinical background in maternity services comprising 19 years of clinical experience working across primary, secondary and tertiary midwifery care.

She completed her Bachelor of Midwifery degree at the Waikato Institute of Technology after having three children. She has worked as a team midwife based at a rural unit, a lead maternity carer and then as a staff midwife in busy secondary and tertiary units.

A large proportion of Hayley’s role is providing maternity digital leadership to a large multi-disciplinary team within NZ’s largest DHB. She has also been involved as the midwifery representative/adviser on project teams where new systems or products are for implementation.

Hayley believes that every woman deserves the best care possible rather than available.

She is passionate about many things including family, friends and fishing and some life balance.

Felicity Goodyear-Smith

Postgraduate Goodfellow Chair MBChB, MD, FRNZCGP (Dist), FFFLM (RCP)
Department of general practice and primary health care, University of Auckland

Felicity is a GP and a professor of general practice at the University of Auckland, and is also a daughter and a mother. At this hui Felicity is talking from the perspective of a member of the public, advocating for her mother when her health was deteriorating and was close to death.

John Hewitt

Registered nurse
Corporate quality and patient safety
Canterbury DHB

Ko Aoraki te maunga e rū nei ki taku ngākau
Ko te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, te Moana e mahea nei aku māharahara
E mihi ana ki ngā tohu o nehe, o Ōtautahi e noho nei au
Ko Tauiwi te iwi
Ko John Hewitt ahau.

John’s nursing career has taken him through the nineties in the NHS and the noughties in New Zealand health care in a variety of acute and strategic settings. Though he has a deep clinical love of acute medical nursing, his passion is focusing on how nursing can be sustained into our near future.

John currently work as a clinical nurse specialist in the corporate quality and patient safety department at Canterbury DHB. He is the chair of the New Zealand early warning score working group, a group of clinicians from Canterbury DHB working to enable the health work force to use the New Zealand early warning score to its maximum potential.

When he is not at work, lecturing or playing the guitar, John spends time with his family in their little house by the sea in Christchurch (unless the surf is good!).

Sarah Imray

Clinical nurse specialist, patient at risk service
Wellington Regional Hospital

Sarah is the clinical nurse specialist of the patient-at-risk (PAR) service at Wellington Regional Hospital. She trained for over 30 years ago in Coventry, UK. She has worked in many areas from care of the elderly to emergency nursing and has spent the last 10 years in the PAR service - the last six years as the clinical nurse specialist.

Sarah has been involved in the launch of the New Zealand early warning score at Capital & Coast DHB and the continual development of the PAR service. She is passionate about patient safety and the importance of early recognition and rapid response.

She has worked collaboratively with consumers in developing a family escalation pathway, Kōrero mai. She has loved working with consumers and is currently involved in raising the profile of critical care outreach nurses by helping to establishment the New Zealand Critical Care Outreach Forum.

Steve Jenkins

Nurse consultant, resuscitation

Steve has worked as a nurse consultant for the last 19 years. He has seen significant change in the management of deteriorating patients, particularly since the introduction of the Commission’s patient deterioration programme. The three programme work streams have and will continue to improve outcomes for patients, family and whānau.

Lesley Kazula

Nurse practitioner, critical care/PAR team
Middlemore Hospital, Counties Manukau Health

Lesley is a nurse practitioner at Middlemore Hospital working in the area of critical care/PAR. She trained in the late 1980s working predominantly in cardiothoracic intensive care (in Israel) and the emergency department at Middlemore Hospital. She has spent the last 12 years with the PAR team and registered as a nurse practitioner three years ago working in this field.

Lesley has been involved in the implementation of the national early warning score at a local and regional level, and is a member of the deteriorating patient forum. She is passionate about the early recognition and treatment of patient deterioration and equally passionate about knowing when to stop non-beneficial treatments and interventions, and instead focus on quality end-of-life care when appropriate.

When she is not at work, she enjoys walking her dogs, spending time with her family, the empty nest and weaving (in no preferential order).

Janine Kereama

Associate director of nursing, acute and elective specialist services and chair, deteriorating patient governance group

Janine has been the associate director of nursing since early 2020. Her nursing career has included roles mainly in the emergency department, many as a senior leader. As associate director of nursing, Janine chairs the deteriorating patient governance group. She came into the shared goals of care programme as it was about to be implemented across the organisation. Her involvement includes promoting and sharing information about the programme across specialties. The governance group believes that by focusing on the patient and making shared care decisions, this work will be successful.

Iidil Merlini

Midwife educator and quality coordinator
Puawai Aroha Maternity Unit, Hauora Tairāwhiti

Iidil trained as a midwife in the United Kingdom, where she practised in a large inner-city teaching hospital as community case-loading midwife. She left the UK and moved to Gisborne in 2011 with her family.

Iidil has worked at the Puawai Aroha Maternity Unit in Gisborne since late 2011 across numerous roles as a core midwife, antenatal education facilitator, midwifery degree clinical tutor and lactation consultant.

Iidil has been a midwife educator and quality coordinator at Hauora Tairāwhiti since 2017. She is also the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative coordinator and maternity clinical information system administrator and reference point for Hauora Tairāwhiti.

Tammy Pegg

Cardiologist
Nelson Marlborough Health

Tammy trained at the University of Leeds in the UK and undertook a PhD at the University of Oxford before moving to New Zealand in 2007. She currently works as a cardiologist at Nelson Marlborough Health, with a specialist interest in heart failure and cardiac imaging.

Tammy is head of the department of cardiology and the clinical lead for the shared goals of care working group at the Health Quality & Safety Commission.

David Price

Director of patient experience and acting associate general manager
Waitematā DHB

David has been director of patient experience at Waitematā DHB since April 2016, where he is responsible for the overall patient experience and consumer engagement strategy, chaplaincy and spiritual services, and the volunteer programme.

During New Zealand’s COVID-19 response, he was seconded to the COVID-19 incident management team as the welfare and safety lead for staff, patients and the community, and the deputy incident controller. He is currently acting associate general manager of Waitakere Hospital.

David trained as an occupational therapist and has since completed his Master of Business Administration. He champions co-design methodology in all quality improvement and service redesign, putting patient and community voices at the centre of solution generation with service planning and strategy.

Prior to his work with Waitematā DHB, David worked at Northern Health in Melbourne, Australia, where he held various roles including director of patient experience and consumer participation.

He is a fitness fanatic and enjoys long-distance running, hiking and going to the gym. He is an avid Aussie Rules fan and supports the Carlton Football Club.

Dr Alex Psirides

Clinical lead, national patient deterioration programme
Health Quality & Safety Commission

Alex is co-director of the tertiary intensive care unit in Wellington, New Zealand, and medical director of the regional aeromedical retrieval service. He trained in London, Australia and New Zealand.

Alex has been involved in the design and implementation of rapid response systems to detect and respond to in-patient deterioration in several countries. His work and research in this area led to an appointment as the national clinical lead for the Health Quality & Safety Commission’s five-year patient deterioration programme.

He has advised the Ministry of Health on the national intensive care response to COVID-19, and designed governance processes for aeromedical transfers. He holds teaching and research appointments with the University of Otago and the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand.

Alex is interested in how hospitals (often fail to) recognise dying patients and thinks we could and should do better. He has been fortunate enough to speak on this topic and others at over 50 conferences in seven different countries. When not jetlagged, walking the dog or or spending time with his children, he builds websites and designs logos for Wellington ICU’s prodigious research department. He has nearly written a lot more papers so should spend much less time on Twitter.

Amanda Rouse

Senior advisor, maternity, community health system improvement and innovation
Ministry of Health

Amanda has been a registered midwife for 28 years, the last 19 in New Zealand. She worked at Palmerston North Hospital as a core midwife and from 2015 as the maternity quality and safety programme coordinator for MidCentral DHB. In April 2019 she started work at the Ministry of Health as a senior advisor on the maternity team.

Ensuring equitable outcomes for all women and whānau is her core philosophy. She has been a Midwifery Employee Representation & Advisory Service representative and is an advocate of ensuring a safe and sustainable workforce, especially in the DHB setting.

Amanda completed her Master of Health Care at Victoria University in 2019. Her areas of interest are quality improvement and professional supervision.

Kate Smith

Nurse practitioner, high dependency unit, critical care
Waikato DHB

Kate has more than 20 years’ acute/critical care experience, predominantly in intensive care and has been a nurse practitioner in acute care since 2019. She is currently working in the high dependency unit (HDU) in the critical care department at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton. Some of the patients admitted to the HDU come from the wards acutely after a deterioration.

Kate holds a strong passion for deteriorating patients, identification, intervention/management and timely placement for these patients. A highlight was holding one of the key roles for the development of a formal service for the clinical resource nurses (CRNs) who respond to deteriorating patients. This involved changing the roaming service to a referral-based service with process development, rebranding to patient at risk service, participation and inclusion of a paediatric early warning system and identifying a professional development pathway for the CRNs.

Taranaki Hospital

Clinical nurse specialists, patient at risk

The current group comprises seven permanent staff providing a 24/7 service to acute wards/departments at Taranaki Hospital.

The nurse specialist group has a nursing background of emergency and intensive care nursing, years of experience ranges from six to over 30 years.

The teams have or are working towards post graduate diplomas.

The patient at risk service has been in operation at Taranaki Hospital since November 2019.

Presenting on behalf of the team is Amy McDonald.

Michelle Thomas

Director of midwifery/maternity quality and safety coordinator
Wairarapa DHB

Michelle’s career in midwifery started 20 years ago on her overseas experience where she entered postgraduate midwifery training in the UK as a registered nurse. She worked predominantly in Wales at primary birthing midwifery-led units. On her return to Aotearoa New Zealand 16 years ago she entered midwifery in her home town of Masterton, and spent four years doing a variety of core and lead maternity carer practice while having her own babies and then settled into a midwifery educator role after having her second child.

She then took on the maternity quality and safety programme (MQSP) coordinator role for Wairarapa DHB and did this in conjunction with the midwifery educator role for eight years. Over this time, Michelle discovered her passion for quality improvement and advocacy of safe care being provided to the hapū māmā of our community. She has led many improvement projects and had the opportunity to co-design projects alongside consumers – all highlights of her career. She is now the director of midwifery and MQSP coordinator for the region and enjoys bringing the midwifery voice to DHB-wide discussions.

Stephanie Turner

Director of Māori health outcomes
Health Quality & Safety Commission

Stephanie has whakapapa to Ngāti Raukawa Ki Te Tonga, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Arawa and Fiji. She is the director of Ahuahu Kaunuku, the Māori directorate at the Health Quality & Safety Commission.

Stephanie’s leadership approach is centred on the enactment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. What does this look like for health systems, health structures and daily health practice? Stephanie focusses on facilitating the use of Māori worldview and mātauranga to improve health systems, health services and health practice for all New Zealanders.

What does ‘Wehe ana i te rekareka – let’s celebrate our achievement' mean in a patient deterioration context? How might Te Tiriti o Waitangi be used to prevent patient deterioration? How might we use Māori systems and mātauranga to facilitate improvement in health systems and health practice? These are the types of questions Stephanie encourages people in the Commission and across the health sector to focus on. Stephanie has worked in DHBs, primary health organisations, and non-governmental organisations in a range of leadership roles.

Lee Welch

Improvement advisor

Lee has been employed in quality roles at MidCentral District Health Board for over eight years, and was part of MidCentral DHB’s resuscitation committee, which was later refreshed to become the organisation’s deteriorating patient governance group. Lee has worked in improvement, project and change management at the DHB, while they partnered with the Commission’s Partners in Care programme and the three work streams of the patient deterioration programme.