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For help and support with quality improvement  – get in touch with one of our quality improvement leads.

0300 013 2023

Quality Improvement

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust
Trinity House,
110-12- Upper Pemberton,
Kennington, Ashford
Kent TN25 4AZ

Our team

See who's involved in Quality Improvement at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Sarah Phillips

Sarah Phillips

Chief Medical Director
Sarah is the executive lead for quality improvement at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trsut (KCHFT) As Sarah is a quality, service improvement and redesign (QSIR) faculty member she helps to deliver the quality improvement training.

Sarah works internally and externally to encourage the use of quality improvement (QI) methods to continuously improve the quality of our services and the working environment for staff.

Sarah is also the trust's Medical Director and a member of the national Q Community.
Katie Ring

Katie Ring

Assistant Director of Quality for Specialist Services
Katie qualified as a Podiatrist in 2004 and, after gaining experience working in London, joined West Kent Primary Care Trust (now part of KCHFT) in 2005. Katie has had various roles at KCHFT and has a MSc in Public Services Management.

Katie's current role is as the Head of Quality, Governance and Professional Standards for Specialist Services and Public Health.

Katie is a fully accredited QSIR teaching faculty associate and part of KCHFT's Quality Strategy Implementation Group (QSIG), which supports the implementation of the trust's quality improvement programme.

Katie is passionate about the drive to improve the quality of the services the trust delivers, for both service users and colleagues and works closely with teams to support the implementation of service driven improvements through the use of QI.

Annmarie Hirst

Assistant Director of Quality and Governance, adults and long term services
Jo Healey QI advisor

Joline Healey

Quality Improvement Advisor
Joline began her NHS career in 2009 when she joined an Intermediate Care Team, providing direct frontline support to patients in their homes. She followed this with a series of positions in the Falls Prevention Team, IT Projects and, most recently in Acute Child Health Services, from where she joins us.

Joline, or Jo, is passionate about developing, improving and delivering services which not only meet the demand but also optimize patient experience along the way. With her operational and project management experience, she looks forward to working closely with teams, embedding QI methods across the trust.
Jane Barlow QI communications officer

Jane Barlow

Media and Communications Officer
Jane looks after media and communications for the quality improvement (QI) team at KCHFT.

Jane writes case studies about QI projects taking place across the trust, looks after the QI website and the QI Twitter profile. She spreads the word about KCHFT's QI work internally, via the trust intranet and staff newsletters. and externally, issuing news releases which have been picked up by the Health Service Journal, Nursing Times, the Pharmaceutical Journal and others.

She was a journalist for 18 years, working for local and national newspapers and magazines. She has worked in media and communications roles in the public, private and charity sectors.

Jane is a member of the Q Community and is a qualified QSIR Practitioner. She has run two QI projects at the trust in the field of communications. Contact Jane via this website or through Hexitime.
Natalie Parkinson

Natalie Parkinson

Assistant Director, Business Development and Service Improvement
Natalie's portfolio includes supporting all services across the trust geography and implementing quality improvement.

Natalie supports the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) programme and the Cost Improvement Programme (CIP) as well as Primary Care Networks, business planning and service improvement.

She is a fully qualified QSIR teaching faculty associate and part of the Quality Strategy Implementation Group (QSIG) which supports the quality improvement programme throughout the trust. She is also a member of the Q Community.

Natalie has worked in the NHS for the last 11 years covering roles in performance, system management, programme management and in the commercial team. Previously she worked in the rail industry, firstly at Eurotunnel and then as part of the Network Rail High Speed maintenance team.
Amanda

Amanda O'Neill

Assistant Director of Quality and Governance for Specialist Services
Amanda is a Head of Quality, Governance and Professional Standards West Kent.

Amanda has a background as a Specialist Practitioner- District Nursing and has worked in various community trusts for many years as a district nurse and community matron.

She has held several head of clinical services posts, covering a wide range of nursing, therapy, community, inpatient and outpatient settings and has a MSc in Human Resource Management.

Since becoming involved in quality improvement Amanda has become a QSIR college associate faculty member. She is passionate about improving the quality of care for patients and the experience in work for colleagues.
QI advisor Robyn Shelmerdine

Robyn Shelmerdine

Quality Improvement Advisor
Robyn qualified as a physiotherapist in 2003 and was the clinical lead for Thanet Community Rehabilitation Team (Adults) for 10 years, before her move to the QI team.

She has worked in east Kent her whole career and has been involved in a number of QI projects, including a successful change to the running of a case review meeting in Thanet, increasing quality and saving clinician time for patient visits.

Robyn is part of the South East AHP QI Network.

She is passionate about supporting the adult and pharmacy divisions to see QI as accessible to all, a valuable use of time and, hopefully, enjoyable!
Sarah Donovan head of quality improvement

Sarah Donovan

Head of Service Improvement
Sarah is our Head of Service Improvement and leads the QI team at KCHFT.

Sarah is a fully qualified QSIR teaching faculty associate and leads many of the trust QI and QSIR training days.
Dawn Nortman

Dawn Nortman

Head of Innovation and Effectiveness
Dawn’s portfolio encompasses planning and delivery of the trust’s clinical audit programme and training, management of the NICE process including medtech innovation and management of roll out of innovations on the National Innovation Accelerator.

Dawn began her career with the NHS in research management and was later a manager and scientific advisor of two local research ethics committees. Since then Dawn has provided leadership around clinical audit, governance, and innovation in community services, the acute sector and mental health over a broad range of specialties. She is a member of the Q Community and South East Clinical Effectiveness Network (SECEN) and a former Chair of the North London Clinical Audit Network (NLCAN). She has a Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Audit.

Dawn is a fully qualified QSIR teaching faculty associate.

Janet

QI team support
Janet supports the QI team with admin, training, events and much more.
Aimee Palmer, quality improvement admin team member

Aimee Palmer

Quality Improvement Support Co-ordinator
Our Quality Improvement Support Co-ordinator supports the quality improvement team at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust. The role includes helping to make sure training courses run smoothly and assisting with QI inquiries.

Aimee has worked for the NHS for eight years, initially working in a procurement role at another trust. She joined KCHFT in 2017 and worked in several administrative roles, before joining the QI team in 2023.
Data analyst in the quality improvement (QI) team Chris Isherwood

Chris Isherwood

Analyst (advanced)
Our analyst provides support to colleagues with data related queries, including performance, trends, statistical process control (SPC) charts and any other analytical requirements.

Chris has worked for KCHFT for 14 years, joining the trust as an administrator. He has been a data analyst since 2016, having completed various qualifications while in his role. He has worked on many projects relating to business development and service retention.