Speakers

Jim Easton has been an executive in the English NHS for over 20 years. He has had leadership roles in hospital services, regional management, mental health, service commissioning and policy development.

David was, up until 1 March 2010, the Chairman of The 10 Partnership, a company that provides strategic and operational support to the public sector, particularly in health. In addition, he advised boards on critical strategic and organisational matters, including working with Monitor’s Board over the last two years.

Previously, David was the non-political Chief Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair and Head of the Policy Directorate and the Strategy Unit in 10 Downing Street. Before this role, David was a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. In his 18 years with the firm he served a wide range of companies in most industry sectors, but with a particular focus on regulated, technology-intensive industries. Nearly all of this work was at board level, focusing on strategy, organisation and high-level operational issues.

Steve was appointed to lead the review of NHS workforce health and wellbeing in January 2009, this independent review published interim findings in August and reported its final conclusions in November, which were rapidly accepted by the Secretary of State for Health..

Steve is an experienced consultant in occupational health. He manages a small team of specialists whose, remit includes developing policy and approaches across areas of  health, safety and environment within one of the UK’s largest businesses, Royal Mail.

Steve has worked in Royal Mail for nineteen years, initially within one of its regional Occupational Health teams and then leading its Occupational health and welfare team up to its outsourcing in 2002. As Chief Medical Adviser he has had responsibility for developing occupational health approaches across a diverse, widespread and complex business, which has included working actively on absence reduction and substantially changing Royal Mail’s occupational health and welfare provision in recent years.

Royal Mail’s corporate turnaround over recent years has achieved significant improvements in profitability, quality of service and employee morale – Steve has been directly  involved in the  cross business initiatives on managing attendance and supporting changes to make the business “a Great Place to Work” in. He was also involved in redesigning the organisation’s ill health retirement scheme, and improving opportunities for rehabilitation. Steve has published widely and is an experienced contributor to conferences and public meetings.

 Steve holds honorary appointments as an honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer, with the Institute of Occupational Medicine, University of Birmingham and is a Past President of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Section of Occupational Medicine. He is Chief Examiner to the Faculty of Occupational Medicine’s, Diploma in Occupational Medicine examination.

Cynthia Bower is the Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission. Cynthia Bower graduated from Birmingham University and began her professional life in social care.

Andrew Dillon is Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

He graduated from the University of Manchester in 1975 and has held a number of senior management positions in the UK National Health Service, including General Manager of the Royal Free Hospital and Chief Executive of St George's Healthcare NHS Trust, both academic centres in London. Andrew has been a member of the Council of the NHS Trust Federation and has contributed to national policy on the allocation of research and development funding in the NHS. He has been member of the UK Department of Health's International Panel and its Health Industries Task Force.

A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Aidan Halligan was appointed Professor of Fetal-Maternal Medicine at the University of Leicester and Head of Obstetric Services at Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1997.

In 1999, he was invited to become the first Director of Clinical Governance for the UK National Health Service and formed the Leicester-based NHS Clinical Governance Support Team to translate the vision of clinical governance into a nationwide reality.

From January 2003 until October 2005, he served in the UK Department of Health as Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, with responsibility for issues of clinical governance, patient safety and quality of care across the NHS in England. In that role, he was joint Senior Responsible Officer for the National Programme for IT, and the senior director sponsor of the Healthcare Commission, National Patient Safety Agency and National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

In March 2007, Professor Halligan was appointed as Director of Education at University College London Hospitals, and in May 2008, as Chief of Safety at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals.

Donna joined The King’s Fund substantively in May 2009 having worked as an Associate since July 2008.  Her responsibilities include the directorship of two programmes supporting those who aspire to executive director on behalf of The King’s Fund.  She has significant experience in the design and development of innovative leadership programmes and senior Organisational Development Consultancy Assignments.  Her relevant work experience is at senior level in a South West London Acute Trust and as a consultant with Primary Care Trusts and other private healthcare organisations.  Outside of healthcare, she has held posts in investment banking sector, transport and facilitated programmes for the creative industries.

She has experience of designing and delivering leadership development interventions at a senior management level, drawing on her skills in both formal delivery and coaching.  Donna was a commissioner for leadership development training at an acute trusts she also has extensive experience of managing, delivering and evaluating programmes for clinicians, allied health professionals and non-clinical staff.  Her role worked closely with the Medical Education Director and Head of Resuscitation.

Donna trained as a Coach in 2001.  Her coaching education has been obtained with The School of Coaching and Performance Consultants (Sir John Whitmore & David Hemery).  She is also a Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner.

Donna is an Occupational Psychologist working towards Chartered Psychologist status.  Her final portfolio was submitted in April 2010.  Her recent Masters Degree dissertation was undertaken with a large public-private partnership, using a qualitative methodology, on turnover intentions and the psychological contract.