Keynote speakers

Raj Jain - Chair, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside

Raj has extensive experience in leadership roles across an NHS career which started in 1994. Raj’s career has been marked by a commitment to innovation and improvement at every NHS organisation he has worked in.

Raj was instrumental in the successes at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and led improvement work across Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust when the trust joined with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. Raj played a pivotal role bringing both organisations together, firstly as the Northern Care Alliance group and, following a formal merger, leading the newly-formed Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust as its chief executive.

Raj has also chaired several partnership boards including Greater Manchester’s Diagnostic Board, Salford’s Digital Board and the Working Group of the North West Black Asian Minority Ethnic Assembly.

Graham Urwin - Chief Executive, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside

Graham has an extensive finance background in both local government and the NHS, and has worked at local, regional and national level across both commissioning and provider organisations.

Having held the role of Finance Director at a number of primary care and NHS trusts, his first Chief Executive role was at South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, before going on to run Stoke-on-Trent Primary Care Trust for seven years.

In 2019 Graham became the Regional Director of Performance and Improvement for NHS England & Improvement in the North West, where he was responsible for system leadership and oversight of NHS Commissioners and Providers in the North West region.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Graham was appointed Regional Incident Director for the North West’s response.

2024 will mark Graham’s 41st year in public service.

Dr Fiona Lemmens - Deputy Medical Director, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside

Fiona is the Associate Medical Director for Transformation at the ICB and is the executive team lead for developing the Cheshire and Merseyside approach to Continuous Improvement.

She has been a GP since 1996, spending 24 years as a partner in a large practice in North Liverpool. A GP trainer for seven years, Fiona still practices as a GP on a sessional basis.

Fiona was elected to the Governing Body of NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group in 2013 and worked as urgent care and hospital services reconfiguration lead until 2018 when she was appointed Chair of Liverpool CCG. In 2020, she was appointed the Strategic Clinical lead for the Cheshire and Merseyside Elective Recovery Programme and, in 2021, the strategic Clinical Lead for Cheshire and Merseyside’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.

Professor Rowan Pritchard Jones - Medical Director, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside

Professor Rowan Pritchard Jones is a Consultant Plastic Reconstructive Surgeon at Mersey and West Lancs NHS Teaching Hospital Trust. He is an Honorary Clinical Professor at both University of Liverpool and Edge Hill University, with an academic interest in skin cancer and chemo resistance as well as population health. He has national roles, leading in research for the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeon (BAPRAS) and plastic and hand surgery for NIHR North West Coast.

Rowan was appointed as Executive Medical Director to the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System in July 2022. Rowan is committed to system wide improvements for patients and is determined to break down the silos of working that have been a barrier to truly joined up healthcare across social, primary, secondary and tertiary care. Rowan is also a committed collaborator with a passion for innovative solutions in our NHS.

Amar Shah - National Clinical Director for NHS Improvement, NHS England

Dr Amar Shah is Consultant forensic psychiatrist and Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). He leads at executive and Board level at ELFT on quality, performance, strategy, planning and business intelligence. Amar has led the approach to quality at ELFT for the past 10 years, and has embedded a large-scale quality improvement infrastructure and quality management system, with demonstrable results across key areas of organisational performance.

Amar is the first National Clinical Director for NHS Improvement at NHS England, leading the application of improvement across England’s health and care system.
He is the national improvement lead for mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, leading a number of large-scale improvement collaboratives on topics such as restrictive practice, workforce wellbeing and equalities.

Amar is chair of the Scientific Advisory Group at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and also acts as faculty with IHI, teaching and guiding improvers and healthcare systems across the world.

He is a member of the Q advisory Board at the Health Foundation and a member of the reference group for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. He is on the health advisory board for the UCL global business school for health, and a Council member for the Healthcare Costing for Value Institute.

He is honorary visiting professor at City University (London) and the University of Leicester. Amar has completed an executive MBA in healthcare management, a masters in mental health law and a postgraduate certificate in medical education. Amar is a regular national and international keynote speaker at healthcare improvement conferences and has published over 50 peer-review articles in the field of quality management.

John Ashcroft - Director of NHS IMPACT and Pathway Transformation, NHS England

John has held a number of posts in both the NHS and private sector healthcare and was previously Chief Executive of Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and University Dental Hospital of Manchester Trust. He has also worked at Great Ormond Street and the Royal Free London hospitals.

John has expertise in leadership, strategy and operational delivery both within and across organisations in health and care.

Jen Morgan - Local System Lead, The Health Foundation’s Q Community

Jen joined The Health Foundation in 2022 and is leading Q’s local system work which includes Q’s partnerships with NHS Confederation and NHS Providers both of which are helping to create the enabling conditions to learn and improve across local systems and places.

Jen has over 20 years’ experience working in leadership positions across civil society, education and health developing, leading and implementing strategies, programmes and partnerships for systems change and innovation at scale.

Jen holds an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice- her action learning thesis focussed on ‘Relating for change – the role of relationships in enabling change.’

Her interest in continuous learning and improvement began several decades ago as she came to understand more about the types of mindsets and approaches that are needed to enable change in a complex systems.

In her spare time, Jen also co-leads an initiative offering wellbeing retreats for NHS staff – helping people reconnect to meaning and purpose.

Siobhan Roberts - Director of Quality Improvement at Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust

Siobhan joined LUHFT in August 2021 as the Director of Quality Improvement and was appointed to implement an organisation-wide approach to improvement with evidenced-based methods.

Siobhan began her career at The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, a global leader in applying improvement science in healthcare. While at IHI, Siobhan’s particular focus was on improving evidenced based care delivery for people with chronic conditions and levelling up communities with healthcare disparities. Siobhan worked with the Indian Health Service and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on implementing improvements in primary care for communities across the US.

Siobhan joined the NHS in 2008. Prior to joining LUHFT she was the Director of Quality Improvement at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, latterly the Northern Care Alliance. She held this role for 12 years and during her tenure there, led the development and implementation of several successful Quality and Safety Strategies. Siobhan is an enthusiastic advocate for the benefits of applying various sciences and disciplines to improve care for patients and joy in work for our staff.