Hard-hitting board appointed to health charity
31 July 2013
- Robert Francis QC among the trustees
- Leading businessman Sir Adrian Montague takes the helm as Chairman
The Point of Care Foundation today announces the appointment of an impressive board of trustees, who together will have responsibility for guiding the charity in its mission of transforming the experience of health and care services for patients and staff.
The charity was founded in April this year, having previously been situated as a programme within The King’s Fund. It offers practical tools, including Schwartz Center Rounds®, to help improve the culture of health and care organisations. Its aim is to become an expert resource, providing information and evidence of what works to improve patient experience and staff engagement.
Sir Adrian Montague, Chairman of the private equity firm 3i plc and Anglian Water, will lead the six strong board which comprises:
- Chair – Sir Adrian Montague, Chairman, 3i group plc and Anglian Water
- Robert Francis QC, barrister and Chairman of the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry
- Sean Elyan, Medical Director, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Ceinwen Giles, Clore Social Leadership Fellow and patient advocate
- Rebecca Gray, Director of Communications and Information, The King’s Fund
- Jill Maben, Chair in Nursing Research, King’s College London and Director of the National Nursing Research Unit
Sir Adrian Montague said: “I am delighted to be the first Chairman of the Point of Care Foundation. Over the years I’ve learnt that no matter where you work, a healthy organisational culture and good relationships between staff are critical to achieving positive results and driving improvements. The importance of that lesson is magnified in health and care services where the cost of getting it wrong can be the tragedy of broken lives and unnecessary deaths.
“I am looking forward to working with Robert Francis and the other trustees, as well as Jocelyn Cornwell and the staff, to develop the Foundation into an organisation that will help create a patient-centred health system that is amongst the best in the world. We have an inspiring team who each bring unique talents to the table.”
Founding Director Jocelyn Cornwell said: “I am grateful to all the trustees – individually and collectively they bring huge insight and knowledge that will strengthen the new Point of Care Foundation. We have a strong patient voice on the board, as well as outstanding clinical knowledge and strategic insight. Robert Francis’ determination to find solutions to the failings he uncovered in the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry is shared by the team and will be an important driver for our work. They are an exceptional group of people and will help the Foundation to grow and fulfil our mission of improving healthcare by strengthening the personal, human element in the care relationship.”
The Foundation was awarded a grant by the Department of Health earlier this year of almost £650,000 to expand its programme of work in the NHS in England. The Foundation has also been awarded a grant from Macmillan Cancer Support to promote Schwartz Center Rounds® in their services.
The Foundation is currently working with 24 NHS trusts and 8 independent hospices. Within two years, it hopes to be working with at least 55 NHS trusts.
Biographical notes and notes to editors:
- Schwartz Center Rounds® provide a structured, monthly one-hour forum for staff from all disciplines to discuss difficult emotional and social issues that arise in caring for patients. Their purpose is not to solve problems, but to explore the human aspects of delivering care and the challenges that staff face. Evidence suggests that when staff feel positive about the care they are offering and feel supported in providing care, this is beneficial for them, patients, and the organisation as a whole. They were developed by the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, in Boston USA and have been implemented in more than 320 sites in that country.
- Please refer to our earlier press release for more information on The Point of Care Foundation.
Sir Adrian Montague, Chairman of private equity group 3i
Sir Adrian brings his significant experience of the private sector and government affairs to the Board. He is currently non-executive chairman of both private equity group 3i plc and utilities company Anglian Water Group Ltd and a non-executive director of Stockholm based construction company Skanska AB. He was formerly chairman of life insurance company Friends Provident plc, British Energy Group plc and Michael Page International plc and he was an independent expert assessor of the final recommendations made in the Public Inquiry into Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
From 2001-2004 Adrian was Deputy Chairman of Network Rail Limited, the successor to Railtrack, and from 2004-5 he was Chairman of Cross London Rail Links Ltd, the company responsible for developing London’s £10bn Crossrail project.
Sir Adrian has held senior positions connected with the implementation of the Government’s policies to expand the use of private finance in the provision of public infrastructure, first as Chief Executive of the Treasury Taskforce, and then as Deputy Chairman of Partnerships UK plc.
Adrian has worked in banking and as a lawyer. He was educated at Cambridge University.
Robert Francis QC, Serjeants’ Inn Chambers
Robert is a barrister and has undertaken clinical negligence actions on behalf of claimants and defendants, including NHS and private bodies, continuously for over 30 years. He is frequently instructed both at first instance and on appeal in high value claims and those involving complex medical and legal issues, including those concerning patients unable to make their own decisions about matters such as life saving treatment and end of life care. He has been instructed in cases taking place in the Isle of Man, Cayman Islands and Hong Kong. He frequently appears in statutory professional disciplinary tribunals such as the GMC.
He chaired both the independent inquiry (2010) and the Public Inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (2013), following revelations about substandard care at the trust.
Robert took his law degree at Exeter University, where he was elected president of the students’ union. He is co-author of Medical Treatment: Decisions and the Law (2009). He is a past chair of the Professional Negligence Bar Association, and currently a governing Bencher of his Inn of Court, the Inner Temple, where he chairs its education and training committee. He is a Crown Court Recorder and is qualified to sit as a deputy High Court judge.
Dr Sean Elyan MB ChB, MD (Bristol) FRCP, FRCR, Medical Director, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Dr. Elyan qualified in medicine from Bristol University in 1982 and obtained further medical experience in the West Country. His oncology training was at Cambridge, in Manchester where he did a research degree through the Paterson Institute, and at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London as a Senior Registrar.
As a consultant oncologist, his main clinical interests are breast cancer, CNS malignancies, Upper GI cancer and lymphomas.
He also has an interest in medical management and was appointed as the Medical Director of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at the end of 2005.
Ceinwen Giles, Clore Social Leadership Fellow and patient advocate
Ceinwen has worked for a large number of international charities and agencies including the United Nations, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
While studying for her master’s degree in Canada, she co-founded the Sporting Partnership of Universities and Northern Communities, an initiative to enable children in isolated Aboriginal communities participate in sport. She later lived in South East Asia for several years
Diagnosed with Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2010, six weeks after the birth of her daughter, she became very active in the UK’s cancer support sector.
In 2012, she was awarded a Clore Social Leadership Fellowship, which is given to ambitious and influential individuals pioneering social change in the UK and internationally. The fellowship enables Ceinwen to access leadership development and mentoring support while contributing to the development of Shine Cancer Support, a charity which supports adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s affected by cancer and for which she is a trustee.
Ceinwen is also a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton and later this year will be undertaking a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship which will allow her to travel to the US and Canada and look at innovative forms of support to younger adults with cancer.
Ceinwen was a London 2012 Torchbearer.
Rebecca Gray, Director of Communications and Information, The King’s Fund
Rebecca joined The King’s Fund in 2009 from Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts, where she was director of communications. This followed a period of six years at the Healthcare Commission and its predecessor organisation, the Commission for Health Improvement, where she was deputy then interim director of communications. From 1997 to 2001 she was head of press and parliamentary relations at the Alzheimer’s Society.
Rebecca has responsibility for the work of The King’s Fund’s communications team and information and library services.
Professor Jill Maben, Director, National Nursing Research Unit (within the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery) and Chair in Nursing Research, King’s College London
Jill undertook state registered nurse training at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. She gained an MSc in nursing at King’s College, London and a PhD was awarded by the University of Southampton in 2003.
Her PhD studied the ideals and values of new nurses and the extent to which they were able to implement these in practice. Jill was appointed Director of the National Nursing Research Unit in January 2011 and was awarded her personal chair in September 2011.
Jill has undertaken extensive research into workforce effectiveness and the factors impacting staff and patient experience and recently completed a national research study in the UK examining links between staff wellbeing and patient experience in two acute and two community trusts in England.
Jill was in the Health Services Journal’s ‘Top 100 leaders’ in 2013 and was also included on Health Service Journal’s inaugural list of Most Inspirational Women in Healthcare 2013.
Jocelyn Cornwell, Director, The Point of Care Foundation
Jocelyn Cornwell founded The Point of Care programme at The King’s Fund in 2007. She has worked in research, as a senior manager in NHS community health services and in health regulation, first at the Audit Commission, where she directed national value for money studies and audits, and then at the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) where as the director of policy and development she led the design of the first national programme of clinical governance reviews. She is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Medicine at Imperial College, London and a trustee of the Picker Institute Europe.
For further information, members of the media please contact Creina Lilburne, Communications Manager, on 07941 156 827. General enquiries – 020 7637 7252.
Twitter: @PointofCareFdn