Hello! We’re Lucy, Alex, and Helen and together we are the delivery team that will be supporting you through the NASS Champions in Primary Care programme.

Lucy and Alex work for the NHS Transformation Unit (TU) which is an NHS internal consultancy specialising in clinical redesign and transformation. Lucy has spent the past decade working with quality improvement (QI) and transformation in healthcare. Alex is a nurse by background who saw first-hand the impact and power of QI within our hospital settings before moving into system level transformation and becoming a qualified Coach. Lucy and Alex are also the delivery team for Aspiring to Excellence which is driving improvements across secondary care within Axial SpA (including Ankylosing Spondylitis) services across the UK.

Helen works as an Associate Director for Advancing Quality Alliance (Aqua) which is part of the NHS and supports organisations to shape change, inspire quality and transform care. Helen has worked in the NHS for over 20 years undertaking various roles in operational services and strategic organisation, at the heart of all her work has been supporting the development of people and enabling them to improve care to patients. Helen is a qualified HR and OD professional, with registration with the Charted Institute of Personnel and as a qualified executive Coach.

Together, we have the very privileged role of working closely with the NASS Champions in Primary Care supporting them to unlock the improvements and lead system change.

We have developed the programme using a number of different approaches to inform and develop the Champions who take part in the programme:

1. Educational input – we will meet as a group 4 times a year with Lucy providing QI content and Helen providing Leadership content.
2. Protected time – we know that getting precious time away from clinical and operational roles is not easy, so we provide opportunity for Champions to practically apply the tools and methods from the programme on our face to face days.
3. Networking opportunities (both facilitated and unfacilitated) – the Champions have so much knowledge that time to share this and learn from each other is vital.
4. Individual Coaching – Alex will be meeting with each Champion to have an individual Coaching session. Our role here is to be a critical friend, a champion of the Champion, a QI expert, and a facilitator.
5. Action Learning Sets – in between the face to face sessions, we will be holding smaller group virtual Action Learning Sets for peer-to-peer problem solving.

We are really looking forward to being the delivery team for the clinical champions in primary care programme, supporting you to build your networks, influence and improve the care for patients with Axial SpA.