Meet the team
HSIL Core Team
- Prof. Becky Malby, Professor of Health Systems Innovation
- Becky has a track record in systems innovation, organisational change and leadership development, in the UK and internationally, and in leading networks. Her experience is an unusual combination of leader, manager, researcher, change agent and entrepreneur. She is known to be an energetic and enthusiastic leader of change and a forward thinker. She is an advisor to the Kings Fund/Health Foundation Readiness for Change Programme, and on the Advisory Board of the Bromley-by-Bow Unleashing Health Communities Programme, and the Shared Haemodialysis Care programme. She is also a nominator for the Ashoka network. Becky works primarily with the NHS and with local authorities in the UK and Europe. See her blog for further information.
- Eleanor Dady
- Eleanor Dady started nursing in 1984 specialising in Occupational Health in 1991. Eleanor worked at Kings College Hospital Foundation Trust for a number of years as Resource Manager responsible for occupational health provision for Trust employees. In addition she had management responsibility for a number of private contracts which created income for the Trust. Eleanor gained further experience in both the NHS, private sector and most recently at University College London before being selected for the post of Senior Lecturer and Practice Placement Coordinator in Occupational Health Nursing for London South Bank University. She is a registered Specialist Community Public Health Practitioner in Occupational Health and leads the Contemporary Issues in Occupational Health Module placing particular emphasis on leadership and change management. She supports students and teachers in practice in a range of organisations both within the NHS and outside. She has a particular interest in organisational and individual interventions to reduce stress within the workplace.
- Tom Holliday, Associate Professor
- Tom has worked in or with the NHS since he was a teenager, starting as a healthcare assistant on his local rehabilitation ward. His journey since then has taken him to almost every corner of the health and care sector, affording him a privileged system-wide overview. Now a practicing paediatric consultant, Tom has an interest in softening traditional care boundaries to create a more joined-up experience for children and families. He has a track record in leadership of cross-sector systems change aimed at improving quality of care, having worked as a 10th Cohort Darzi Fellow and a Systems Leadership and Improvement Fellow within North Central London. His work continues to teach him the value of engagement, relational practice and an asset-based approach to change and improvement, whatever the scale of the project.
- Anam Farooq, Project Manager
- Anam Farooq is the Project Manager and Business Development Manager for the Health Systems Innovation Lab at London South Bank University. In her role, she is responsible for managing multiple complex programmes and projects to delivery plans, timelines, quality and budgets. This includes data management, liaison with external stakeholders/project collaborators and supporting development of new opportunities. Anam also manages the Lab administration team. Anam graduated from LSBU Business School with a BA (Hons) in Business Administration and Marketing. She has worked in verious project coordinating roles and is now a Prince2 certified practitioner.
- Em Wallace, Senior Project and Event Co-ordinator
- Em is the Senior Project and Event Coordinator in the Health Systems Innovation Lab at London South Bank University. She is responsible for providing day-to-day management and coordination of the various programmes, events and projects organised in the Lab, including the PG Cert Leadership in Health (Darzi) and MA Strategic Clinical Leadership (Apprentice) Programmes. After graduating from the University of Exeter, Em worked at the University of Leeds as part of their Student Education Service, working within the School of Politics and International Studies to provide learning support in an administrative capacity for both BA and PG programmes. She also worked for several years as a Venue Manager at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and is currently completing her MA in Gender, Media and Culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
HSIL Associates
- Murray Anderson-Wallace, Visiting Professor, London South Bank University
- Murray is a visiting professor at the Health Systems Innovation Lab where he has contributed as both co-director and as a lead Faculty member on the Darzi Clinical Fellowship Programme for the last 11 cohorts. He has also contributed to the Primary Care Quality Academy and the PCN Leaders programme, and as Co-convenor of the MA in Social Change.
Murray has a clinical background in mental health services and psychological therapy and is trained in systemic approaches to counselling, consultation and supervision. He is also qualified as group-work practitioner, registered with the the Institute of Group Analysis (IGA).
He has a special interest in the social psychology of organisations and has spent much of his career tackling complex socio-cultural issues in that context. Murray is the Independent Chair of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) Advisory Panel and a long standing campaigner for improvements in the quality of response after healthcare harm. He regularly supports families during serious incident investigations and has led many commissioned independent reviews of care. He also acts as an independent advocate in coronial proceedings and sits as a Tier 1 Judge in Family Courts for HM Courts & Tribunal Service. Murray was Deputy Chair of the Independent Review of Workplace Culture at Save the Children, and has advised other NGO’s in relation to cultural and organisational development as a result.
Murray’s practice has also included work as an independent editor, writer and presenter, producing media to stimulate debate about complex professional and ethical issues. He is also the producer and resident psycho-musicologist for “Clear a Space”, his monthly show broadcast on Gaga Radio.
He is co-author with fellow HSIL faculty of Networks in Healthcare: Managing Complex Relationships (Emerald) with Prof Beck Malby; and Quality in Healthcare: Questioning the Work for Effective Change (Sage) with Nick Downham. 
- David Boyle, Fellow New Economics Foundation. Expertise: Coproduction
- David Boyle is the founder of Think Tank New Weather, created to accelerate the rapid transition to a fair economy that thrives within planetary boundaries and a fellow at the New Economics Foundation and has been at the heart of the effort to develop co-production and introduce time banks to Britain as a critical element of public service reform. He was recently the government’s independent reviewer on Barriers to Public Service Choice (2012-13). David is the author of a number of books about history, social change and the future. His book Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life (Flamingo, 2003) helped put the search for authenticity on the agenda as a social phenomenon. The Tyranny of Numbers (Flamingo, 2001) and The Sum of Our Discontent (Texere, 2001) predicted the backlash against the government’s target culture. Funny Money: In search of alternative cash (Flamingo, 1999) launched the time banks movement in the UK. His book Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes? was published by Fourth Estate this year. He also writes history books.
- Nick Downham
- Nick is a respected and nationally recognised specialist in Lean techniques and operations management. He possesses a deep understanding of improvement science and large scale improvement programmes. Nick is passionate about the public sector and is committed to using his expert knowledge of techniques from other sectors to achieve improvement. Whether leading a team or working as an upbeat and effective member of one, Nick uses his practical experience and expert knowledge of Lean principles and staff engagement to ensure sustainable performance improvement.
- Tony Hufflett
- Tony works to help organisations get the most from the data available to them. In healthcare this is a growing challenge as digital datasets expand. He uses tools for data analysis, data modelling, data visualisation, text analytics, and machine learning, as well as blending open and external data with digital patient data. He has previously worked with customer feedback for organisations ranging from Audi, Apple, Bentley, Coca Cola and Disney right through to Yahoo. He is fascinated with connecting organisations with their users, their customers and their patients.
- Jane Keep, Visiting Associate Professor, London South Bank University
Jane is an Organisational Development Professional specialising in Executive and Board Development, Leadership Development, Team and Individual Coaching, Staff Engagement, and Health, Wellbeing & Resilience and Organisational Change in the NHS.
Jane has worked with the NHS for 39 years, which includes undertaking 16 years of interim/freelance projects as well as having been an Organisational Development Lead in 4 NHS organisations. She has worked extensively with boards, Non-Executive and Executive Development.
Jane has worked in all NHS settings, acute, primary care, specialist hospitals, at strategic and at a national Level where she was a national advisor (sub contractor) in the Department of Health, for the Kings Fund, and the NHS Confederation. Jane also works in Further Education, Local Government, Not for Profit and start up organisations as a freelancer/sub contractor. Jane has a PhD in workplace resilience, health and wellbeing, and MSc in organisational change, and has been an Associate with three different UK Universities.
- Rebecca Myers, Visiting Fellow, London South Bank University
- With over 30 years working in or with the NHS, Rebecca is an experienced director, coach, organisational development practitioner and clinician who has designed, facilitated and led inter and intra organisational change. She understands the reality of working in complex environments that require highly developed skills in relationship building.
Rebecca was interviewed on a series that is being run by a psychologist, Hope Samuels, called Healthworkers talk, where she is chatting to different health professionals about their work. Rebecca has interviewed a range of people giving insights into the day to day reality of providing care, including Charles Daniels who we have previously worked with in Harrow. 
- Lisa Rodrigues
Lisa is a writer, coach and mental health campaigner. She uses her understanding of stigma, including self-stigma, to raise awareness and reduce the negativity still associated with mental illness. Her aim is to help people to be the best version of themselves at work and in the rest of their lives.
Lisa joined the NHS in 1973, spending the first half of her career as a nurse and a health visitor, and the latter in NHS management, including 13 years as a mental health trust chief executive. She was an Independent Member of Council at the University of Sussex for 8 years, and a NED at the NHS Confederation for 7 years, during which she chaired the Mental Health Network and was senior independent director. In 2012, she was awarded a CBE for services to the NHS.
These days Lisa writes and speaks at NHS and related events, and coaches new managers, clinicians and executives within the NHS and beyond. She is Vice Chair of the Mary Seacole Trust and volunteers as a Samaritan, helping run her local branch.
As well as nursing qualifications, Lisa has a BA in Psychology and an MA in Public Sector Management. In 2016, she qualified to use the Myers Briggs Personality Type Inventory in her coaching practice.
Her book, Being an NHS Chief Executive, came out in June 2018. It is part memoir, part how-not-to-do-it guide. Follow Lisa's blog and Twitter.
- Liz Howarth Liz has over 25 years of health and social care experience having worked in the NHS and the private sector before setting up her own consultancy. Her experience and expertise include the design, leadership and delivery of complex programmes across organisations internationally and nationally. Liz has both process and people skills with Lean expertise, is a qualified coach and is qualified in counselling for organisational change.
- Mick Ward Mick Ward is an associate of the Health Systems Innovations Lab and of Nurture Development and is involved in a number of Leeds Third Sector organisations. He retired in June 2020 as Chief Officer, Transformation and Innovation, for the Adults and Health Directorate for Leeds City Council. The role focused on Asset Based Community Development, Digital Health and Well-Being, Service Transformation, Equality and Innovation. He is from Leeds and worked for social care for 42 years, initially as a Care Assistant, before developing and managing a range of services for disabled people and then moving into commissioning for both Adult Social Care and the NHS, initially focussed on services for disabled people and older people. This developed into an expanded joint role as Deputy Director across the Local Authority and the CCG’s in Leeds, leading on commissioning across a wide range of health and care services, before establishing the transformation and innovation role. Mick has a strong commitment to the social model of disability, citizenship, communities, innovation, culture, equality and diversity, and working in partnership. @mickmodern
- Kanar Ahmed, RD MRes
- Kanar started her career as a Registered Dietitian specialising in paediatrics. She later moved to working in population health roles and has contributed to national health policies and supported the delivery of new models of care. She has done a Master’s in clinical research (distinction) focusing on mental health problems in childhood obesity, and a PgCert Leadership in Health: Darzi Fellowship (distinction). She is currently an AHP Public Health Clinical Advisor at Public Health England and an honorary Paediatric Committee Member at the British Dietetic Association. She is a passionate advocate of fairness, equality and equitable care within the health system for both the public and staff. In 2020 she co-founded the podcast Necessary Rebels, to inspire active anti-racism in different sectors.
- Gill Phillips
- Gill Phillips is the creator of the award-winning Whose Shoes?: a multi-perspective approach to transforming health and social care services through listening and valuing everyone’s contribution. Gill is known for gently but firmly pushing the boundaries, challenging stereotypes, stigma and silo thinking. She is a champion of genuine coproduction, always focusing on people and how to create the conditions for everyone to speak out and create solutions that work. Gill’s workshops are lively, inclusive and relaxed – encouraging ‘experts by experience’, and healthcare professionals (and anyone else who is interested!) to discuss the real issues as equals, regardless of roles or organisations. Named as an HSJ 100 ‘Wild Card’, Gill makes powerful use of social media, tweeting as @WhoseShoes. She hosts the popular ‘Wild Card – Whose Shoes’ podcast series, chatting to people who are making a difference in health care, particularly those who are ‘less known’ but whose voices deserve to be amplified to influence positive change. Key ‘Whose Shoes’ topics include (maternity experience), (communications between children and young people, their parents and healthcare professionals), living well with dementia - and now working on Family Integrated Care (neonatal) and exploring health inequalities. Both of these current projects involve working with previous Darzi Fellows! Gill is listed in both the HSJ ‘Top 50 Inspirational Women’ and HSJ ‘Top 50 Innovators’.
Citizen Faculty
- Sandie Smith
I am Sandie Smith. I am a happily married mum of three young adults. I have had a long and varied experience of being both a service user myself, and a carer for my eldest son for the past twenty-one years. My background is in childcare (I worked as a nanny) and I now work at LSBU to enrich the education of students across the School of Health and Social Care (HSC) faculty.
I am a Founding member of the People’s Academy. I am involved in the interviews of both students and staff alike across the HSC. I am also a guest lecturer on the Nursing, Children’s Nursing, and Social Work, Occupational Therapy and Radiography modules within the HSC.
- Gwendoline Young
- I have been a carer for my son, who has severe mental health issues, for the past 17 years. It has not been an easy journey or one that I, nor he, chose to take. During this time to the present day I have witnessed good and bad practice. I hope to enlighten students, by my own personal experience, to things I feel you cannot learn from a book in order to improve services for all and them to take into practice. I also underwent an operation that went wrong in 2001 and an attempt was made to cover up their mistake. This lead to 2 further unnecessary operations, the last one in 2012. I worked as a PA for a magic circle law firm in the City for 15 years. I went on to work for various NHS clinics alongside the district nurses. I joined Peoples Academy 8 years ago and also work on the London Darzi Fellowship Programme. I am also a member of "Mind".
- Irenie Ekkeshis, Founder The New Citizenship Project
- Since contracting Acanthamoeba Keratitis in January 2011, Irenie has been working to improve education and awareness of the risk factors of contact lens infections, and in particular, of the risks of water exposure to contact lenses. In 2015 she won SMK’s Health Campaigner of the Year Award, for her work to include a ‘no water’ warning on contact lens packaging. This was followed up in 2016 with the Campaign of the Year award at the RNIB's Vision Pioneer Awards. Irenie is a passionate believer in the individual, social and societal benefits of citizenship and participation, and she has championed a number of coproduction processes, most notably in the healthcare sector. Irenie also has more than 15 years’ professional experience in strategic, brand and creative communication and now runs an innovation consultancy called the New Citizenship Project which helps organisations to work 'with' people, not just 'for' them.
- Mary Ryan
- I have experience of working in the NHS, as a GP for 15 years and then as a Palliative Care Consultant. My wilderness years with severe depression grew out of a difficult relationship with a colleague and lead to early retirement 10 years ago. I have slowly rebuilt a life which has purpose and meaning and I hope a way of being useful to the world, even if not as ‘Dr Ryan’. This has included developing skills in quality improvement, public speaking, teaching and leadership development programmes alongside private consultancy, mentoring and supervision. I also try to find time for my garden, my family and creative writing- of fiction and poetry. Currently:
- I am a Visiting Fellow at London Southbank University (LSBU), where I contribute to the Darzi Fellowship Programme
- I am one of two academic leads at LSBU for a new PGCert on ‘Collaborative Communities’ to foster skills in and practical experience of co-production
- I am a QI (Quality Improvement) coach and mentor, championing person-centred quality improvement. I was in the founding cohort of the Q initiative in 2016, active in the first Q lab and the lay member of the Q evaluation group for The Health Foundation. I provide independent QI consultancy and teaching, including on the Plymouth University MSc in Quality Improvement
- I work as a co-mediator with an organisational psychologist to help resolve conflict and improve relationships within health and social care organisations
- I have been a National Advisor for the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health since 2016, having worked on Emergency, Acute and Community Care guidance and its ‘Towards Co-production' guide. I am the chair of its Peer Support Worker Expert Reference Group and lay co-chair of the patient Safety Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
- I am an EbyE member of Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme with a particular focus on better safer care for people with mental health needs of learning disabilities in the community and co-productive ways of working
- I am a co-investigator on two multi-centre research projects. The first, investigating better ways to support people with suicidality and self-harm, has funding until 2023. The second will look at the value of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in people with depression and anxiety who have not responded to an IAPT intervention, currently on hold because of lockdown
- I am a trustee of several charities which aim to improve the lives of people with disabilities
- I have experience of mental health care services as a service user, a parent of young adult sons struggling with depression and anxiety and close family members with dementia and behavioural challenges
- Academic qualifications include BA (Oxon) MB B. Ch, MRCGP and FRCP
- Mandy Rudczenko
- A former mental health nurse and adult education tutor, Mandy has been helping her son to manage his Cystic Fibrosis for the past 18 years. She first became involved in Patient and Public Involvement work as a lay member on a Clinical Reference Group for Cystic Fibrosis. Over the past 4 years Mandy has become an active campaigner for the co-production of health and social care services, person- centred care, shared decision making, and self-management of long-term conditions.
As a member of the Co-Production Team with the Coalition for Collaborative Care, Mandy has contributed to the design and co-production of many projects, including The Reading Well scheme. Mandy has also served as an Expert by Experience on NHS England’s Five Year Forward View People and Communities Board, helping to co-design the ‘six principles for engaging people and communities’.
Mandy is an active member of The Q Community (The Health Foundation). Her work has included co-convening the Special Interest Group in Coproduction, contributing to the QLab project on Peer Support; chairing tweet chats. As a member of the East Midlands Patient and Public Involvement Senate, Mandy has co-designed and delivered training in Coproduction. She is also a public contributor on a research panel with the National Institute for Health Research. 
- Hai Saint
- Hai is a musician and composer who embraces the position of empathic outsider to understand, explore and communicate different perspectives on the human condition. As a diabetic he has many years of experience being a patient of the NHS and a keen interest in seeing how it’s systems can be fine-tuned to maintain the best healing environment for staff and patients alike. He was introduced to HSIL by Sara Hamilton after working with her on one of the TalkLab projects involving young people with chronic conditions transitioning into adult care facilities.