Debra is a national leader who has worked across mental health, learning disability and autism services both within the community and inpatient provision since the early 1980’s. She has consistently championed models of care that are rights based, relational and rooted in neighbourhoods.
Her work bridges policy and practice. She has contributed to national strategy development and supported stems to redesign services, ensuring that people are not just receiving care and treatment, but supported to live full lives as citizens in their own communities.
Earlier in her career, Debra played a role in national policy working for the Department of Health as a professional advisor and as National Programme Lead for implementation of the White Paper Valuing People and has published guidance on a range of related topics including Commissioning Frameworks, Health Action Planning and the development of Community Teams.
She has been instrumental in shaping commissioning approaches for Mental Health and Learning Disability services and has worked extensively to address repetitive quality failings and abuse in institutional settings, including undertaking investigations and service reviews as well as contributing to service redesign following high profile failures.
Debra is able to translate complex policy into practical implementation. Her work consistently emphasises citizenship, co-production and cross sector collaboration. In 2019 she was awarded a Gold Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chief Nursing Officer for England, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and in 2020 was awarded an MBE.
Dave qualified as a learning disability nurse in 1991 and worked across wide ranging hospital and community settings. As a Consultant Nurse the NHS, with a clinical specialism in meeting the needs of people with a learning disability who present with distressed and risky behaviours, he also managed large teams of allied health professionals and specialist nurses; led the development of governance systems; developed wide ranging integrated care pathways; and supported service turnaround and modernisation initiatives.
Since 2012, Dave has provided expert consultancy services to a range of NHS and independent sector providers, as well as national agencies including the Department of Health, the Royal College of Nursing, the Care Quality Commission, NHS England and National Health Education Scotland. He has undertaken numerous independent investigations and service reviews across the UK, contributed to improvement and whole service turnaround programmes, and chaired countless complex Care and Treatment Reviews.
Whilst working with the Department of Health, Dave led a number of national policy initiatives concerning the reduction of restrictive interventions across health and social care and has remained actively involved in this area, including serving as a Trustee of the Restraint Reduction Network.
Dave was one of the co-authors of the critically acclaimed Health Equalities Framework (HEF) and continues to support initiatives focused on reducing the health inequalities experienced by marginalised populations. Whilst working for NHS England, Dave led the development of national learning disability improvement standards and a large-scale national benchmarking programme to assist trusts in meeting the improvement standards.
Dave is a keen supporter of initiatives which strengthen nursing leadership and the development of the learning disability nursing profession. He continues to publish on a range of topics and regularly presents at conferences.
Dave’s approach to consultancy and service improvement typically includes a rigorous focus on evidence and data informed improvement. He applies systems thinking to understand relationships between policy and local context, services’ structures and processes and the outcomes they deliver to people who use services. He readily draws on the high-level expertise of a range of associates and colleagues, including people with lived experience of using services and campaigning for improvement to services.
Rebecca is a communication and project lead professional with almost 25 years’ marketing experience within specialist health and social care settings. Rebecca has worked within the directorate of Nursing, Quality and Governance for providers of residential and hospital support for adults with learning disabilities as well as a provider of schools and homes which support children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural problems.
She has worked together with inclusive communication groups and other inclusive organisations. She specialises in reviewing literature for families and carers as well as for adults and young people who have no words or very few. Rebecca brings organisational leadership and support to the user involvement agenda and accessible information work stream making a marked difference to the engagement of both adults and young people and their families.
Event coordinator for DMA she has led on the Strengthening the Commitment conferences, RCN and NHS England events as well as other educational events and training for the DMA team. She has presented at BILD conferences herself on the use of checking tools she has created, which allow people to feedback on the quality of their own support, care and learning. Rebecca liaises with professionals and coordinates the clinical support offer from our experts.
Bill handles all our web design, maintenance and event software. With a varied background in teaching and industry Bill found a computer in 1985 and it changed his life!
The suceeding years has seen him develop an extensive client base around the world - any excuse for a trip! The wonders of the modern internet means "have laptop, will travel, will work"