Steph Lawrence MBE joined the QICN as Director of Nursing and Deputy Chief Executive in October 2024. Steph was appointed Chief Executive Designate in March 2025 and became Chief Executive of the QICN on 1st July 2025. Steph has been a nurse for more than 37 years with the last 22 years spent working in the community. She is both an adult and children’s trained general nurse as well as being a very proud District Nurse. Steph was the Chief Nurse at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust. She also spent 3 years working at the CQC as the National Professional Adviser for Community Services. Steph led the national trailblazer group for the District Nurse Apprenticeship standard which is now being delivered in many English universities. She also co-chaired the Clinical Reference Group for the National Community Nursing plan for several years. She was recognised in the Queen’s 2022 Jubilee Birthday Honours and received an MBE for services to District Nursing. Steph continues to practice clinically as a District Nurse. She is a Queen’s Nurse and Fellow of the QICN.

Lisa Locker is Hallam Medical’s Chief Nurse. 

Lisa is an extremely experienced nurse, holding over 30 years’ experience within a number of NHS settings as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner and as a Senior Clinical Manager with additional international experience in Trinidad.

Within a large NHS Trust, Lisa was one of the first ANP’s to qualify with her MSc Advancing Health & Social Care Practice course, whilst working as Deputy Nurse Director and separately as Chief Information Officer.

She brings strategic vision, strong leadership, effective management, professional advice, safeguarding lead and has significant clinical expertise.

As Chief Nurse, Lisa is responsible for Clinical Governance and Safeguarding, work closely with our clients and support our teams of highly skilled Advanced Practitioners, Community Specialists and 111 Pathways Clinicians. She will help to enable clinical services to deliver excellent care within Urgent Care, Primary Care, Community services and 111. 

Lisa additionally works closely with our trusted partners The Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI), Integrated Care Board Chief Nurse Network (ICB Chief Nurse Network, The Association of Advanced Practice Educators UK (AAPE UK) and The Queen’s Nursing Institute Community Nurse Executive Network (QNI CNEN).

Ashleigh Fox is an experienced Learning Disability Nurse and strategic leader with a passion for driving personcentred, inclusive care. With a career spanning frontline practice to national-level influence, Ashleigh champions integrated approaches across health and social care, particularly for autistic people and people with a learning disability. As a leader within the Catalyst Care Group, she works to embed relational models and values-based practice into systems transformation. Ashleigh brings lived insight, professional expertise, and a deep commitment to equity, making her a compelling voice for reform. She is particularly focused on the power of coproduction and meaningful outcomes in community care.

Caron Sanders-Crook is a Queen’s Nurse, trauma-informed coach, and influential leader in social care nursing with over 30 years’ experience. Co-Chair of the East of England SCNAC, she plays a key role in shaping national policy, contributing to work with the NMC, DHSC, and other leading bodies. A qualified and accredited coach, published writer, and veteran, Caron brings lived and professional expertise to her work. She is a passionate advocate for relational care, professional autonomy, and regulated leadership, helping frontline professionals thrive through clarity, compassion, and nervous system-informed practice in the most demanding environments.

Amanda qualified at the London Hospital in 1987, and has a varied career including a year in Canada, before focussing on becoming a District Nurse and Community Practice Teacher in Newham, East London.

This was followed by an academic career at London Southbank University teaching adult nurses running a community nursing module prior to focusing on end of life care and moving to NELFT in East London to become the Lead Palliative Care nurse, working strategically to improve end of life care across the organisation.

Amanda then undertook her PhD in palliative care at Lancaster university specialising in end of life care in care homes, graduating in 2016 and moved back into nurse education at Anglia Ruskin University to teach Adult nursing with an emphasis on long term conditions, Advance Practice and Palliative Care.

Since 2009 Amanda has organised the End of Life facilitator network for London, she arranges speakers to share good practice and research and provides a network to those who often work in isolation.

Mary brings over 40 years of NHS experience, working across a wide range of roles including children’s nursing, general nursing, and specialist public health nursing (health visiting).
Mary became Chief Nursing and Allied Health Officer at Sirona in April 2020, joining from North Somerset Community Partnership (NSCP), where she served as Director of Nursing and Therapies. Before that, Mary held senior leadership roles including Executive Nurse with the Bath and North East Somerset Primary Care Trust and Deputy Director of Nursing at the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

Dr Edwin Chamanga is the Deputy Director of Quality and Deputy Chief Nurse at CSH Surrey. He has extensive experience in clinical effectiveness, patient safety, quality strategy, regulatory compliance, and clinical risk management. Edwin holds a PhD in Health Services Research, where he researched Recruitment and Retention of community nurses. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow at Kingston University London. He has held significant roles in nursing and academia, including Associate Director of Nursing and Senior Lecturer. He is actively involved in research, mentoring students in the UK and abroad, committee member for International Collaboration for Community Heath Nursing Research.

Dr Cate Wood is Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Nursing Programmes (Leadership).

Cate became a nurse to use her head, heart, and hands in helping others. She expanded her learning whilst working in a variety of clinical (including District Nursing, advanced practice, specialisms in primary and secondary care and Public Health), managerial, educational and research positions with a focus on exploring ways of understanding what health is, and different approaches to human caring within the sphere of curing.

She strives to encourage strategies and empower others to develop behaviours fundamental to high quality, safe and compassionate humanised leadership, and health care.

What people perceive health to be, and the nuances of therapeutic encounters and relationships interest her. It is the person that is central, not the cure. In a humanising leadership context, the same is true, people matter more than things, relationships make the difference and reflecting is key. Cate’s wide range of interests inform the art and science of nursing, health and health care.

Dr Calvin Moorley RN, PhD is a Professor for Diversity & Social Justice, Nursing Department, London South Bank University. His research focuses on the interplay of gender, culture, race and health using a social justice lens. His secondary education was completed in Trinidad & Tobago his birth nation. Since graduating as an adult registered nurse, Calvin has followed a clinical/academic career, remaining close to clinical nursing, particularly in the critical care environment. He developed the ELEVATE (a career development programmme for racially minoritised midwives and nurses and White Allyship Programmes at LSBU. He holds several visiting Professorships and Fellowships internationally and is recognised for his work in anti-racism.

Emma is the Chief Nursing officer at Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and was formerly the National Deputy Director for Mental Health Nursing at NHSE England. She is a visiting Professor at the University of Surrey and has over 26 years of extensive strategic and technical knowledge and experience across a wide range of health settings. She has led the development of new and innovative services for the most vulnerable in our society. Emma is committed to social justice and improving patient mental health care especially those from marginalised groups and is particularly skilled in in the development of national policy and translating research into practice.

Professor John Unsworth is the Interim Deputy Faculty Pro Vice Chancellor at Northumbria University. He has a background in community nursing practice, education, management and research. Prior to his current post John has worked as the Head of Learning and Teaching, University of Sunderland, Head of Academic Development at the Higher Education Academy and as Director of Nursing Programmes at Northumbria University. He is an experienced NHS manager having been a Nurse Director in a rural Care Trust in Northern England prior to taking up posts in Higher Education. He has experience of workforce redesign in relation to developing the community nurses’ role around admission avoidance. John is also an International Council of Nurses (ICN) Global Nursing Leadership Scholar 2020. John has extensive experience of developing nursing, medical and higher education internationally having worked to develop teachers and practice in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Ghana, Bahrain, Hungary, Ukraine and Grenada (West Indies). John trained as a nurse in Sunderland and worked in a variety of acute ward settings before moving into district nursing. He completed his specialist practitioner qualification in district nursing in 1997 and he has worked in a variety of roles including district nursing, as a specialist nurse and nurse consultant. He has a PhD from Robert Gordon University which specifically examined the influence of health care organisations on innovation and development. John is an alumni of the QICN Innovation and Creative Practice Awards and is a Queen’s Nurse. John was awarded an OBE for services to community nursing and community nurse education in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022. 

Richard Claxton read Medicine at Guys and St Thomas’s Hospitals in London. As a doctor, he initially specialised in Paediatrics before moving into General Practice. He has worked as a GP for 25 years.

Throughout his career he has always used time spent in his garden to unwind and manage his own stress, and to maintain his mental and physical wellbeing. He has also been a longstanding advocate of nature-based therapies for his patients, and to this end in 2023 he launched an NHS Therapy Garden in Tonbridge.

Convinced that the health of both individuals and society as a whole is enhanced by gardening and connecting with the natural world - he went on to found the charity Gardening4health, which operates as both a network for those providing Therapeutic horticulture, and as a hub for conferences, education and sharing of best practice.

As well as his GP work, he has written for Gardens Illustrated and Hortus Journal, has worked in Garden Design - specialising in gardens for healthcare settings, has been a volunteer guide at Sissinghurst Castle Garden, and a Trustee of Greenfingers Charity, which funds and builds gardens for Children's Hospices.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be appointed to be the new Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme. As a charity - it’s the perfect fit for me: combining beautiful gardens and the wonderful generosity of their owners, opening their private sanctuaries for us all to enjoy. In doing so, as garden visitors, we join in with this generosity – and together we all make a huge and valuable contribution to a range of brilliant causes across the country, with supporting Nurses and improving healthcare at the forefront of these. The NGS is also a champion of the impact that gardens and gardening can have more directly on people’s health, which is a cause very close to my heart.

The National Garden Scheme’s work underpins the vital links between gardens, generosity, health, and community – all of which we need now more than ever.

As the National Garden Scheme approaches its 100th birthday, it’s never been more apparent how crucial the charities it funds are, and how vital their support for the Health Service is. Through its centenary and beyond, I couldn’t be prouder to contribute to this amazing organisation.”

For more about the National Garden Scheme see: http://www.ngs.org.uk

Matthew Johnson is Professor of Public Policy at Northumbria University, Chair of the Common Sense Policy Group, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) and founding Editor of Global Discourse. His work is centrally concerned with addressing issues of inequality, social justice and exclusion both in his native North East and beyond. As Chair of the Common Sense Policy Group, he has co-authored Act Now: A Vision for a Better Future and a New Social Contract (2024) and Basic Income: The Policy That Changes Everything.

To be added

Margaret’s background as a policy professional, (and former lawyer who concentrated on family law and homelessness) underpins her research, consultancy, teaching and evaluation activities as an academic. She has worked extensively in the field of social inclusion (with particular reference to inclusion health and broader SDOH issues), ethnicity, equalities and social justice, with an emphasis on undertaking collaborative research with communities at risk of marginalisation, racism and ‘othering'. She has a long history of working with Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showmen and Boater communities and is currently leading a large, multi-site research study focused on the health inclusion and wellbeing of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

Rebecca Shearer's career started over 20 years ago working on a general medical and toxicology ward before training to become a Practice Nurse. As a Lead Nurse / Advanced Nurse Practitioner she currently manages a team in an area of deprivation within Newcastle upon Tyne where she attempts to provide fair care for all despite disparities to accessing primary care services. She developed a project situated in a local foodbank to support her work in an attempt to reduce health inequalities further. She has been awarded the Queens Nurse Title and last year won the Nursing Times Awards Primary Care Nursing Category.

Donna left home age 9 following traumatic abuse. Arriving in London she lived between children’s homes and the streets for 9 years. Turning experiences into strength she returned to school to learn to read and write qualifying as a nurse age 33. Donna has PTSD but let’s nothing stop her stating “bad days just make good days better”. Working medical wards, renal and cardiac ITU she found her niche in community nursing. As a QN Donna delivers inspirational talks to many on resilience. Developing and running a charity street clinic she was nominated and short listed for an RCN award. Moving ever forward she is know doing the DNSPQ.

Catherine has worked in the NHS for over twenty years. Her career started in Intensive care and she subsequently trained as a health visitor working for several years in a deprived community. She was a Forensic Nurse Examiner undertaking medical examinations for victims of sexual violence for 6.5over six years. She became a dual safeguarding practitioner in a mental health trust where she also took on the additional role of Freedom to Speak Guardian and became the Professional Nurse Advocate Lead. She then became the Designated Nurse for Safeguarding for Adults and Children in an ICB. She is an elected Borough Councillor and Mayor of Dacorum alongside a clinical role.

Ben leads interdisciplinary research at the University of Cambridge focused on improving care of patients dying at home. His research includes the voices and experiences of patients, families and under-served communities. Ben is a Queen’s Nurse and Fellow of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing. Ben co-founded and leads the QICN Community Nursing Research Forum, with over 1000 members strengthening nursing research capacity, leadership and evidence-based practice in the community.

Billy Palmer joined the Nuffield Trust in April 2018 as a Senior Fellow in Health Policy. At the Nuffield Trust his focus is on, but not limited to, the NHS workforce.

Prior to joining the Trust, Billy spent over a decade at the National Audit Office producing reports for Parliament on the value-for-money of different aspects of the health service in England. These mixed-methods studies included a range of key issues such as:

• income (e.g. the funding allocations);

• staffing (e.g. workforce contracts and the supply of NHS clinical staff); and

• clinical effectiveness (e.g. stroke care and maternity services).

Other previous work includes a performance audit of a UN peacekeeping service on the Israel-Syria border and as a visiting research fellow at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva.

Billy has a PhD in health service research from Imperial College, London, where he currently also holds an Honorary Research Fellowship. His academic background also includes Masters degrees in both mathematics from Cambridge University and in global politics from Southampton University. More impressive than all of that, he has an Erdős–Bacon number of 7.

Ben leads interdisciplinary research at the University of Cambridge focused on improving care of patients dying at home. His research includes the voices and experiences of patients, families and under-served communities. Ben is a Queen’s Nurse and Fellow of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing. Ben co-founded and leads the QICN Community Nursing Research Forum, with over 1000 members strengthening nursing research capacity, leadership and evidence-based practice in the community.

Joodi is an internationally trained nurse and a holder of the MPhil in Population Health Sciences from the University of Cambridge. She is a research assistant at the Palliative and End of Life Research Group at the University of Cambridge (PELiCam) and is a qualitative research trainer of nurse interns at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH). Her research focus includes improving the delivery of sensitive end-of-life care to members of ethnic diversities in the UK.

Helen is a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, based in the nursing department at the School of Allied Health Professions and Nursing.  She is a registered District Nurse and a Queens Nurse. 

Her nursing career has been within the community setting as a community nurse, tissue viability nurse and safeguarding adults specialist nurse. She moved to education in 2019 and currently leads on the practice leaning element of the programme alongside theoretical teaching. 

She is the lead for patient and public involvement and engagement within her department. 

Her research interests have included district nursing and the mental capacity act.  Her current research work involves working with adults with a mild to moderate intellectual disability and promoting the inclusion of this population in teaching and in research.   

Worked as a Practice Nurse since qualifying in 2021 with a passion for education and development, after having a student placement in general practice. Over the last 12 months, working in a leadership fellowship role within NHS England leading a project to promote increased exposure to primary and community care in pre-registration nursing education. This led to the development of an integrated placement to give students exposure across a variety of out of hospital services.

The individual qualified as a registered nurse in 2012 and spent five years working within hospital services. Eight years ago, they transitioned into community nursing, where they specialised as a District Nurse and Practice Educator. With a strong interest in workforce development and student nurse education, they recently completed a leadership fellowship with NHS England in primary and community care. During this fellowship, they led the development of innovative placement models designed to enhance student nurse exposure to community settings and strengthen the future nursing workforce pipeline.

Fiona’s worked as a care assistant in a Nursing Home prior to qualifying as a nurse in Harrogate 1990. A career began in Harrogate District Hospital working in Orthopaedics followed by SCBU. Enjoying working with families led to a move to the community and roles in School Nursing including becoming a SCPHN – SN and the journey from a school Staff Nurse to a 0-19 Locality Manager. In 2017 Fiona became a Queens Nurse.

Fiona then broadened her knowledge and skills moving to NYCCG becoming a Team Leader Childrens Continuing Care  / Commissioning Team gaining experience working with children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families. Fiona also had a portfolio of commissioning responsibilities including special school nursing, palliative and end of life care and enuresis. This role introduced Fiona to commissioning from individual packages of care to population level services for North Yorkshire.

A move to West Yorkshire provided the opportunity to become a Young Carers Project Manager for an ICS and this coupled with personal experiences of unpaid caring cemented Fiona’s commitment to work to improve the identification, support, and signposting of all carers. Working for WYICS provided the opportunity to work for an award-winning Unpaid Carers team and Fiona was promoted to Programme Manager for Unpaid Carers. Fiona is passionate about coproduction and coproduced many projects in WY including a Young Carers Support App. Ecookbook and series of films. Fiona’s commitment to unpaid carers, including young carers, has continued through her ongoing work as a proactive Carers Champion at the QICN.

Fiona is enthusiastic about personal and professional development and has successfully completed her MBA Leadership with Coaching and Mentoring. She is a member of the Association for Coaching and the School and the Public Health Nurses Association.

In her spare time Fiona spends time with her family, gardening, being active and completing the occasional Parkrun or charity challenge.

Fiona joined the QNI in May 2023, a personal aspiration being a Queen’s Nurse.

Su has worked in the community for 25 years as a Children's Community Nurse and Children's Community

Matron in Sussex.

Su, alongside her colleagues, supports 4 Children's Community nursing teams, Children continence service and

special school nursing service. More recently, in addition to her CCN services, she also supports respite and

bedded units for CYP with complex disabilities.

Su became a Queens Nurse in 2021 and her team were finalists at the 2024 RCN awards.

Su is currently in an Interim Nursing Head of Service post for Children's Community nursing service for 1 year

secondment.

Su is a passionate advocate for children receiving care, where possible, closer to home

Sarah, a health visitor, is internationally recognised for her pioneering research in childhood obesity prevention. She led key systematic reviews on early-life risk factors and interventions, developed the Infant Risk of Obesity Checklist (IROC), and created Babies at Greater Risk of Obesity (BabyGRO)—a digital training tool for health professionals. Her more recent work includes a review of barriers to responsive infant feeding, culminating in the co-design of the Caregivers Responsive Infant Feeding Behaviours (CRIB) digital resource with communitybased parents. Her research has transformed early obesity prevention strategies and supported knowledge exchange across healthcare settings

Siobhan Melia was appointed as Chief Executive of Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust in September 2016.
Siobhan began her NHS career in 1996 and has worked in a range of roles since. A clinician by background, she holds a BSc and MSc in podiatry and in 2012 she received her MBA (Health Executive). Siobhan is passionate about lifelong learning and received an Honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Brighton in 2022 in recognition of her major contribution to healthcare services.
Siobhan was appointed as National Advisor for Community Health Services by NHS England in March 2025.