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.

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.

To be added

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. 

To be added

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.

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