Alison Dinning - Executive Board Member and Secretary NOrF

Critical Care Outreach Sister, Nottingham University Hospitals

Alison has worked as an Outreach Nurse since the service commenced at Nottingham in 2000. The Nottingham University Hospitals Critical Care Outreach Service has developed and expanded according to the needs of the Trust, and now covers two large campuses.

Her primary interests are improving the quality of patient care; improving the patient experience; teaching, supporting and developing the multi-professional ward team, and continuing to adapt and update the track and trigger tool which was introduced in 2001.

Alison was part of the original team who instigated the National Outreach Forum, and was involved in writing the "The National Outreach Report - Progress in Developing Services in 2003". She is passionate about networking, sharing ideas and best practice both locally and nationally. 

Catherine Thomas - Executive Board Member and Treasurer NOrF

Consultant Respiratory Physiotherapist, Tameside Foundation Trust

Cath qualified as a physiotherapist in 1996 in South Wales. She quickly directed her career towards working within respiratory speciality as a senior physiotherapist in 1997. She moved to England in 2000 to pursue career in more acute respiratory areas as senior physiotherapist and worked at Hope Hospital and Warrington Hospital in medical and surgical specialities.

She held a position as Physiotherapy Inpatient Superintendent and Respiratory Clinical Specialist from 2002 at Tameside Foundation Trust working in critical care and linking with respiratory outreach services and she was successfully appointed as Consultant Respiratory Physiotherapist in April 2005 for Tameside Foundation Trust.
Her general areas of interest and activity include clinical supervision for PHD student, re-establishing own PhD, honorary Senior Lecturer for Manchester Metropolitan University, assessor for pre registration Medical Practitioners, contributing a chapter for the second edition ‘Caring for the seriously ill patients', Trust wide education and assessment for Doctors, Nurses and Physiotherapists and attendance to Research and Development Group and Respiratory Advisory Group for Tameside and Glossop.

Her clinical areas of interest and current projects are to establish, lead and manage the Trusts Non Invasive Ventilation service, Oxygen Champion for the Trust, leading on the Trusts rehabilitation post critical care NICE 83 guidance (currently working on seamless care pathway through Acute / Intermediate/ PCT services) and to provide a Consultancy service Trust wide for non-medical management of acutely unwell respiratory patients on wards, critical care areas- direct link with outreach team.

Lesley Durham - Executive Board Member

North of England Critical Care Network (NoECCN) Director 

Lesley trained at the Royal Masonic and Queen Mary's hospital in Roehampton London, qualifying in 1983. After consolidating her training as a staff nurse on a general surgical ward, Lesley spent 2 years working in Johannesburg Southern Africa on a neuro-surgical / high dependency unit. Caring for patients requiring a higher level of care prompted Lesley to undertake her Intensive Care (ENB 100) training at Kings College London.

Lesley has now spent over 20 years in critical care, and has recently been appointed as Director for the North of England Critical Care Network. Her previous role was Nurse Consultant in Critical Care & Clinical Lead for Outreach Services at City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust.

Lesley believes emphatically that since their introduction, ‘Outreach' services have made an immense and invaluable contribution to the quality of care for critically and acutely ill patients in hospital. To this end, she and NOrF believe that Outreach Teams are ideally equipped and positioned to significantly contribute to the successful implementation of the NICE CG 50 and the acute / critical care interface.

In November 2006, Lesley was elected as Chair of the National Outreach Forum (NOrF), and re-elected in November 2008 for a further two-year term.

After 4 successful and fulfilling years as Chair of NOrF, Lesley step down from this role at the 2010 AGM

Dr Isabel Gonzalez - Executive Board Member NOrF

Consultant Critical Care and Anaesthesia, South Tees Hospitals, and Medical Lead for North of England Critical Care Network

Isabel is a consultant in Critical Care Medicine and Anaesthesia at The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, and the medical lead for the Acutely Ill Patient in South Tees. She is also the Medical Lead for the North of England Critical Care Network (south locality).

She has broad clinical experience in Critical Care and Acute Care and she is fully engaged with the agenda of the deteriorating patient and safer care in her Trust. Her main interests are around the systems and philosophy of the early recognition and management of the acutely ill patients, including the educational needs and competency based programmes for the multidisciplinary team. Isabel co-chairs together with Lindsay Garcia (Acute and Critical Care Clinical Manager) the Trust-Wide Acute Ill Patient (Recognising Deterioration) group, which is involved in the introduction and updating of the track and trigger system, acute care competencies and developing Trust policies and guidelines related to the adult deteriorating patient.

She has a great interest in education and training involving acute care competencies, leading the Acute Illness Management™ and Survive Sepsis™ courses delivery, part of the North east faculty of the Ill Medical Patient Acute Care and Treatment™ course, as well as setting up a Non Invasive Ventilation course and Practical Procedures for Foundation Programme course in South Tees. She is one of the co-founders of the Critical Care Outreach Course (competence-based training of nurses involved in Critical Care Outreach).

Carmel Gordon-Dark - Executive Board Member NOrF

Critical Care Outreach Sister, London Clinic

Carmel is a Critical Care Outreach Sister at the London Clinic. She is a Registered Nurse that worked at Northwick Park Hospital, achieved ENB 100 at Central Middlesex Hospital and worked as a staff nurse in the Critical Care Unit for two years. She then went to work in the King Fahad National Guard Hospital Riyadh for four years in the Critical Care Unit. She returned to London and became a Critical Care Sister at the London Clinic.

She undertook ENB 998 A1 Award (NVQ Assessor) 7407 Further Education for adults following her return. She has also undertaken a DMS at Westminster University.Carmel set up the Outreach Service and Patient Group Directives for the London Clinic. She directed the compiling and setting up of the Radar Course (Recognition and detection of the Patient at Risk), which has been accredited by the RCN.

She has recently been nominated for the Laing and Buisson Health Care Award under the category of Innovation.
Carmel has been a member of the executive board of National Outreach Forum since 2008.

Caroline Barclay - Executive Board Member NOrF

Lead Nurse Critical Care Outreach, University Hospitals of Leicester

Caroline completed her training in 1986 and has worked predominantly within the Critical Care field ever since with a short spell (18 months) on a general medical and surgical wards. 
Over the years her specialist interests have included Total Parental nutrition, Jet ventilation, and developing advanced nurse practices. Since 2001 she has worked within the outreach arena developing the service from its infancy to one that is now operational on three sites providing 12 hr service provision. She completed her MsC in 2005 with a dissertation focussing on the effectiveness of Critical Care services. In 2007 she successfully obtained a scholarship to study and implement a nurse led NIV service within General Medicine at one of the acute sites. Following successful implementation of EWS trust wide she is now actively involved in the strategic direction of acute care services within Leicester as well as being heavily involved in education and the introduction of the ALERT™ course and as an ALS instructor.

Dr Duncan Watson - Executive Board Member NOrF

Consultant Critical Care Medicine and Anaesthesia, University Hospitals of Coventry & Warwickshire. Medical Lead Central England Critical Care Network and Chair of the National Forum of Medical Leads for Critical Care Networks

Duncan is a consultant in Critical Care Medicine & Anaesthesia at the University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust. His experience includes Clinical Director Critical Care (2000 - 2003 and 2006 - 2007) and Development Director Acute Inpatient Services (2003 - 2006) and Information Technology (2006 to date). He is also the Medical Lead for the Central England Critical Care Network, Chair of the National Forum of Medical Leads for Critical Care Networks, member of the Critical Care Stakeholder Forum, Honorary Clinical Teacher at Leicester & Warwick Medical School and Member of the Intensive Care Society Quality & Standards Committee.

He is the consultant for the Nurse Led Critical Care Outreach team and has recently led the introduction of a PDA based system that supports the recording of patient observations, calculates the MEWS score and prompts the graded response empowering nursing staff to seek and obtain appropriate support for patients. As chair of the Trust-wide Acutely Ill Patient Management Group he has facilitated the development of patient care pathways that have enabled some patient groups to be ‘fast tracked' through the acute admission areas to specialist wards thus improving severity of illness recognition and achieving important elements of early goal directed therapy and the Resuscitation Bundle for management of Sepsis.

As Medical Lead for the Central England Critical Care Network he has developed admission and discharge guidelines that have been adopted across the network. He has also led the adoption of change bundles across patient pathways leading to improved quality of care.

He is a recognised national and international speaker. He has published several papers and documents such as "Standards for the Care of Critically Ill and Critically Injured Children in The West Midlands" (co-author) and "Standards of Clinical Incident Reporting in Critical Care" (co-author, Intensive Care Society, 2006)

Duncan joined the executive board of the National Outreach Forum in November 2008.