The Access Partnership

Zac has over twenty- seven years experience in the NHS both as a clinician and manager. He has held a variety of posts within the NHS including seven years as Chief Executive of two NHS Trust’s in London. He was also the policy lead for primary care and older peoples’ services in South East Region helping to establish effective arrangements to support the implementation of the Older Peoples National Service Framework and establishment of PCT’s. Zac was also a member of the DHSCs Health and Inequalities Task Force, Access Task Force, Choice (Primary Care) and member of the Expert Reference Group responsible for advising Lord Hunt on the National Service Framework for Diabetes. He is also an Associate with the Healthcare Commission and Agency Associate (former NHS Modernisation Agency).

Liz qualified as a Physiotherapist in 1988. She specialised in Paediatrics in and worked primarily in community based services. She moved into a management role in 2001, when she took over leadership of Barnet Wheelchair Service. This service became one of the first pilot sites for The Access Partnership and made dramatic differences to waiting times for its’ users. She then moved into Project Management, working with Musculo Skeletal and Podiatry Services. She joined The Access Partnership in 2006, as a Project Manager.

Elizabeth works as an independent management consultant across the public sector, providing analytical, research, training and project management support to a range of clients. She is particularly interested in improving access to high quality data and information in the public sector, and in providing organisations with the skills and tools to use information effectively, to improve service delivery. Other areas of specialism include health care data sources, capacity planning and demand modelling, forecasting, performance assessment and improvement, data analysis and research methods for evaluation.

Elizabeth has an academic background in mathematics, statistics and operational research and completed her PhD at the University of Stirling, investigating analytical approaches to performance and efficiency assessment in health services, particularly data envelopment analysis (DEA). She continues to have an interest in the development and application of new analytical approaches for performance assessment.

Anne has a clinical background in health services having worked as a RGN in both the public and private sectors for a number of years both in Finland and in the UK. Her academic background is in health studies and she is also a PRINCE 2 accredited project manager.

Anne has over 10 years experience in health services. Her special interests are health care planning and service redesign, performance management and service delivery, change management and project management. Although Anne is particularly interested in developing health services she has experience in working across government sectors as well as supporting change across organisational boundaries involving a number of different stakeholders both at strategic and operational level.

Since January 2006 Anne has been a Director of Innova Associates Ltd, a small consultancy and research company with a specialist interest in health care planning, service redesign and delivery.

Neil is currently Head of Podiatry Services for a London Primary Care Trust and Allied Health Professions PEC member with over 27 years experience working in the NHS. Neil has held a range of Senior Positions over this time and was Deputy Operational Director (Head of Primary Care) for a Kent Trust for 8 years prior to PCT re-organisation. He gained his Masters Degree in Business Administration with the Open Business School in 1993 and was awarded his Doctorate from Southampton University in 2005 for his thesis entitled ‘Multi-professional education and team working in NHS Primary Care Services’. Neil is also a Senior Visiting Lecturer for the University of East London. His involvement with the Access Partnership has been since 2003.

Anthony has 25 years full time NHS experience, for the last 15 years as clinical lead and professional head of service for the Podiatry team of a Primary Care Trust in West London. Anthony has a broad range of clinical expertise in all foot related problems, he has a particular interest in Diabetic Foot Care, Children’s walking (gait) development, sports injuries and prescribing of specialist orthotics.

He has also worked on secondment for 18 months at Hillingdon Hospital and the PCT developing an Integrated Care service with a focus on Intermediate Care with a Rapid response team of Therapists, Nurses, Social workers, Care assistants and a supportive discharge team, streamlining the journey from hospital admission to independence at home. Over time the focus shifted to preventing hospital admission and shortening hospital stay by addressing patient pathways in particular in orthopaedics and fall prevention.

He also runs a Private Practice in Podiatry and has recently submitted his MSc thesis in Action Learning and Research. The subject of his study being ‘Picking Up The Pieces: Managing Demand And Capacity In The NHS, A Personal Experience Of Perpetual Change.’

Contact Anthony at or 0208 582 0277.

Fiona qualified as a physiotherapist at the London Hospital in 1976. She has worked for a wide range of healthcare providers as a physiotherapist until 2001 when she moved into a management position.
As Manager of the community wheelchair service she worked with the Access Partnership in order to redesign the service and brought about dramatic improvements in waiting times and methods of delivery.

Fiona then moved into an AHP leadership role within Barnet PCT and has brought about change through the implementation of strategy in order to move services from a professional model to an integrated patient focused structure that enables pathways of care to be developed around patient need.
Fiona has now a general management role in Children’s services and still retains an AHP leadership position which drives forward new and integrated ways of working. She remains passionate about improving services for patients by cutting waiting times and improving quality and choice. Fiona has championed patient involvement as an integral aspect within service reconfiguration.

As an Access Associate Fiona enjoys supporting the Partnership in the work to take forward service development.

Joan has worked for the NHS as a Podiatrist for 25 years. She is currently the Head of the Podiatry Service for Redbridge and Waltham Forest and is responsible for ensuring that the residents of these two districts are provided with high quality podiatric care.

In 2003 she was involved with The Access Partnership in modernising the Podiatry service which led to significant reductions in waiting times. The success of the Access Project has provided her with greater confidence and skills to look for new and innovative ways of working in order to improve patient care. Recently she has led a competitive tendering exercise with a successful outcome being achieved.

At present Joan is working on extending the capacity of the services computerised appointment management system to include other therapy and nursing services with the aim of improving access and offering choice for all community patients in Redbridge and ensuring accurate data is available in order to plan future service provision .

Joan is passionate about promoting the innovative and flexible approach of AHPs in delivering the national / local agenda through the provision of high quality accessible services, not only by effective treatment, but also by prevention and education and as an Associate supports the work of The Access Partnership in a number of projects.

Claire qualified as a physiotherapist in 1990 at The Queen’s College, Glasgow and has worked in the NHS ever since, with a short break working overseas at the Johannesburg General Hospital in South Africa.

She has been in a management position since 2003 whilst still continuing with a clinical caseload. She is proactive around service improvement and service redesign helping to reshape the Children’s Physiotherapy Service in Greenwich, dramatically reducing waits and releasing capacity to develop new service strands bringing services closer to home for children and families.

Claire has been an Associate of The Access partnership since 2003 and her role has included providing support to project leads, influencing and changing clinical behaviour, facilitating service redesign, collating and analysing data and presenting data in an accessible format. She is also a Clinical PEC member on Greenwich PCT’s Professional Executive Committee.