Meet the Team

It was whilst Rachel was working for Public Health England and with support and training at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital that after a decade in environmental, food and water microbiology she made the switch into medical diagnostic science. Upon qualifying as a biomedical scientist in 2004 she practised in medical microbiology at St Thomas’ Hospital and subsequently at Gloucester Royal Hospital and most recently The University Hospital of Wales. Whilst having gained wide experience across all aspects of laboratory microbiology Rachel has specialist areas of interest within Respiratory Microbiology including Cystic Fibrosis and molecular biology which she believes will shape the future for the diagnostic service. She is actively involved in promoting and educating school age children about careers within science in her role as a STEM Ambassador. “I see an exciting time ahead within my new clinical biomedical scientist role at Public Health Wales as we support the role out of narrative authorising. The addition of narrative to positive microbiology reports will allow us to engage, support and educate end users both in primary and secondary care. Already being proved of huge value this will undoubtedly improve the service and continue to support the aim for quality in, quality out”

Greg Williams is clinical liaison BMS with a special interest in trauma and orthopaedic wound infections. In this role he provides liaison between the Swansea Bay UHB laboratories and various orthopaedic and trauma teams. He initially trained in diagnostic medical microbiology at St Thomas’ hospital and has over twenty years of experience working in various microbiology departments of hospitals throughout the UK.

“It is an exciting time for PHW spearheading narrative authorising across Wales, increasing the quality of requests received and more importantly improving the quality of reports authorised. Being part of this rewarding initiative is highly rewarding for me and can only lead to further opportunities whereby we can improve the service delivery of PHW”

A large part of my new exciting role as a Clinical Liaison BMS has been doing the innovative and novel approach of ‘narrative authorising’ in microbiology which has been made possible by Dr Simmons thanks to the Bevan Exemplar.

My professional interests are based around antibiotic resistance and stewardship and I believe this narrative authorising project will have, and already is having a huge influence on these issues around Wales and I’m thrilled to be a part of driving this change.

I also have an active interest in microbiology in developing/war torn countries. I work with the international NGO ‘Doctors Without Borders’ which has taken me to healthcare projects in the Middle East and Africa where microbiology provision and antibiotic stewardship has been my focus. I also worked in West Africa during the Ebola outbreak and am keen to learn and develop my knowledge of tropical, emerging and neglected infectious diseases in the future.

Debbie began training as a Biomedical Scientist, then known as a Medical Laboratory Scientific Officer, in 2002 at the Carmarthen Microbiology Laboratory. She then spent four and a half years working at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff before returning to Carmarthen. She has an MSc in Biomedical Sciences and is currently studying for her second MSc in Genomic Medicine. She started the new Clinical Liaison Biomedical Scientist role in January and is currently working alongside colleagues in both Public Health Wales Microbiology and Public Health Wales Health Protection.

“I saw this new role as an opportunity to expand my knowledge and interests which include genomics and education. Part to this new role includes narrative authorising which offers an exciting opportunity to engage with our service users in a different collaborative and educational way. By starting to tell a story and engaging in a conversation with our users in reports we can educate them about our service and how they can help us to be able to provide more patient specific advice.”

Dr Mike Simmons is the Clinical Lead for Public Health Wales Microbiology Services to the Hywel Dda Health Board.  Previously he was Director of Health Protection within the National Public Health Service for Wales and from 2000 to 2007 was the Senior Medical Officer (Communicable Diseases) on secondment to the Welsh Assembly Government.  His health protection interests are wide, as a result of his previous employment but his current preoccupations include healthcare associated infections, design and decontamination of surgical instruments, as well as his longstanding passion of the application and use of information management solutions in health.

Mike is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and the Faculty of Public Health.  Specialist training in medical microbiology was conducted in the Royal Navy, where he served a 16 year commission, including active service with the South Atlantic Task Force.

While he has enjoyed all those previous roles, working with this new team of clinical authorisers and the impact of narrative reporting is perhaps one of the most rewarding aspects of his career.

 

After studying Biomedical science at University, Laura has spent the last decade working in healthcare for the NHS, Public Health England and, more recently, Public Health Wales.

During her career she has worked in diagnostic laboratories (using both fully automated and manual scientific methods), National Reference Laboratories, public health at Regional Outbreak laboratories and also as part of a Rapid Deployment team for global public health projects. Laura left the laboratory testing role recently to work in Quality management and patient safety – focusing on investigations to identify mistakes in healthcare practices and to create/ implement improvement measures to ensure the mistakes are not repeated. Laura also worked on service improvements to ensure that teams strive to provide the best service possible for the patients.

What narrative authorising means to me:
When the opportunity to be involved in narrative authorising appeared there was no question that I would want to be involved. This practice is revolutionising laboratory science by giving tailored advice to our service users about Microbiology test results. In doing so, we reduce ambiguity and provide the best service for the patients; improving patient safety as we go. This practice also reduces unnecessary repeat samples, which reduces the amount of unnecessary patient journeys and plastic waste, which is also good for the planet. What is not to love about this project?!

My 23 year career in Medical Microbiology has witnessed significant progress in the field of bacteriology testing and technology, but very little has changed in how we report potential pathogens within the clinical context provided, until now….

It has been a privilege these past few years to have taken up the first role of Clinical liaison within Wales, were I could focus user engagement and Quality, with the relatively new concept that is narrative authorising, to help facilitate a positive change within many important areas of the NHS. To date, narrative authorising has driven a significant reduction in inappropriate testing, in turn helped relieve working pressures for many different staff grades,  achieved financial savings, helped influence antimicrobial stewardship, improved overall patient management as well as provided working opportunities for biomedical scientists seeking a more clinical path in their day to day role.

I hope that as we continue to introduce this approach of authorising to other work areas within microbiology we will continue to see the positive long term benefits throughout Wales, which may encourage others to adopt this novel standardised model to influence change within their NHS.

Fatema is a registered Biomedical Scientist with the Health and Care Professions Council, a registered Chartered Scientist with the Science Council and a Fellow member of the Institute of Biomedical Science. With over 15 years’ experience in the specialism of Clinical Microbiology, Fatema has previously worked as a Senior Biomedical Scientist and as an Operational Manager/Deputy Lead BMS. In January 2021, she joined PHW as a Senior Clinical Biomedical Scientist, where her Narrative Reporting in Microbiology dialogue began…

“For me, Narrative Reporting not only helps to make diagnostic decisions, but it is an engagement, providing bespoke reporting, pioneering the way in making the laboratory report more meaningful, educational and ultimately aiding the clinical management of the patient”.

Teresa Peach is a Scientific Programme Manager and a registered Biomedical Scientist by profession. She has 20 years’ experience providing diagnostic Microbiology test results before becoming Operational Manager and leading the Bacteriology Service at Microbiology, Cardiff for 6 years. In her current role as Scientific Programme Manager she is part of the Central Senior Management Team and has taken the Lead Trainer role for the Microbiology network along with oversight and system leadership of scientific work streams e.g. national procurement and implementation of new technologies across the Microbiology network.

Teresa has a special interest in workforce and staff development. She leads on development of new roles, writing the Job Descriptions and Personal Specifications and ensures appropriate governance is in place. The Clinical Liaison BMS roles stretches the Biomedical Scientist scope of practice to work safely at the top of their licence, following strict protocols to provide narrative authorisation.