Our Critical Friends provide advice and challenge from outside UK social care.
Miro
Griffiths
Chair, Critical Friends Group
Dr Miro Griffiths MBE is a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow in Disability Studies, within the School of Sociology and Social Policy, at the University of Leeds.
His research primarily explores disabled people’s imaginings for accessible and inclusive societies, and disabled people’s representation within policy-making processes. He is also an adviser on disability policy to the UK Government, European Commission, and supports the work of disabled people’s organisations across Europe. Miro is a former confidential and strategic adviser to two UK Government administrations and was part of the UK delegation at the signing ceremony for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Mirella
Minkman
CEO, Vilans
Mirella is CEO at Vilans, the national knowledge organization for care and support. In addition, she is Professor by special appointment at Tilburg University/TIAS and holds the chair ‘Innovation of organization and governance of integrated care’.
Her expertise is focused on how to organise person-oriented integrated care between people and organisations in networks and (chain) alliances and what other governance structures are needed.
This governance includes leadership, supervision, governance and accountability. She also has broad experience in the field of change management, implementation, knowledge infrastructure and large-scale implementation processes in healthcare.
She is the chair of the national Governance Innovation Advisory Committee of the BoZ and Board member of the International Foundation for Integrated Care and editor of the International Journal for Integrated Care.
She is also a member of the Expert Committee of the VGN, a member of the Scientific Advisory board of the NVTZ and a Supervisory Board member of the RIBW Brabant (mental health care) and the Rivierenland hospital in Tiel.
Graham
Martin
Director of Research,
THIS Institute
Graham is the Director of Research at The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute), a unit at the University of Cambridge funded by the Health Foundation to develop the evidence base for improving healthcare quality and safety.
His research uses social scientific methods and theory to improve understanding of organisational change in the health and care system, and particularly the influence of professionals, policy makers and service users and the public on efforts to improve the quality and safety of care.
Anna
Dixon
Chair, Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care
Anna Dixon has worked on health and social care for over 20 years in a variety of roles including Chief Executive of the Centre for Ageing Better, Director of Strategy and Chief Analyst at the Department of Health, Director of Policy at The King’s Fund, and Lecturer in European Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
She is author of a book “The Age of Ageing Better? A Manifesto for Our Future”. Anna received an MBE for services to wellbeing in later life in the 2021 New Year’s Honours List.
Elizabeth
Hanson
Research Director, NKA
Elizabeth is a Professor of Health Care Sciences at the Linnaeus University (LNU) in Sweden and Research Director at the Swedish Family Care Competence Centre (Nka), a national centre of excellence in the area of informal care.
Elizabeth has a long- standing interest in carer issues and over the last twenty years she has led a variety of national, EU and international projects in partnership with informal carers, service users, health care practitioners, decision makers and civil societies to enhance and/or stimulate innovative service provision. The ultimate goal being to help empower people living with long-standing, chronic conditions and their informal carers across the life course.
Graeme
Currie
Professor,
Warwick Business School
Graeme Currie is Professor of Public Management at Warwick Business School. Graeme also leads DfE funded What Works SEND Service Improvement research programme and is a co-investigator in NIHR funded Health Determinants Research Centre.
His research focuses upon health and social care settings, within which he has particular interest in leadership, innovation and strategic change. It improves services for those with long-term conditions in health and social care with colleagues in medical schools and a social care department. He also leads a large scale research programme funded by the ESRC that supports the transition of care leavers into adulthood through the spread of innovations. His research extends beyond the UK, working with clinical researchers and practitioners, in India to support the implementation of early intervention for young people with first episode psychosis, and Australia to support women into healthcare leadership positions.
Lennart Magnusson
Director of Operations,
NKA
Ligia
Teixeira
CEO,
Centre for Homelessness Impact
Lígia set up the Centre in 2018 and led the feasibility study which preceded its creation while at Crisis UK.
Lígia is bringing ‘what works’ methodology to homelessness: the use of reliable evidence and reason to improve outcomes with existing resources.
Lígia was previously at Crisis UK, where over a period of nine years she led the organisation’s evidence and data programme – growing its scale and impact so that it’s now one of the largest and most influential in the UK and internationally.
Lígia was awarded a PhD from the Government Department of the London School of Economics in 2007. She has also worked in various research roles where she covered issues including human trafficking, child labour and women’s rights.
Alice
Bonner
US Institute of Healthcare Improvement
Dr. Bonner has been a geriatric nurse practitioner, caring for nursing home residents and their families, for over 30 years. She is currently Director of Strategic Partnerships for the CAPABLE Program in the School of Nursing, and a Senior Advisor for Aging at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
Dr. Bonner’s work focuses on supporting and empowering older adults to be able to age in their communities, creating and improving age-friendly health systems, promoting dementia-friendly communities and support for care partners of individuals living with dementia, working to prevent older adult abuse and mistreatment, and advocating to end elder homelessness.
Jeffrey Braithwaite
Director,
Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science
Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite is a leading health services and systems researcher with an international reputation for his work investigating and contributing to systems improvement.
He has particular expertise in the culture and structure of acute settings, leadership, management and change in health sector organisations, quality and safety in healthcare, accreditation and surveying processes in the international context and the restructuring of health services.
Theories and ideas Professor Braithwaite has helped shape, formulate or devise, and provided research findings for, are now in common use as a result of his work: multi-method, triangulated approaches to research, the boundary-less hospital, accreditation models in general practice and beyond, clinician-managers as key players in reform initiatives, fundamental principles for the governance of health systems, diversity in clinical professional groups, inter-professional learning and culture change rather than restructuring as a more sustainable strategy for reform.
Judith
Philips
UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge
Judith Phillips is Deputy Principal (Research) and Professor of Gerontology at the University of Stirling. She is Research Director for the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge.
Her research interests are in the social, behavioural and environmental aspects of ageing and she has published widely on topics such as social care, caregiving and age friendly environments. She has been highly active in shaping the UK’s gerontological research landscape and her applied research has impacted on government policy.
Jermaine
Ravalier
What Works for
Children’s Social Care
Jermaine’s research interests are in organisational and health psychology, with a focus on how the workplace can be improved in order to help maintain positive mental health, and prevent work-related mental health sickness absence.
Jermaine’s work therefore assesses elements of the workplace which may lead to mental health issues in employees, and implementing / evaluating interventions to this end. In the last couple of years he has been funded as PI on two separate research projects: the HOW NHS Project (ESRC, £218,000) and the HOW Social Work Project (Challenge Fund, £235,000).