Having started her career as a physiotherapist, Ruth is a quality improvement specialist with over 20 years of experience in the South Wales health system. A naturally curious leader, Ruth is passionate about helping others to make services better. Ruth was instrumental in establishing the Spread and Scale Academy in Wales in 2019, which has since become a successful programme under the All-Wales Intensive Learning Academy for Innovation in Health and Social Care. She is now the Spread and Scale Programme Director at the Dragon’s Heart Institute and a Fellow of the Billions Institute, with whom she co-delivers the academy.
Together, Ruth and her team have helped train hundreds of teams working on cutting-edge innovation and best practice on how to spread and scale their projects, giving them the tools, skills and self-knowledge as large-scale change leaders to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from their work.
Paul is a consultant-level therapist working within critical care at Cardiff and Vale UHB. He is also an honorary lecturer within the School of Healthcare Sciences at Cardiff University. He graduated in 2005, completed his MSc in 2013, and is now undertaking a PhD via portfolio at the University of South Wales.
Paul’s recent focus and research is on therapy workforce planning within critical care which has included multiple peer review papers exploring therapy practice within critical care, and the impact of therapy staff on service and patient level outcomes. This research has contributed to national guidance for physiotherapy workforce in critical care and wider AHP workforce in critical care within NHS Wales.
Paul is also leading a project to improve the quality of care provided to patients with a tracheostomy, which has included the development of electronic education platforms for both acute and community environments, use of immersive technology for training, as well as the development of a patient and carer app. His current work is focusing on innovations to improve tracheostomy equipment with a aim of reducing costs and improving outcomes.
