New director of nursing at St Andrew’s

Mental health charity St Andrew’s Healthcare has appointed Julie Kerry as director of nursing.

A nurse leader with more than 30 years of experience across a range of sectors, Kerry has a proven track record of delivering significant quality and safety improvements.

She has worked in provider and strategic roles, both regionally and nationally, including Strategic Health Authorities and NHS England and has a comprehensive, system-wide view of all aspects of healthcare delivery.

Ensuring patient voices are heard has been a key area of Kerry’s focus and she has led the way in employing experts by experience. This has been shown to have a tangible impact on quality improvement, including reducing restrictive practice and developing co-produced leadership.

During her tenure at NHS England, she founded Making Families Count – an organisation which brings together families who experience complex bereavement after losing a loved one to suicide, mental health homicide, or an adult child with a learning disability who died whilst in receipt of NHS care. She remains a non-executive director of the organisation.

‘St Andrew’s has solid foundations and impressive nursing clinical experience, and together we will work to harness this and drive continuous quality improvements and innovation,’ said Kerry. ‘For those who work in nursing, we know that there are national and international challenges, but we have incredible opportunities which will allow our colleagues to develop and progress their professions. It’s my role now to ensure that all our nursing staff here at St Andrew’s are aware of these opportunities and are fully supported to take them.’

Commenting on Kerry’s appointment, St Andrew’s Healthcare CEO Dr Vivienne McVey said: ‘As a charity we are focussed on providing consistently high quality care for our patients and we believe Julie is a passionate advocate of excellence in patient care, with a proven track record of leading on successful and complex service projects.’