Meet the team
The new steering committee of the Women's Health Forum was formed in October 2011. The RCN Women’s Health Forum Team Charter (PDF 262KB) gives an overview of the roles and responsibilities of each member, as well as providing information on their team deliverables for 2013 and their operating guidelines. The biographies below provide information on the backgrounds and professional roles of the committee members.
Debra Holloway- Forum Chair
I am a nurse consultant in gynaecology at Guys and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. My current clinical caseload is one-stop outpatient procedure clinics, which included hysteroscopy and insertion of IUS/IUCD and other minor procedures. This clinic sees women who are pre-menopausal and I am also the lead for the PMB services. Following on from this service there is an operative hysteroscopy clinic for resection of polyps and Essure sterilisation. This caseload is manly women who have bleeding problems but her other clinics include patients who have problems with the menopause and bleeding on HRT.
Other clinics include co leading a menopause service and a clinic within the Haemophilia centre for women with a bleeding disorder and gynaecology problems.
I am involved with student nurses, medical students and post-reg education and have an active teaching and training role, both with secondary care and primary care. My background is in gynaecology nursing, where I have held a number of posts from staff nurse to clinical nurse manager, before returning to a clinical role and was also the clinical lead for gynaecology alongside the nurse consultant role for 5 years.
I am currently the chair of the RCN Women’s Health Forum but prior to this was on the steering group of the gynaecology forum and on the old RCN Menopause group, which has reformed as the UK menopause group.
Mandy Myers - Forum Newsletter Editor
I am the Director of Nursing for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), where I have been in post since 2005.
Prior to working in abortion provision, I have worked in sexual and reproductive health care in one guise or another since 1991.
I spent my formative professional years working in genitourinary medicine, including HIV management, in London and subsequently in Derbyshire. During that time I also qualified in (what was then) family planning.
My next move was into Shropshire and teenage pregnancy where I learned a lot about the complexities of life and multi-agency working, the latter being key in rising to the challenge of reducing the teenage pregnancy rate.
In 2002, I had a wonderful opportunity to live in South Africa for three years, where I worked in sexual and reproductive health, including the national programme for the rollout of state-funded antiretroviral treatment for those with HIV – a massive public health initiative for the country.
When I returned to the UK I joined BPAS. I am committed to high quality, evidence-based women’s sexual and reproductive health services and to ensuring that women retain the right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy.
I am very pleased indeed to have been appointed to the RCN Women’s Health steering committee and I look forward to working with my colleagues and the broader membership to increase the profile of and improve women’s health.
Wendy Norton - Forum Newsletter Editor
After qualifying as a registered general nurse at Charles Frears School of Nursing and Midwifery in Leicester, my nursing career has focussed on women’s health care.
My clinical experience spans 18 years, across Leicester and Birmingham. My initial post was as a staff nurse and then deputy sister on a gynaecology ward in Leicester.
I then moved to Birmingham to work as a nurse specialist in sexual and reproductive health, and later I returned to Leicester to take on the role of infertility nurse specialist and unit manager at the BUPA Assisted Conception Unit. It was while I was working at BUPA that I completed my degree in sexual health.
In 2004, I moved into nurse education and was appointed to the role of Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University, and undertook my MSc in Professional Education.
I am currently the module leader for the sexual health and women’s health care modules for the Learning Beyond Registration programmes. I also have an active research remit, and my areas of interest are contraception and sexual health, sexuality, reproductive health and assisted conception, as well as women’s health care. I am presently involved in research exploring user’s perceptions of care delivery and services, and this is the subject of my PhD.
I am delighted to be joining the RCN Women’s Health Forum steering committee and to be given the opportunity to contribute to and develop initiatives that improve women’s health care provision.
Dianne Crowe
I work at Northumbria Healthcare Trust as the Lead Gynaecology Clinical Nurse Specialist. Our department is large on initiative and excellence in practice and 15 years ago the team developed a One Stop Abnormal Uterine Bleeding Service (AUBS) As a nurse hysteroscopist, I hold nurse-led clinics which enables me to investigate and manage women seen in the AUBS. The aim is to improve patient access and streamline the management of women suffering from abnormal uterine bleeding including post-menopausal bleeding for suspected cancer. The service meets the needs of modern women and we offer treatments which suit today’s busy lifestyles to include the medicated IUS. There is a great emphasis on a team approach where individual team member’s contributions are valued; doctors and nurses assume interchangeable roles within the patient’s clinical pathway. It works well and the patients like it.
In addition, I lead the abortion service at Hexham since medical abortion was introduced here in 1996 and subsequently developed nurse-led care. We also hold a daily emergency gynaecology service dealing with early pregnancy problems and to suspected PID. I received recognition for my team’s achievements when winning the Nursing Standard Surgical Nurse Award in 2002 and further receiving an MBE for services to women’s health. I am passionate about delivering a modern health service to meet the needs of today’s women. I have been an elected member of the former Gynaecology Forum, and now Women’s Health Forum for 8 years and remain as keen to share my experience and knowledge with other RCN members with an aim to influence nursing and policy through contributions at local, regional and national levels. I was a guideline group member of NICE: Heavy menstrual bleeding from 2005-07 and in 2011 I contributed to the RCOG: High Quality Women's Services Review. As a Forum, we work closely with professional bodies and this year we hope to improve working relationships with the FRSH looking at IUD training frameworks.
Jennie Deeks
I am the nurse colposcopist at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospital. I have been a gynaecology nurse since I qualified in 1999 and have worked on the ward, early pregnancy unit, pre-assessment unit, urodynamics clinic and eventually colposcopy, hysteroscopy and gynae outpatients. I have been a fully accredited colposcopist for two and a half years now and really enjoy my work.
Breda Anthony
RN, RM, BSc in Midwifery, MSC in Health Service Management and Policy, PhD student –final year.
I currently work two-days-a-week as a nurse consultant running my own colposcopy clinics at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
The rest of the week I am a research fellow at Aberdeen University and am currently completing my PhD, entitled Improving the care and treatment of women attending colposcopy clinics for treatment of an abnormal smear result.
I am committed and a keen colposcopist, even after 10 years of doing this job which I thoroughly enjoy. As a group we have organised and run successful annual colposocopy conference years.
Both myself and members of my committee work closely with BSCCP and NHSCSP to provide information and advice for all nurses as appropriate. It’s always a pleasure to provide help and support and encouragement to nurses thinking or starting their training.
If you need to contact me at any time just email g.b.anthony@abdn.ac.uk.
Jane-Elizabeth Tooke
Originally from Norfolk I have worked in Birmingham, London and Surrey before moving to North Lincolnshire.
My clinical background is in gynaecology. I have also worked in midwifery, family planning and education. I completed my MSc while working in primary care and am involved in all aspects of women’s health including supporting some aspects of transgender care and am the lead person for cervical cytology.
Originally a member of the former Gynaecological Nursing Forum Committee, my appointment to the RCN Women’s Health Committee has returned me to the roots of my journey as an activist.
Prior to the formation of the Yorkshire & The Humber regional board, I was an active member of the Yorkshire regional co-ordinating committee, representing the gynaecology forum for nine years. During this time I was the inaugural Chair of the regional gynaecology group.
As an elected member of the Yorkshire & The Humber board I represented women’s health, primary care, public health and midwifery for eight years, which included four years as a member of the board executive team as honorary nurse treasurer. I am currently Vice-Chair of the Scunthorpe branch.
Carmel Bagness- RCN Midwifery and Women's Health Adviser
Carmel is a registered nurse, practicing midwife and midwifery educationalist and has considerable expertise in midwifery education, and a background in midwifery and women’s reproductive health ethics.
She worked for Thames Valley University (TVU) as a senior lecturer, where she was involved in the creation of an innovative problem and enquiry based learning curriculum developed for both 78 week and three year midwifery pre registration programmes.
In 2002, she became Lead Midwife for Education at TVU, where she was responsible for a creative team of midwifery lecturers, who progressed midwifery education, scholarship and practice from pre-registration through to post graduate masters programmes.
In 2008, she took on the role of Associate Dean: Quality, Teaching, Learning and Assessment. Then in September 2009, she was seconded to the Department of Health’s Midwifery 2020 programme as Stakeholder Engagement Lead.
Midwifery 2020 was the government’s key programme of work around developing an informed vision of the contribution midwives will make to achieving quality, cost-effective maternity services for women, babies and families across the United Kingdom. During this time she was also on the steering group who produced the Department of Health’s position statement on advanced level nursing.
In 2011 she joined the RCN as Midwifery and Women’s Health Adviser. She has particular interests in reproductive and women’s health ethics, managing change, workforce management and creating effective environments to move forward practice and education for midwives and nurses.
Carmel said...
The Midwifery and Women’s Health Adviser role is about influencing and developing UK-wide health and social care policy and practice, in both midwifery and the full range of women’s health.
I plan to do this by making the best use of the expertise of RCN members and relevant professional, public and client/patient networks.
A key philosophy underpinning this, in particular, when influencing and shaping policy will be around celebrating good practice, while enhancing the need to have shared responsibility for challenging poor practice.
My role includes acting as a resource and conduit for responding to proposals and working groups across the health care provision at both strategic commissioning and operational levels of practice. This includes recognising the need to work within the constraints of contemporary health care provision, while expanding the evidence base to provide high quality cost effective care.
Channelling the knowledge explosion around us to make best use of available evidence, while creating opportunities for professionals to discuss contemporary practice, not just at national level, but also taking account of what we can learn from international health care provision, and how we can contribute to the global health care requirements of the 21st century.
Part of my role will be about supporting and facilitating the work for the Midwifery Forum, Fertility Nursing Forum and the Women’s Health Forum. Initially, this will be about enhancing understanding of how we work together to deliver current projects.
I am looking forward to actively engaging with the membership of the forums and exploring how we maximise influence over the future of health and social care.
Moving and influencing policy across the diverse range of women’s health care and the challenges also faced in maternity services are critical, while the privilege of this role will be the opportunities to work with, and beyond the RCN community.