Richard Leonard Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

Surrey, England, United Kingdom

The Trust is committed to improving the physical and mental health of people in Surrey and north east Hampshire, through delivering high standards of prevention, diagnosis, early intervention and care. Providing services across community settings, hospitals and residential homes, I was contracted to work with the Clinical Risk and Patient Safety Team.🔹 With the remit to lead serious incident reviews, adopting a systems based approach to deliver continuous improvement, and contribute towards enhancing patient safety and reducing clinical risk. I work in close partnership with practitioners and stakeholders across the system. I am fully conversant in the concepts of system based engineering and a human factors approach in delivering high quality healthcare.🔹 Applying expert level investigation and analytical skills, I lead on some of the most complex serious incident reviews. I prepare detailed evidenced based reports which identify good practice, highlight areas in need of improvement and develop action plans to support the Trust’s commitment to continuous improvement. 🔹 In the process, I have developed an in depth understanding of NHS operations, policy and culture together with excellent stakeholder engagement which has led to progressive, incremental improvement of processes, safety and patient care.

Specialist Crime South

Heading up a team of 30 expert Detectives, and leading investigations into serious, challenging and high profile cases, this was a role of responsibility and accountability, often against the backdrop of media scrutiny. Initially Detective Inspector within Homicide, I was further promoted to DCI in 2017. 🔹 There’s more to policing than finding criminals, and a large part of my role was managing people, projects, relationships and risk. The nature of our work involved investigating the type of crimes we all wish didn’t exist and as such, team welfare management was always a priority. I had the privilege of working with a dedicated and highly experienced team and took this opportunity to improve the working culture, creating an inclusive, supportive environment with emphasis on continuous improvement, training and development. 🔹 Investigations included homicide, attempted homicide, corporate manslaughter and serial offending – all completely unique, and as such, required a bespoke investigation strategy. Similar to managing multiple complex projects simultaneously, as DCI, I set the standards and the pace of work, ensuring we delivered outstanding service to the public, and kept investigations on track - meeting targets, and deadlines in the process. This rigorous approach enabled us to deliver positive outcomes for victims and their families and secure substantial custodial sentences for several serious offenders. 📣 I communicated at a senior level, including briefing the Home Secretary and Commissioner, and managed the communications and relations with press and media on high profile cases – which required a carefully considered approach. 🔹 With an outward facing and proactive approach, I built relationships in hard to reach London communities and delivered results - helping us to build trusting relationships and restore public confidence in policing in some of London's most challenging areas.

Detective Inspector

💡 Recognising an opportunity to save £5.4m savings annually and increase our efficiency, I presented a business case to deliver this and was selected to lead this change and transformation project. The project addressed central crime services around victim focus and I identified key issues and gained deeper understanding through leading focus groups with all stakeholders, conducting reviews and attending all affected units. With oversight of the budget and project delivery, I led all logisital, people, wellbeing and process elements of the change which included closing 32 units and ensuring all 138 affected employees were redeployed to fill existing vacancies in the force. I managed the communications strategy, ensuring employees were engaged, their concerns addressed and that they were kept informed and included throughout the change process - which proved effective in securing buy-in and overcoming resistance to change. 💡 In partnership with Unisys, I also developed and introduced a new automated process to support victim communications, which enhanced our service to the public and created additional cost savings. To ensure effective implementation and adoption, I trained 32 change agents from each London borough in how to use the system and train others. 🚀 The change and transformation programme was a resounding success, was delivered 3-months ahead of schedule and the National Crime Survey demonstrated an uplift in customer satisfaction. ✔️ Additional Project: During this time, I co-authored a new operating model which standardised 126 differently named Criminal Investigation Departments in the Met. across 32 CID offices - bringing much needed clarity to the work of CID!

Detective Inspector

Focussing on educating children and young people, I was tasked with increasing awareness of how they could be jointly convicted of a crime if they had prior awareness (Joint Enterprise). I worked in close collaboration with community and education partners to achieve this and created a direct point of contact referral system. ✔️ Results: My approach proved highly effective in increasing awareness of this case law amongst young people, played a key part is addressing serious youth violence, and it was widely adopted by UK law enforcment partners.

Investigated unsolved complex homicides and some of the most historical serious crimes, using a range of new investigation techniques and legislation (double-jeopardy) to bring offenders to justice. ✔️ Requiring a tenacious and innovative approach, I revisited witnesses, analysed evidence, used polygraph tests - and was successful in progressing several cases towards a resolution.

A role of responsibility which demands high level organisational, planning and communication skills, I provided day business management support to the Assistant Commissioner. This included supporting projects and business objectives, reviewing and updating policing proceedures, and researching and compiling written reports and presentations. ✏️ As the right-hand person to the Assistant Commissioner, I also managed in-bound queries, meetings, and provided an informed and sensitive response to complex queries.

On relocating from Kent to the Met, I was selected to be part of this specialist unit, leading homicide cases and serious offences in London. I led an intelligence unit within the Major Investigation Team, embraced new tech and innovation, and proved effective in resolving numerous serious crimes during this time.

Police Constable To Detective Sergeant

Like all new recruits, I initially worked in response policing - responding to the full range of emergency calls for help from the public, taking ownership and safely resolving situations. Showing a flair for investigations, I was selected for Detective training, and progressed to Detective Sergeant. In this capacity, I led Intelligence, - analysing crime patterns and crime trends to target specific offenders, identify crime hotspots and lead proactive actions to drive down crime.

Bsc (Hons) - Policing

Certificate, Level 2 - A Systems Approach To Learning From Patient Safety Incidents

Education record

Professionalising Investigations Programme (PIP3) Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) Investigation of Sudden Unexplained Death.

Investigating Incidents - A Systems Based Approach, Clinical/Medical Social Work, Pass