Building on my freelance experience of providing business support services to a wide range of SMEs, I established Insequa Ltd along my business partner. We have grown strongly year-on-year. We now have a great team providing support across the United Kingdom. We deliver the following services:Tender Writing - we write tenders for a wide range of care contracts, helping providers to increase their chances of winning the contract and expanding their business. We currently have a win rate of 92%.Policies and Procedures - we offer innovative, game changing care policies via a cloud-based delivery system that provides company owners with evidence their policies have been read and understood, thereby promoting stronger governance, service quality and safety.My role in the company has been focused on developing our service profile, managing the quality of everything we do and building our team. I am closely involved in every aspect of our service delivery and in the strategic growth and development of the company.

I took those core academic skills of critical thinking and appraisal, data analysis and technical writing onto a commercial footing. I worked with a wide range of international clients, particularly in Australia and the US, as well as the UK, providing statistical analytic services, writing technical papers and writing grant applications. My clients were as diverse as the Red Crescent to the Schwarzenegger Administration in California. A large part of my freelance work involved working with social care and healthcare providers in the UK to support them in writing compelling and winning tender submissions. I wrote and managed many care tenders and also provided training to larger organisations on tender writing and bid management.

During a 17 year academic career I carried out a great deal of applied research, collaborating with health and care providers to use research as a catalyst for organisational development. My research was truly mixed methodology, applying everything from randomised control trials to eidetic phenomenology to the challenge of understanding and advancing our health and care systems. My research focused on how multi-sectoral, statutory care systems work more effectively, collaboratively and respectfully with people with long-term medical conditions, disabilities and in later life. In my teaching roles, I developed a multidisciplinary bachelor's degree pathway in the management of long-term conditions and was Course Leader for the research methods modules across multiple health-related Masters and taught Doctorate degrees.

My deliberate plan was to gain experience in as wide a range of care contexts I could, including intensive, acute, theatre, hospital, community and aged care settings. I learned to be self-confident and resourceful, I learned people management and time management skills, planning, communication and organisational skills. I developed skills and an understanding I still draw upon today, 30 years later.