Kevin Hunter Email & Phone Number

Bristol, United Kingdom

A member of the senior leadership team, my role involves delivering innovation and improvement programmes at pace and scale across our region or nationally and leading a team of project/programme managers, improvement leads and clinicians. The Academic Health Science Network interacts with organisations across the health and care system, including academic or research partners. This sees me working with clinical, academic, and non-clinical stakeholders in what are complex, high pressured, political environments. Providing specialist expertise on project management, quality improvement, or making change and using data, delivery requires influencing and negotiating skills, and collaborative working across organisational boundaries. I often finding myself representing the organisation at local, regional and national meetings or events.As a respected leader, I co-led the National Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme, a national programme aiming to reduce the use of restrictive practice in mental health. I led this programme from inception to delivery working strategically with senior colleagues, commissioners and providers, and patient and family representatives, all requiring strong relationships and tailored approaches to communications. I designed and oversaw wider programme delivery across the organisation, including implementing our project lifecycle and Verto system. Several projects I’ve delivered or overseen were selected for national adoption and spread, including the Emergency Laparotomy project, Mortality reviews, systemwide adoption of National Early Warning Scores, and ED Safety Checklist. I work closely with National NHSE colleagues to ensure that good practice is shared, and wider adoption supported.I supported the CEO to develop our relicensing application and design a new PMO approach for the new licence, working with internal teams and external senior Board members and stakeholders to develop and submit a business case to our commissioners.

Bristol, United Kingdom

Setting up and leading our award-winning patient safety programme, I oversaw daily operational management and leadership of the team, in additional to providing strategic direction and management of our business plan. I managed our budgets, contracts, and evaluation needs, and our Patient Safety Collaborative Board comprising of senior colleagues from across our systems.I developed collaborative relationships, using project management and quality improvement approaches to deliver transformational change, including a strong enabling focus on improving safety culture and an appreciation of human factors. Examples includes our Primary Care Collaborative and the Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative which introduced a care bundle approach in acute care. I remain incredibly proud of our achievements and impact, with many of our projects having won national awards and evaluated or published in peer-reviewed and specialist journals.Working with the Royal College of Physicians, my leadership saw the West of England the first region to collectively enact the Learning from Deaths structured case record review guidance. Through introducing clear project structure, and directly training over 100 cascade trainers, my leadership saw all healthcare providers embed the new guidance, exploit learning opportunities, and share outcome data. This work ultimately led to regional adoption of ReSPECT, with our Mortality Reviews Collaborative winning national recognition, including a HSJ Patient Safety award.My project and programme management experience saw me acting as our subject-matter expert, often called upon to coach internal and external colleagues. I designed and built our project lifecycle as a consistent framework to project delivery, governance and reporting. I was the organisational metrics lead, overseeing our reporting and performance and sat on the AHSN Network group which created the ‘LifeQI’ system used to support organisations' improvement activities.

Weston Super Mare

As a Divisional Manager I oversaw a large surgical directorate and various clinical and support teams which gave me significant exposure and experience in operational NHS management. I was responsible for effective performance management of the entire surgical directorate, including rotas and workforce planning, in addition to various performance, audit, and CIP/QUIPP targets across the hospital.In addition to supporting emergency care, a key element of my role was balancing our elective performance against the backdrop of increased bed occupancy and ED attendance, and the impact this had on our patients. Consequently, I was also responsible for patient flow and access teams and worked closely with colleagues to ensure resource and capacity to deliver safe, timely and quality-driven care.I represented the trust and surgical specialties in external discussions with commissioners including demand vs capacity planning and contracting, ensuring an efficient and effective service whilst balancing resource and budget restraints.I demonstrated the highest standards of management and leadership practice in the recruitment, development, and outputs of staff within my division and across the wider trust. This required strategic thinking and partnership working with staff at all levels to analyse complex information, recognise performance, and enable them to make improvements to deliver efficient and effective care. In addition to governance and performance, my role included developing our business plan and strategy, plus management of investigations, incidents, and complaints across the trust.I was part of the On Call Managers rota where I had full responsibility for the hospital out of hours and at weekends. During an extremely challenging Christmas period, and in the absence of the Director of Ops, I was able to call on my previous training and experience to provide leadership and management to ensure the hospital continued to function and maintained safe patient care.

Bristol

Initially on secondment from the military, I was responsible for delivering the Centralisation of Specialist Paediatrics from North Bristol NHS Trust to University Hospitals Bristol Children’s Hospital. This was a complex transfer of children’s services several years in the making. Joining the project with less than 14 months to transfer, and with no firm plan or schedule in place, I successfully delivered the transfer of staff, patients, and services safely, on time and to budget.I developed the reporting and governance structure around the Programme, including formal project plan. Alongside my counterpart at UH Bristol, we managed risks and issues, decisions, finance, and the critical milestones and often had to find innovative and practical solutions to solve the issues faced and tight deadlines. I represented NBT across various boards and subgroups, including Senior Execs Group. The role saw me coordinating various support functions across the trusts including IM&T, communications and HR, including trade unions as part of the HR and public consultation processes.I worked closely with Medical and Nursing teams, plus the ambulance service, to successfully arrange the transfer of the paediatric patients and all the equipment across many sites despite facing resistance from staff and patients. Given specialties were split across adult and paediatric services, it was essential to identify individual service complexities and their requirements, including understanding pathways, data, referrals, and service delivery provision. Delivering the programme was tough in a rapidly changing environment still trying to retain normal levels of capacity and treatment targets alongside safe patient care. Excellent communication and engagement skills, plus understanding and respecting the various views, ensured stakeholders with different interests and concerns felt involved and heard through the process, drawing on all my negotiation and persuasion skills to achieve this.

Various Postings

My various operational and HR roles throughout my military career saw a requirement for me to be organised and pro-active, absorb or react to knowledge and information quickly, and to remain calm and clearheaded during stressful situations. I learnt to pay attention to detail, act with integrity and honesty, to be respectful of others, and how to build, lead, or work within a successful team. My last role in the military was Adjutant of the Airborne Delivery Wing (ADW) which provided parachute training to all three services and special forces. As Adjutant, I reported directly to the Commanding Officer and oversaw all HR, training, and admin functions. Responsible for successful delivery of various projects, discipline, and wider training continuity, my role also ensured the readiness of ADW members in case of operational deployment. I was accountable for the ADW financial and training budget, working closely with the finance manager. The role required me to use various skills developed through my career to that point, becoming an expert in HR, finance, operational leadership, and project delivery. In all respects, it was essential to manage relationships and engage with colleagues at all levels, both within and outside the military setting. Unfortunately, I was injured on operational service during my deployment to Afghanistan and required an areomed evacuation back to the UK. This was my last role in the RAF before eventually joining the NHS on secondment to finish my recovery and before my medical discharge.Before joining the ADW, I led a deployment function which was responsible for filling over 150 critical operational posts across Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Falkland Islands. Taken from a pool of over 2,000 people, this required great organisational and analytical skills, thinking creatively, adaptability and resilience, but also compassion and sensitivity given the risks for those deploying.

Gloucester, United Kingdom

During my recovery from injuries in the military, I volunteered as a secondee to work with a local charity as an assistant team leader delivering the Prince's Trust Team programme to disadvantaged and unemployed 16-25 year olds. Following this, I was asked to undertake the official Prince's Trust Team Leader Training and subsequently delivered a highly successful National Citizen Service programme to 15/16 year old school leavers. Based on my own background and experience, this was something I really wanted to do - which in addition to learning more about myself, enabled me to offer something back whilst sharing my knowledge and experience to benefit others. Despite the challenges, I really enjoyed my secondment but was recalled by the Royal Air Force to undertake some further training prior to my medical discharge.

Master Of Science - Ms, Healthcare Leadership, Merit

The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Programme is a master’s degree programme in Healthcare Leadership, also leading to a NHS Leadership Academy.

Education record

Activities and Societies: I volunteered for the College team which worked with local disabled children to help them partake in physical.

Education record

Activities and Societies: I spent the last 2 years as a prefect helping run the chess and sports club. In my spare time from school I was.