Clinical leads

Dr Arthur Morris

Dr Arthur Morris is a clinical microbiologist at Auckland City Hospital.

Dr Morris completed his science and medical degrees at the University of Otago and gained his fellowship from the Royal Australian College of Pathologists in 1989.

He has a long-standing interest in healthcare associated infections and their prevention, and has been involved with several Ministry of Health advisory and writing groups.

He has been clinical lead for the Surgical Site Infection Improvement Programme at Te Tāhū Hauora since 2013.

Dr Carl Horsley

Dr Carl Horsley is the clinical lead for system safety at Te Tāhū Hauora. He is a dual-trained intensivist currently working in Middlemore Hospital, Auckland. He has a research interest in the use of simulation to build system resilience, the sociology of safety and the intersection of te ao Māori and modern safety science.

Carl recently completed his MSc in Human Factors and System Safety at Lund University, Sweden, with a thesis examining the way in which the current safety norm has been formed and stabilised. He is also an active member of the Resilient Healthcare Network, a collaboration of safety scientists, researchers and clinicians exploring the implications of resilience engineering in health care. Carl is particularly interested in how to embed these ideas in everyday practice and has authored several book chapters on aspects of this work.

Dr Clive Bensemann

Dr Clive Bensemann is the clinical lead for the mental health and addiction (MHA) quality improvement programme. He works at Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau as clinical head for the Mental Health Services for Older People.

Clive trained first as a general practitioner before specialising as a psychiatrist and then as a medical administrator. He practices clinically in both general adult and older age psychiatry, and was previously clinical director of MHA services at Waikato DHB, and then director of MHA services at Auckland DHB. This work involved design and establishment of new services and management of large-scale service change. He was a sponsor of the national MHA key performance indicators programme for seven years and has an interest in measurement and use of improvement science.

Dr David Hughes

David has been working as the clinical lead of the adverse event learning programme at Te Tāhū Hauora since 2018. He is also the Chief Medical Officer at PHARMAC. Over the last ten years, he has held a number of senior clinical leadership roles within the public hospital system in New Zealand. Originally working in mental health, he became increasingly drawn to addressing system quality and safety issues. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators in early 2018, having completed a Master of Management degree at Massey University.

Kathryn Quick

Kat Quick is the clinical lead for the trauma rehabilitation project. She is a physiotherapist, having completed her training at the University of West England Bristol in 2004. Kat has been in New Zealand since 2012 and worked at Auckland District Health Board from October 2012 until August 2017. In her previous clinical lead and advanced practitioner roles, she has led multiple and complex service improvement projects and completed the DHB’s performance improvement green belt training. Kat is a current member of Physiotherapy New Zealand and the New Zealand Medical Advisory Board for Guillain-Barré Syndrome and currently practices in Dunedin providing rehabilitation for people following traumatic injury.

Dr David Knight

Dr David Knight is an Intensive Care Specialist from Christchurch. He originally trained in the UK where he dabbled in general medicine, ED and anaesthesia before committing to a career in intensive care. He completed his ICU training in 2006 with an extended clinical and research period at one of the largest trauma hospitals in the UK. During his specialist career he has developed an interest in neurocritical care, education and development of robust multispecialty collaboration.  He has a passion for sustainable improvement and ensuring that our critical care systems can deliver when faced with even the greatest challenges. He is relishing the opportunity to work on a national collaborative tasked with identifying and delivering tangible benefits to patients suffering from brain injury throughout New Zealand.

David is always keen to listen and understand the real reasons behind an opinion. He is particularly receptive if you are paddling next to him in a racing kayak.

Mrs Julie Daltrey

PhD Candidate Nurse Practitioner, MN(hons)

Julie has been a New Zealand Registered Nurse for 23 years and a Nurse Practitioner (NP) for six years. She gained her Master of Nursing at University of Auckland (UoA) and is currently in the provisional year of her doctoral study. Her research focuses on the development of a system to support nurses to identify acute deterioration in people living in residential aged care (RAC).

She has held roles in rural hospital nursing, district nursing, nurse education and chronic care management. In 2008 Julie focused solely on older adults becoming the first Waikato District Health Board (DHB) employed Gerontology Nurse Specialist dedicated to supporting nurses work in RAC. She used this platform to successfully challenge for NP (older adults) registration in 2015. She is currently a professional teaching fellow at UoA.

She has been recognised for her academic, clinical, and leadership contribution to nursing. She was presented with the UoA Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences Denis Pickup Clinical Educator Award in 2017, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation national “Services to Nursing” award in 2015 for her “contribution to gerontology nursing at a local and national level” (Marion Guy Present NZNO) and Waikato DHB awards for quality improvement initiatives including the introduction of the SBARR communication tool and the development of a best practice guideline for management of Scabies in residential aged care. 

Following a year of working with Te Tāhū Hauora in a deputised role she now holds the clinical lead position for the RAC quality improvement activity.

Dr Nigel Millar

Dr Nigel Millar works on improving health systems, health informatics and clinical leadership independently. He was previously Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Southern DHB and prior to that Canterbury DHB giving a total of 18 years as a CMO in New Zealand. Prior to this Nigel was Clinical Director of Older Persons Health in Canterbury for 10 years.

A geriatrician and internal medicine physician by training (Newcastle, UK) Nigel came to Christchurch in 1992 and practiced clinically as a Geriatrician and Acute Medicine Physician for 30 years alongside his senior leadership roles.

During tenure clinical director of the older persons health service he led the Elder Care Canterbury initiative which created a unified and coordinated aged care community plus a series of successful improvement initiatives. Nigel introduced the interRAI aged care assessment programme to New Zealand and led it through to it becoming the national standard single assessment protocol for older people. He continues a leadership role in this as deputy chair of the national interRAI Leadership Advisory Board (iLAB).

Nigel acted as the clinical lead for the Atlas of Healthcare Variation at Te Tāhū Hauora and personally championed the section of polypharmacy in the elderly as part of his passion for improving the care of older people.

Nigel held CMO roles and gained extensive experience in emergency management during the H1N1, Christchurch Earthquakes and latterly Covid-19. He was part of the leadership team of the Canterbury Health System which was recognised by the Kings Fund as a world leading success in successful transformation and integration.

Nigel is a clinical advisor to Te Tāhū Hauora. He is also an interRAI Fellow for New Zealand, a Fellow of the Royal Australasian Colleges of Physicians and of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators.

Dr Sally Roberts

Dr Sally Roberts is a graduate of the University of Auckland School of Medicine graduating in 1989. She is a clinical microbiologist and infectious diseases physician at Auckland City Hospital and is the clinical head of microbiology and clinical lead for infection prevention and control (IPC) at Te Whatu Ora Te Toka Tumai Auckland.

Since August 2011 she has been employed by Te Tāhū Hauora as the national clinical lead for the infection prevention and control programme supporting the Hand Hygiene New Zealand, Surgical Site Infection Improvement programme and other quality improvement programmes. She has a strong interest in clinical governance and patient safety.”

Over the years Dr Roberts has been on a number of New Zealand Ministry of Health working groups. More recently she has been involved in the New Zealand Ministry of Health National COVID-19 Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and chairs the IPC TAG. She has contributed to the development of national IPC guidance for COVID-19.

Dr Tammy Pegg

Tammy graduated from the University of Leeds in 2000 and completed basic medical training in the UK prior to studying for a PhD at Oxford University.  Her research examined the effects of surgical revascularisation on myocardial function and injury and was shortlisted for the Vivenne Thomas American Heart Association prize for research into cardiovascular surgery and New Zealand young investigator of the year (2009).  Tammy moved to New Zealand in 2009 where she completed advanced training in cardiology prior to moving to Nelson and Marlborough where she works as a consultant cardiologist with a specialist interest in heart failure and cardiac imaging.  In addition to her passion for patient centred communication and shared goals of care/advance care planning she promotes the access to defibrillators for pre hospital cardiac arrest across the top of the south island.  In 2012 she lead a team that piloted the first direct pre hospital treat and transfer scheme for heart attack patients and then became part of the New Zealand STEMI working group.  Tammy is the Head of Department of Cardiology at Nelson Marlborough District Health Board, and is currently the clinical lead for the shared goals of care and advanced care planning working groups with the commission.  She lives in Nelson with 2 free range children, her husband and several chickens.