Members

Sandy Blake

Sandy Blake has been appointed as Clinical Lead for the National Falls Harm Prevention Programme. She is the Director of Nursing, Patient Safety and Quality, at Whanganui District Health Board, where she led the development of the DHB’s falls injury prevention programme, and sponsored a care indicator survey in the hospital and community to measure the prevalence and impact of falls. Read more about Sandy...

Dr Shankar Sankaran

Dr Andrew Jull

Andrew joined the group in October 2012 and represents the ‘First, Do No Harm’ patient safety campaign initiated by the Northern Region Health Plan, which outlines a set of shared objectives for major public healthcare providers in the northern region of New Zealand’s North Island (i.e. Northern Region District Health Boards (DHBs) and their primary care partners, the Greater Auckland Integrated Health Network, the National Hauora Coalition and Alliance Health+). Read more about Andrew...

Beryl Wilkinson

Beryl Wilkinson is a consumer representative in the Commission’s expert advisory groups for both the falls and medication safety programmes. Read more about Beryl...

Sandy Turnwald

Sandy is a Registered Nurse with extensive experience in aged residential care in Clinical Manager and Care Home Manager roles. She currently holds a national role at Bupa Care Services as Deputy Director of Nursing, having been in a national Quality and Risk Management role with Bupa for seven years. Read more about Sandy...

Jan Adams

Jan is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Waikato District Health Board, having been appointed to that position after holding general management positions and the Director of Nursing and Midwifery role. Read more about Jan...

Nicola Turner

Nicola is General Manager of Enliven, Presbyterian Support Central (PSC). Initially an occupational therapist, Nicola has a Masters in Business Studies, and has been in health management roles for the last 23 years, working for the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners and Hutt Valley District Health Board. Read more about Nicola...

Sonia Gamblen

Sonia is the Director of Nursing for Tairawhiti District Health, a position which also carries the DHB portfolio for quality and risk management, and as such has great influence on patient safety. Read more about Sonia...

Professor Ngaire Kerse

Professor Ngaire Kerse is a general practitioner with training in geriatric medicine and a PhD from Melbourne University in health promotion for older people. Ngaire returned from a sabbatical year mid-2014, during which time Associate Professor Clare Robertson had joined the EAG to bring a strong research perspective. Read more about Ngaire...

Judith Johnson

Judith is a Registered Nurse (RN) with extensive experience in education and aged care, including owning and operating facilities and holding senior management roles in large companies. Read more about Judith...

Associate Professor Clare Robertson 

Assoc Prof Clare Robertson joined the EAG in February 2013 to replace Professor Ngaire Kerse who is on sabbatical leave. Clare is an internationally recognised falls prevention expert who has recently retired after working for 20 years as a falls prevention researcher at the Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago. Clare has had formal training in science, information systems, statistics, and health economics. She has a PhD in Public Health from the University of Otago. Read more about Clare...

Dr Paul Watson

Ken Stewart

Former members

We would like to acknowledge these people for their input as members:

Gina Langlands (General Manager – Quality and Risk, Bupa Care Services) from the group’s inception until early 2014

Bubsie MacFarlane (Chief Executive Officer for Aroha Mai Cancer Support Services) from mid 2013 to mid 2014

Caroline Gall (Manager, Public Injury Insurance at ACC).

Commission Team

Carmela Petagna, Senior Portfolio Manager

Gabrielle Nicholson, Senior Project Manager (Implementation)

Shelley Jones, Programme Advisor (Development)

Gillian Bohm, Principal Advisor Quality Improvement

Richard Hamblin (Director, Health Quality Evaluation) and Matthew Pitt (Senior Advisor, Reportable Events) both bring specialist expertise to support the programme's work.