Meet the team

Linda Crofts is the Regional ACP Faculty Lead for NE&Y, a role she job shares with Julie Perrin. Linda trained as a nurse at the Royal Free Hospital in London in the 1980s and practiced in Operating theatre nursing and Emergency Care. Since then she has had a long career working in Professional and Practice Development, Higher Education and Learning and Development. This led her to develop a special interest in new roles, including Advanced Practitioners and in particular, the success factors in how these roles can make a difference in practice. She led the first workforce hub in an Integrated Care System bringing together the key elements for workforce redesign and transformation in one place to train, develop and support the workforce for the future.

Having left London 16 years ago she is now firmly settled in Yorkshire with her family though still returns for visits when she can. In her free time she can usually be found out on the Pennine Way listening to podcasts while walking her dog. She also enjoys spending time with family and friends, cooking, reading and failing to follow plot lines in TV dramas.

Max is the Regional Programme Manager for the NE&Y Faculty supporting the Regional Faculty leads. Prior to this role Max was the Project Lead for New Roles across South Yorkshire & Bassetlaw ICS where he was responsible for the implementation of new roles such as Trainee Nursing Associates across Health and Social care organisations. Max has always been interested in workforce development across Health and Social Care and supporting other to develop their careers.

Asma is the Programme Administrator within the North East & Yorkshire Advancing Practice Faculty – assisting with a range of administrative tasks that support the smooth day to day operations of the team and to ensure the ACP programme is managed effectively. Asma joined the team in February 2021 with a background in recruitment, compliance and managing complex care patients.  She is passionate about health and social care and ensuring the workforce of today and tomorrow meet patient needs and NHS values.

Eliza joined the North East & Yorkshire Advancing Practice Faculty in August 2022 as part of the HEE Graduate and Student Placement Scheme. Prior to this, Eliza completed her BSc in Psychology and MSc in Psychological Approaches to Health at the University of Leeds. She is passionate about working in health and social care and workforce development

– MCP ACCP (mFICM), BSc (Hons) RN, PCGAHP, NMP (V300) FHEA

– Regional Advancing Practice Supervision & Assessment Lead (HEE NE&Y)

– Advanced Critical Care Practitioner (ACCP member FICM) – Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals

– Assistant Professor in Advanced Critical Care Practice (Fellow – HEA) & Lead for Advanced Clinical Practice Programmes – Northumbria University

– PhD Candidate (‘ImpACCPt’ Study) – Northumbria University

– Intensive Care Society (ICS): Council Member, Education Committee Member & Chair Advanced Practitioners in Critical Care (APCC) Professional Advisory Group (PAG)

Sadie qualified as an adult nurse in 2008 and has since worked in various critical care departments. During this time, she progressed to her current advanced practice roles. Sadie has always had a great passion for teaching and academia which compliments her clinical work. She has developed an extensive teaching portfolio which spans multiple disciplines within postgraduate healthcare education, making a wide range of contributions on local and international levels. Her dual role has afforded her the opportunity to participate in and/or lead multiple education and research projects with Health Education England, the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, NHS Blood & Transplant services and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. Sadie has various national links and responsibilities within the field of advanced practice and has most recently begun work with Wiley publishing to develop a suite of advanced practice textbooks.

Sadie also sits on the Intensive Care Society (ICS) and North East Intensive Care Society (NEICS) committees and is chair for the ICS Advanced Practitioners in Critical Care Professional Advisory Group. Her key areas of interest are post-graduate healthcare education, acute, emergency, and critical care, physiology and pharmacology, advanced level practice and simulation and virtual reality education modalities.

Kirsty qualified as an adult nurse in 2004 where she began her career working in medical admissions and coronary care. She then progressed to be one of the first critical care outreach sisters within the trust, and this is where she embarked on her MSc in Advanced Practice. This role combined with the knowledge and skills from her MSc fuelled her enthusiasm, drive, and capability to ensure patients receive high quality care and interventions in a timely manner. Kirsty successfully secured her first ACP post in 2012.

Kirsty has gained a breadth of experience within medical disciplines, including Hospital out of hours, Acute medicine/ambulatory care, Frailty, Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Community rehabilitation and Respiratory.

Kirsty now specialises within respiratory medicine, where she has established an ACP led pleural outpatient service and has a passion for pleural disease. Alongside this she is highly motivated to deliver quality improvement projects, is an active mentor of trainee ACPs, and is an enthusiastic member of both the pleural society and the respiratory ACP network. She values collaborative multi-professional working to develop and improve quality of services delivered to our patients.

Charlotte is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner and Clinical Lead for Advanced Practitioners at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust.

She works within frailty, contributing to MDT comprehensive geriatric assessments covering 2 acute frailty wards and leads an ACP led rapid access frailty clinic. As clinical lead, she has contributed to the development of the trainee ACP programme and helped expand the team substantially at Harrogate as well as developed Governance standards and guidance. Specialist interest include falls, falls assessment, bone health and prevention of fragility fractures.

She has a passion for equality, diversity and inclusion and is an enthusiastic intersectional feminist and is currently undertaking a 12-month secondment with NEY HEE and Huddersfield University as the Workforce Race Equality Standards Champion. The aim of this role is to raise awareness of barriers and develop EDI standards as well as improve access and experience for professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds within the ACP workforce. You can contact Charlotte via email on C.Barker2@hud.ac.uk

Haley Whelpton is the specialist advisor for learning disability and autism for the Regional Advanced Practice Faculty for North-East and Yorkshire. She is a registered occupational therapist and chair of the Royal College of Occupational Therapy Northern & Yorkshire Regional Group. 

Haley worked in various areas as an occupational therapist her last full time clinical role as a specialist occupational therapist for people with complex physical disabilities, often with learning/intellectual disability.  For the last 8 years she has worked for Health Education England and the North East & North Cumbria Integrated Care System in various roles including quality, implementation of the Nursing Associate role and latterly as a workforce development manager in the learning disability and autism workstream.  This work provides an underpinning foundation to understand the relevance of advanced practitioners in the learning disability and autism workforce, and the potential impact they can have for people with a learning disability and autistic people, both in specialist and mainstream services. You can contact Haley via email on H.Whelpton@shu.ac.uk

Sarah Fisher qualified as a nurse with a BSc in Nursing studies followed by an MSc in Advanced Professional practice and has worked across various acute specialities including general surgery, gynaecology and a nurse led medical unit. She has spent the last 15 years working in primary care covering NHS Direct, GP out of hours, walk in centres and latterly GP Practice. Sarah is a Queens Nurse and has won awards for leadership in primary care including Nursing in Practice – Nurse of the Year for her contribution to primary care services. Sarah joined the South Yorkshire Faculty of Advanced Practice in 2000 as the primary care lead, being becoming Professional Lead in 2021.

– Training Programme Director – Primary Care (West Yorkshire) 

– Advanced Adult Nursing Diploma 

– MSc Specialist Community Public Health Nurse 

– Advancing Professional Practice PG

– Independent Prescriber 

Sherrie qualified as an Adult Nurse in 2006 from Leeds University and has since studied at multiple Higher Education Establishments across Yorkshire. Sherrie has over 27 years’ experience in the NHS and currently works as a Community Matron having spent all of her career in Primary/Community Care. Sherrie is passionate about supporting workforce development and professional growth and is part of the Advanced Practice forum within Bradford District Care Trust. Additionally, Sherrie leads the social media account networking and sharing information. Sherrie has a specialist interest in advanced care planning and dementia support.  Sherrie joined the Regional Faculty team in September 2022 as the Primary Care Training Programme Director covering West Yorkshire region.

Rehma has recently joined the faculty team as regional workforce lead for physician associates and anaesthesia associates. She has been in this role for the HEE North West since November 2021 and continues to do this alongside her role in NEY. She maintains clinical practice working as a physician associate in general surgery at Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust. She was one of the first physician associates to graduate from University of Leeds pilot Physician Associate course in 2017 and a former physician associate ambassador for Yorkshire and Humber. She is extremely passionate about utilising medical associate professions forworkforce solutions and transformation.