Jay Hamilton

Business Development Director

Prior to joining Health Innovation Manchester, Jay worked as a project consultant working with both the NHS and pharmaceutical companies helping them to navigate complex Joint Working arrangements.

Before this Jay worked in pharma in a number of roles including  Senior Sales Management, Market Access and Training and Development.

She brings deep insight and understanding to the organisation around collaborative project work and a passion for transforming ideas into action.

Peter Richards

Head Of Communications

Peter has extensive experience in insight and communications planning across the public sector, health, pharma and consumer industries and leads on the delivery of Health Innovation Manchester’s communications strategy. This includes supporting the communications of our programmes and promoting the role of innovation in Greater Manchester’s health and care system.

In recent times, he’s developed a particular interest in the role of digital innovation in health and care and led the communications on the rollout of the Greater Manchester Care Record – from health and care organisations and frontline workers, and most importantly, to the public. Indeed it’s the impact of Health Innovation Manchester’s work on the citizens of Greater Manchester that drives his interest and bringing this to life through innovative use of communications.

Emily Gray

Head of Corporate Strategy and Governance

Emily joined HInM in 2021, supporting acceleration of data sharing across GM during the pandemic and developing GM ICS digital strategy. She now oversees the HInM Corporate Office – a central hub for strategic planning, facilitating effective decision making across partners, accelerating the design and execution of priority initiatives and managing executive workflow aligned to delivery the HInM strategy.

In this fast-paced role reporting to the Director of Strategy, Emily leverages a breadth of experience and skills from the multi-disciplinary nature of a Classics degree as well as leadership roles in church and rowing contexts, including 11 years as a cox.

She enjoys learning from and collaborating with experts in different fields, being enthusiastic about high standards and grace, bringing order out of chaos – and resting well.

Cara Afzal

Programme Director: Digital and Data

With a career spanning across acute, mental health, and primary care, as well as collaborations with local government, Cara has demonstrated exceptional leadership in spearheading multi-disciplinary teams. Her expertise extends to working closely with industry, academic institutions, and NHS partners to drive the development and implementation of innovative transformation programmes within healthcare.

Cara’s academic background includes an MPhil in the Epidemiology of Chronic Widespread Pain from the University of Manchester, reflecting her deep interest in research and her keen interest in leveraging digital innovation to translate evidence into practical solutions. Throughout her career, she has led various pivotal initiatives, notably playing a crucial role in a large-scale Electronic Patient Record (EPR) deployment, recognised as one of the largest digital transformation programmes undertaken in the NHS. Additionally, Cara has held a prominent position as a Divisional Director in the acute sector and has an extensive background in innovation and research in the healthcare environment.

In her current role at Health Innovation, Cara has responsibility for overseeing the delivery of the organisation’s digital transformation portfolio. This portfolio encompasses a diverse range of initiatives aimed at advancing healthcare delivery on behalf of the Greater Manchester health and care system. Cara’s is keen to drive impactful change through digital innovation and is committed to improving healthcare outcomes and patient experience.

Christine Holt

Head of Programme Management Office

At HInM, Christine is responsible for the APMO function, assuring progress across HInM’s innovation pipeline and delivery portfolio, including tracking, monitoring, risk and issue management are aligned with local, national and regional objectives. Reporting to the Director of Corporate Strategy, working in collaboration with other executives and programme directors, in assuring delivery of the agreed HInM business plan and delivery portfolio.

Prior to joining Health Innovation Manchester, Christine has worked in Programme and Project Management in different areas of Public and Third Sector. Most recently for the NHS at North Manchester Hospital leading on the transaction from Pennine Acute to Manchester Foundation Trust and PMO Manager in the Estates and Facilities Team.

Other key roles: Leading on the Design and Build of the award winning Number One Riverside for Rochdale Borough Council; Lead PM at Chester Zoo delivering key animal enclosure and other visitor attractions. Christine also worked for a number of years as a Civil Servant for the Department of Work and Pensions where she started her project experience working as IT Transformation Lead for Manchester Central District Jobcentre Plus

Lauren Constable

Head of User Centred Design

Lauren is responsible for the User Centred Design function at Health Innovation Manchester, a capability she has evolved to embed human-centred thinking across the organisation. As Head of UCD, she plays a key role in ensuring that user centred approaches are integrated into HInM’s programmes, partnerships and ways of working — helping to drive innovation that is inclusive, evidence-based and grounded in real-world experience.

With a background in mental health, research, and business analysis, Lauren brings together creativity and a thoughtful analytical approach to represent people’s needs in ways that generate insight and add tangible value to health and care transformation. She has become particularly interested in accessibility and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and is committed to designing services and solutions that are effective, fair and usable for all.

Sue Wood

Head of NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC-GM)

Sue Wood is Head of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester and plays a lead role in the operational management of ARC-GM, one of 15 ARCs across England.

ARC-GM supports health and care research that responds to and meets the needs of local populations and local health and care systems.  Sue also has a leadership role in Public Involvement and Engagement ensuring that the diverse communities of Greater Manchester and the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise Groups that work within these communities, have the opportunity to influence and shape the research agenda.

Sue has worked for the NHS in a number of roles, previously as a nurse and then moving into research roles.

To find out more about ARC-GM, please visit: https://www.arc-gm.nihr.ac.uk/

Jonathan Massey

Programme Director: Academia

Jonathan started at HInM in March 2018 as a Programme Manager working on local and national projects. In 2020, he was part of the team that led the successful redesignation of our Academic Health Science Centre. In October 2022, he became the Programme Director for Academia. Prior to Health Innovation Manchester, Jonathan worked at The University of Manchester as researcher and latterly a Project Manager. He gained his PhD in genomics at Manchester in 2012, collaborating on a large European project.

Oliver Barnes

Programme Director: Adoption & Spread

Oliver is an experienced healthcare leader with a track record of delivering a diverse range of innovative health and social care transformation programmes across large geographical footprints with a range of stakeholders and sectors. He has received national recognition for his work across healthcare and workforce development including published research.  He is currently Programme Director – Adoption & Spread and responsible for overseeing a wide portfolio of innovations determined as part of the national Health Innovation Network (HIN), delivering a range of national innovation products and services into the Greater Manchester system to improve the lives of local people, transform care and boost the economy through innovation.

His portfolio includes the delivery of the nationally commissioned HIN Network programmes, Patient Safety Collaborative and affiliated local programmes.  Prior to his current role Oliver was the Programme Director responsible for strategic oversight and delivery of the national NHS Innovation Collaborative for Digital Health on behalf of the HIN Network, working closely with national NHS England commissioners, HIN Digital Leads and senior stakeholders nationally across the workstream areas to ensure national delivery and to define future innovation areas for Digital Health.  Oliver has spent over 18 years working across the NHS system in operational management roles for both commissioner and provider organisations.

He is part of the first ever UK cohort for NHS England Global Healthcare Leadership in partnership with the University of Keele Medical School developing international partnerships to improve UK Health and Care alongside undertaking an MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership.  He has a British Psychological Society accredited MSc in Psychology focused on applied research to utilise performance psychology and digital health alongside being an NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur.

He enjoys working in a dynamic environment of multi-agency partnerships utilising the power of co design to achieve objectives and ensure needs are met.

Saif Ahmed

Clinical Digital Lead for Transformation

Dr Saif Ahmed is a senior clinical leader in digital transformation, combining frontline GP experience with executive leadership to deliver strategic, patient-centred innovation across Greater Manchester and the NHS. At Health Innovation Manchester, he drives clinical digital transformation, embedding scalable innovation into care pathways and championing the GM Care Record as a tool for clinical decision-making and population health.

Saif has clinically led the roll out of digital care plans for end-of-life, frailty, dementia, and heart failure, and oversees programmes in remote monitoring, deterioration tracking, and point-of-care testing. As Associate Medical Director for Digital at Tameside and Glossop ICFT, he pioneered the Digital Health Service, advanced Virtual Wards, and supported the launch of the My GM Care app, empowering individuals to manage their own health data.

His leadership aligns with the NHS 10-Year Plan ‘left shifts’ towards prevention, digital and community-based care. A recognised thought leader in AI governance, interoperability, and digital strategy, Saif contributes to national discussions on urgent care, long-term conditions, and equitable access, consistently bridging clinical insight with digital ambition.

Jacqui Cooper

Chief Nursing Information Officer

I am the Chief Nursing Information Officer for Health Innovation Manchester and NHS GM (ICB).

I am a registered nurse with a clinical background in neonatal nursing, previously working in Neonatal units across Cheshire and Mersey and for the Neonatal Regional Transport team.  Throughout my career I have held many posts ranging from staff nurse, ward manager and matron through to the role of Chief Nursing Informatics Officer.  I have been a CNIO in 3 organisations and have supported and led the process of digitising Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health professionals in pre and post Electronic Patient Record go lives and beyond, enabling  nurses to have an equal voice in the digital arena to ensure that information systems support nursing and allow more time for patient care, thereby reducing risk and improving quality and safety.

In my role as Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, I have participated and supported  digital programmes for nurses locally, regionally and at national level.  I have been responsible for strategic and operational nursing leadership in the development, deployment, re-engineering, optimisation and integration of clinical information systems to support nursing and patient care.

Caroline Dykeman

Senior Clinical Lead Innovation

Caroline is a Registered Adult Nurse with over 30 years’ experience working in the NHS, within Emergency Medicine and the Utilisation Management Unit which specialised in clinically led analytics and, urgent and emergency care improvement support. She has a BSc Special Honours Degree in Psychology and a Degree of Master of Science in Health Services Management.

Caroline currently provides senior clinical oversight, insight, engagement, and assurance to a wide range of innovation projects across the Health Innovation Manchester portfolio through matrix working. Caroline is passionate about tackling health inequalities and improving the longevity and quality of people’s lives across Greater Manchester. A key aspect of her role is to use evidence and data to measure impact and mitigate the risks of widening inequalities through innovation.

Zharain Bawa

Greater Manchester Secure Data Environment Product Director

Zharain Bawa is the Greater Manchester Secure Data Environment Product Director and leads the strategic delivery of the SDE service. Zharain also works in close collaboration with the North West Secure Data Environment delivery, part of the National NHS England SDE Research Network.

Zharain’s previous roles include Head of Delivery for National Digital, Data and Transformation Programmes (Digital Homecare, Connected Care Records and Digital Maturity Assessment) within the Transformation Directorate, NHS England.

Zharain is a Ph.D. scientist and data analyst by background with significant experience working in life sciences, genomics and public and population health in the NHS, Civil Service, Academia and in Industry (nationally and globally). She has a deep interest and passion in using healthcare data safely and securely to enable research benefitting patients and the population

Hailey McGlynn

Head of Organisational Improvement

Before joining Health Innovation Manchester, Hailey started her early career in the voluntary sector working for well known organisations such as Mencap and Citizens Advice, before making the transition to the Public Sector by joining Manchester University NHS Foundation Trusts Management Graduate Scheme. Through this Scheme Hailey gained a vast array of experiences in operational and project management, the challenges facing secondary care, supporting patient outcomes, and working on large scale programmes such as the acquisition of North Manchester General Hospital into the MFT family.

Offboarding into the role of Business Manager and later Business Lead for the Executive Director of Workforce and Corporate Business during the COVID-19 Pandemic gave rapid exposure to executive leadership, decision making and workforce challenges. This led to roles in delivering significant workforce transformation programmes through developing a Workforce Programme Management Office and later taking on the role of Head of Learning and Education to transform the Careers, Apprenticeships and Learning & Development offer for the Trust.

As Head of Organisational Improvement for Health Innovation Manchester, Hailey plays a key role in ensuring that the workforce has the confidence and capabilities needed to achieve its strategic ambitions. Insights into how the NHS works, culture, transformation, and innovative practices well position Hailey to drive the organisation forward on its journey.

Lindey Fair

Head of Operations

Lindsey joined Health Innovation Manchester from Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and has held a range of senior leadership roles across the NHS. Throughout her career, she has developed strong expertise in organisational design, human resources, programme and transformation management, and stakeholder engagement. Her work has sat at the crossroads of health services, public-sector change, and digital innovation

As Head of Operations at Health Innovation Manchester, Lindsey leads the programme management function, working closely with Programme Directors to drive robust delivery and assurance. She also plays a pivotal role in shaping and evolving HInM’s operating model, ensuring the organisation has the culture, people, processes, tools, and technology required to deliver its strategy effectively.

Lindsey is recognised for her ability to turn strategy into action, embed operational discipline in complex environments, and foster collaboration across diverse teams and stakeholders.