Location

John Radcliffe Hospital, Level 6, Headley Way, Headington, Oxford, OX3 9DU

Biography

I studied biochemistry at Oxford including a spell researching T Cell responses at the Institute for Molecular Medicine under Professor Andrew McMichael. I was a diplomat in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with a posting to Istanbul and a period running the briefing unit for ministers negotiating at EU Council meetings.  Between 2004 and 2012 I worked in the healthcare practice of management consultancy McKinsey & Company. In 2012, I established a consulting company, Revington Associates. In 2016, I began teaching non-clinical skills for clinicians at Oxford University. In 2022 I was appointed a departmental lecturer and in 2024, Course Director. I live in Somerset with my family.

I direct and teach on the Master's in Surgical Science and Practice and Postgraduate Certificate in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement courses, the latter taken by physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals as well as surgeons.

The courses were developed to fill a gap in clinical training curriculums, which focus on treating the patient in front of you. To be effective as a doctor, surgeon or healthcare professional, other skills and capacities are needed as you progress beyond early training. These include becoming an educator of more junior colleagues; a critical evaluator of evidence; and an improver of the care system, whether incrementally (quality improvement) or with a step change in diagnostics or treatment (innovation).

One important aim is to equip healthcare professionals to lead positive change in their organisation. Often staff identify aspects of care pathways or organisational processes which seem in sore need of improvement. Sometimes solutions seem obvious. Yet bringing about change is hard. Why is that and what can we do about it? This is at the heart of what we explore.  

Domains we explore include organisational psychology, for example what motivates people in the workplace and why people may appear to resist change; operations management, which includes the science and maths of designing productive systems; and project management and alliance building, the pragmatic arts of getting things done in complex organisations.

Course graduates apply what they learn to problems in their clinical settings. An orthopaedic surgeon reduced delays in her outpatient clinic. Gradually, patients stopped bringing books with them in expectation of hours in the waiting room. An Obstetrics & Gynaecology consultant focused on safety, through earlier identification of risk factors in post-partum mothers. An ED resident doctor redesigned a care pathway to get patients with serious fractures to theatre faster. 

In addition to teaching in academic settings, I run programmes in healthcare provider organisations themed around quality improvement and leadership development.