My name is Christine Sawyer and my company aims to help take the fear out of healthcare regulation.  I have never written about me before, I thought that I would begin with a short history of myself!!

CKS Compliance Consultancy Ltd isn’t really all about following the letter of the law and the regulations – although you’ll find with my system that you have all of this covered, it is about taking the standards that are set as best practice, and creating a culture where patient safety and good experience is assured.  Once the reasons for the rules are understood, following the regulations becomes simple.

I understand that this sounds a little pedestrian and even boring, but this is way preferable to opening the email from the CQC with your 20 weeks warning notice, and realising that you have no idea what they even want!

Firstly, a little about myself.  My real working life began in the 90’s as a qualified bank nurse in Middlesbrough.  It wasn’t long before the bank rotated me onto the cardiothoracic surgical ward, where the combination of adrenaline, testosterone and power tools had me hooked from the very first day.  I learned here what a transformative experience cardiac surgery can be.

I then spent two years in Saudi Arabia, learning how to be a senior nurse in a strange land.  As part of the process of coming to grips with an alien culture (to me anyway) and nursing under an alternative set of ethics and morals, many, many late night conversations were had with friends, colleagues and patients about the rights and wrongs of healthcare “rules”. 

Some of the differences were stark.  I think that maybe under a Judaeo-Christian tradition, in which I was raised, there is an acceptance of the need for a certain quality of life – an idea that balances the need for futile on-going medical intervention.  This is not an idea about the costs of healthcare, more simply that there ought to be ceiling at which point further active intervention stops and the patient is allowed to die.  My Saudi (and Islamic) colleagues found this to be a rather heartless philosophy – how could one stop treatment when life was still present – when there was still hope?  The arguments were wide ranging and often vocal (but always good humoured) and helped me to develop a fascination with the ethics and morals to be found at life’s edges.

Back in England, and taking this interest to almost obsessive level, I decided to leave nursing for a while and take up law.  I enrolled at my local university (“go Teesside!!”) as a mature student, and three years later was awarded my LLB (Hons) (so proud!).  I concentrated on reading around medical law and my dissertation was on consent and capacity.

Making a go of the “no healthcare” thing, I took a temporary position with the Middlesbrough chapter of the Crown Prosecution Service, which ended up lasting two years.  I spent much of this at Teesside Crown Court, supporting Barristers and the Court as the CPS representative (similar to the Instructing Solicitor role), supporting witnesses, providing copies of documentary evidence and generally assisting with the smooth administration of justice.

My next move was probably one of the most significant episodes in my career, when I relocated from Middlesbrough to Croydon to work for the charity Action against Medical Accidents.  With a staff body of only 25 people, this tiny national charity certainly punched well above its own weight.  While my law degree told me of the cold hard law of clinical negligence, it was with AvMA that I learned how to apply that knowledge, the obstacles that lay in wait for the unwary and the challenges of funding that could prevent justice from being served.  I stayed with AvMA for seven years and moved to further my growing interest in healthcare regulation to the Royal Free Hospital, to work with complaints initially and latterly, risk and governance.

My latest position was with Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, managing their CQC project, putting into practice everything I have learned thus far about medicine, nursing and the finer detail of running a hospital

Next time, I want to give a brief history of the Care Quality Commission and healthcare regulation in the UK.