A snapshot of some of our team members:
Howard Exton-Smith
Following a general management career in the private sector, Howard has 20 years experience in professional development specialising in strategy and organisational effectiveness. He has worked extensively with health and social care organisations across a range of performance improvement and public health issues. From a background in psychology and international marketing, and with expertise in public, service user and stakeholder consultation, Howard is interested in the connections between attitudes and behaviour change through building skills and competencies. Client-centred and flexible, he employs an engaging, experiential style to focus on outcomes and solve problems, and participatory techniques to foster learning and ownership. Howard has proven team-building and coaching skills, and is effective with boards and senior management teams by concentrating on strategy and implementation.
Howard’s clients include:
- Camden PCT, London: facilitation of public consultation on NHS Constitution and substance abuse rehabilitation services
- NHS Warwickshire: PCT stakeholder engagement strategy development
- NHS IMAS: facilitation of IMAS strategic planning process
- NHS Suffolk: in-depth, ethnographic research with hard-to-reach groups on PCT-level social marketing issues in public health including smoking and obesity
- National Voices, London: facilitation of public consultation on NHS quality standards and accounting proposals
- Research and facilitation with DH, NHS SHAs, PCTs, Acute Trusts, Connecting for Health, Organ Donation Taskforce, Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing & Midwifery and social care units on public policy and change programmes including the Darzi Review process and patient pathways
- Central Office of Information: facilitator for deliberative research on public policy issues, including alcohol strategy and NHS dentistry
- Dr Foster Intelligence: facilitator and analyst for research on Blackpool PCT social marketing campaigns focussed on health behaviour change including COPD and smoking
- New Economics Foundation: adviser on social contract for Electronic Patient Records
- National Council for Voluntary Organisations: design, development and delivery of learning and development programme for national BME voluntary and community groups
Sophy Forman-Lynch
Sophy has worked in the field of public health for over twenty years, both in the UK and overseas in various developing countries in Asia and Africa including Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. She has many years of NHS work experience, and more than eight years overseas work experience within government and non-government health sectors, from grass-roots up to district, provincial and national levels.
Sophy has extensive health project management, evaluator and training experience, and is skilled in analysing quantitative data to describe the health of a population, including small area analysis. Over the last seven years she has gained a robust knowledge and experience of the adult and juvenile prison health sectors and health within the context of the youth justice system.
For the last four years, Sophy has worked as an independent public health expert, managing a variety of projects and undertaking numerous detailed health needs assessments. These have included several prison-based and youth offending service-based health needs assessments, as well as county-level alcohol and substance misuse needs assessments for Kent and Oxfordshire.
Sophy’s clients include
- Oxfordshire PCT
- Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust
- Kent PCT
- Bracknell Forest PCT
- Commissioning Support Programme
- Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP)
- Oxfordshire Youth Offending Service
- Oxfordshire Drug & Alcohol Action Team (DAAT)
- Oxfordshire County Council
- Kent Drug & Alcohol Action Team (DAAT)
- Prison Service
- Department for International Development (DFID)
Sophy originally qualified as a nurse, midwife and health visitor, subsequently attaining a Masters in Public Health.
Mark Arnold
Mark Arnold is highly experienced in working with diverse groups and helping them recognise the need for change. He is skilled at enabling groups to reach agreement quickly on key objectives, agree milestones and commit to actions.
Mark is a successful facilitator, organisation development, management training specialist (CMI and ILM qualified at all levels) and qualified executive coach with extensive international expertise. NLP-qualified, Mark is also a licensed practitioner in Myers-Briggs (MBTI), Firo-B and Belbin diagnostic tools. He heads his own Oxford-based consultancy – Big Difference Consulting Ltd.
In the health sector Mark has worked with organisations such as Berkshire East PCT, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Trust, Riverside Mental Health Trust and Wandsworth PCT, both in a training capacity, and enabling them to redesign, restructure and rationalise their operations.
Working with Dr. Foster organisation, Mark has led focus groups for users of Wandsworth PCT’s services.
Based in Peshawar, Pakistan, Mark was Acting Director of Austrian Relief Committee for Afghans which ran primary healthcare programmes in refugee camps.
Mark’s international experience includes training for Save the Children and HIV/Aids Alliance. He has also worked in Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, Egypt, Thailand, Southern Sudan and Uganda. He has also worked in USA, France, Germany and South Africa.
Mark has worked with organisations who supply the NHS such as Helapet, Dako Diagnostics and IMS Health.
Mark’s experience includes line management, marketing, training, institutional development and evaluation with a wide range of organisations in the UK and overseas, and running his own businesses.
As well as being a highly experienced facilitator, Mark trains and coaches people at all levels in Leadership, Communication, Facilitation Skills, Team Building, Sales, Customer Service, Call Centre Skills, Influencing and Negotiation, Strategic and Change Management, Creative Thinking and Problem Solving, Interviewing Skills, Presentation Skills, Finance for Non-Financial Managers and Interpersonal Skills.
With a lively, dynamic training style, Mark works with all cultures, creating an engaging and enjoyable forum in which every participant is fully involved. A successful music composer and performer, Mark has also developed a number of innovative programmes which make use of music and drama to create a fun, energetic and successful learning environment.
