Julie Romano

Julie is the Head of Quality Improvement and Clinical Effectiveness at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust. Working with the Trust in the ongoing development of QI as a key principle and weaving into everyday culture.

Julie joined the NHS in 2002 as a registered nurse at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust in a variety of specialities and has maintained a strong belief in positive practice and quality improvement throughout her career especially in her Surgical Matron roles. This had culminated in being awarded a team award that recognised changes in workplace practice and leadership at a Ward level.

During 2014-16 Julie worked at The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in a variety of Matron Roles covering Outpatients, Oncology, Theatres and Corporate Lead for Nutrition. Some of the turnaround quality improvement work achieved during this period included the reduction in NBM fasting times preoperatively as part of an MDT hydration project that resulted in the Trust being a finalist at the Nursing Times Awards.

From 2016-2019 Julie worked at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust a Divisional Quality Governance Advisor (DQGA) and in 2019 as the Head of Quality and Assurance. The DQGA role was a new innovative role and focussed on changing cultures and approaches to patient safety, risk, incident and serious incident management with a small patient safety team. The team adopted new approaches including utilising human factors and appreciative inquiry approaches to serious incident process, started Quality Roadshows and ‘incident at a glance’ feedback posters. Ensuring a just culture approach was encouraged. The team developed ‘Right Cause Analysis’ for positive incidents (LfE) where a Safety-II approach was adopted so we to learn from what went well. In 2018 the Patient Safety Team won an HSJ award for Clinical Governance and Risk Management and also won a Meridian Award in 2019 for innovations in Patient Safety. Julie attended and assisted with the delivery of a workshop at the World Appreciative Inquiry Conference in 2019 with a focus on a move to Safety-II culture.