Leading in the Digital Age

Professor Lesley Holdsworth OBE PhD FCSP FWCT FFCI - Clinical Lead Digital Health & Care in Scottish Government and Former Chair of Bield Housing

Over the last  30 years, Lesley has spearheaded a number of professional initiatives - both at a national level and with a variety of professional and academic organisations. This has included leading projects related to quality improvement, informatics, clinical guidance, and research. In her current role, she has responsibility for digital strategic direction of nursing, midwifery, and the allied health professions (NMAHP) in Scotland. Additionally, she leads on digitally enabled workforce development for all professions and sectors, something which she is passionate about. 

Lesley is currently leading a number of national, UK and global digital initiatives around standards/guidelines for digital practice and workforce development. Lesley holds a professorship with Glasgow Caledonian University and is Honorary Professor at a further two. She is also a council member and Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, and past Chair of the Board of Bield, one of the largest Housing Associations in Scotland. In 2018, she was named Scottish Digital Impact Leader and Digital Health’s UK Digital Leader of the year. She was awarded an OBE in the Queens honours in 2019 for services to healthcare.

Carol Sinclair - Strategic Adviser to the Digital Health & Care Directorate in Scottish Government and Chair of the national Health & Social Care Data Board

Carol firmly believes that this next era of transformation must be rooted in helping people better meet the needs of the people of Scotland including patients, service-users and staff, by committing to developing organisations that better understand how to nurture their people, and how to co-design and implement enabling processes and technologies. 

Carol has had a wide and varied career working in both the NHS, third sector and business sectors. Between 2008 and 2012, she was seconded from NHS Tayside, where she was Head of Service Improvement, to the Scottish Government as Director of the national Patient Experience Programme. Her career has focussed on championing the power of person-centred design and services and this has been at the heart of my career and her role as a senior leader. Since 2019, Carol has been a non-executive director of the Scottish Ambulance Service and Chair of its Audit & Risk Committee as well as being the Board’s non-executive data champion.

Fanchea Kelly - Former CEO Blackwood Homes and Care and current Vice Chair of Housing Rights in Northern Ireland

Fanchea is an experienced senior executive and non-executive director.

Until recently Fanchea was CEO of Blackwood Homes and Care, known for its innovation in design and technology for independent living. Under her leadership Blackwood engaged with people in communities across Scotland and with staff teams and stakeholders to co-design digital products and services, winning awards for reimagining care services, and developing new models of digitally supported accessible homes.

Fanchea has been a senior leader in local government and the voluntary sector and has chaired national forums on a range of topics, including the technology enabled care in housing group. Her professional background in housing and her personal values mean that she is focused on helping people improve their well-being, addressing inequalities and preventing poor health where possible.

Fanchea believes there are major opportunities to open new pathways for health and care providers, and indeed for all of us as individuals, to have more choice in how we manage our health and well-being with the help of digital design and simple technologies. She surprised herself by becoming friends with Pepper the robot and learnt that the data capture and innovative programming for robotic assistance offers untapped routes to help us as we age or as we engage in our neighbourhoods and communities for living life to the full.

As a Board member, Fanchea welcomes all input to builds knowledge and confidence for leadership to guide strategic direction and create solutions for the future. She enjoys bringing people together from a wide range of sectors as that environment is often conducive to openness and creativity. Fanchea is currently Vice Chair of homelessness prevention charity Housing Rights in Northern Ireland and Vice Chair of Observatory for Sport in Scotland which is a charity to promote community participation in sport. 

Lorraine McMillan – Former CEO of East Renfrewshire Council and experienced Non-Executive Director

Lorraine retired from her role as Chief Executive of East Renfrewshire Council in 2023, having held that position for 15 years. Her focus was on strong delivery based on a clear strategic vision, digital transformation and close partnership working across the public and third sectors.

Prior to her role in local government, Lorraine held senior positions in economic development, latterly as Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire.

Lorraine is a chartered physicist and began her career in research and development. She has retained her interest in technology and innovation throughout her career and whilst Chief Executive of East Renfrewshire Council was also the Local Government portfolio lead for digital technology, setting up the ground-breaking Local Government Digital Office and co- chairing the National Digital Health and Care Board. She believes passionately that digital technology can help us deliver better outcomes for our citizens if we start from the needs of our citizens and work collaboratively across the public and third sectors.

Lorraine is also an experienced non executive director having been a Board member of both the Scottish Funding Council and the Improvement Service and is presently a Trustee/Non-Executive Director of the international development charity SCIAF and a Non-Executive Director of SEPA.