Webinar: The future of the NHS — what do the public think?

Louise Ansari joined Healthwatch in February 2022. Prior to this, Louise was Director of Communications and Influencing at the Centre for Ageing Better, and has a strong background in communications and engagement. Louise’s roles span across local and national government, health bodies and charities including social policy and local services. She is passionate about ensuring the public voice makes a difference in shaping health and care services.

Kate is a Research Director leading health policy research at Ipsos, including a focus on public perceptions of the NHS. Her 18 years of research on public perceptions has included both qualitative and quantitative research with the public to understand their perceptions of the state of the NHS, the challenges it faces and how they think it should be improved. She has covered a wide range of topics such as access and quality, how the public feel about NHS staff, and their views of funding for the NHS. Through this, she brings an understanding of the implications of public perceptions for services, policies and communications.

Tim Gardner is Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation.

Tim joined the Health Foundation in 2014. He works in the policy team, which works to analyse, understand, and inform national policies on health and social care in England.

Before he joined the Health Foundation, Tim spent over ten years at the Department of Health and Social Care working on policy and legislation in a variety of roles. This included work on NHS strategy, health and social care integration and the Government's response to the Francis Inquiry. Prior to that, he worked on NHS performance across a range of areas including primary care, cancer and mental health. He was also Secretary to the Departmental and NHS Management Boards and an Assistant Private Secretary to the Chief Medical Officer.

Tim has also spent time at NHS England and NHS Improvement, as well three years working on children's social care policy at the Department for Education. He has an MSc in Health Policy from Imperial College London.

Ruth Thorlby joined the Health Foundation in February 2017 as Assistant Director (Policy).

Before joining the Health Foundation, Ruth was Deputy Director of Policy at the Nuffield Trust, where she worked on a range of research and policy analysis, including a study of the impact of the Francis Report on acute hospitals; an evaluation of using volunteers to reduce older people’s risk of emergency admission from hospital and the access and quality of social care for older adults.

Prior to the Nuffield Trust, Ruth worked at the King’s Fund, looking at the impact of NHS reform on the quality of services, and inequalities in access to care. In 2008–2009 she was a Harkness Fellow in Healthcare Policy and Practice, based at Harvard Medical School, where she conducted research on the use of race and ethnicity data to improve the quality of care.

Ruth spent fifteen years as a broadcast journalist at the BBC World Service, before leaving to do an MSc in Social Policy at the London School of Economics.