Nichola Crust

·       Registered General Nurse – NHS 34 years
·       Senior Safety Investigator
·       GenerationQ fellow (MSc)

Nichola is a registered nurse trained in healthcare incident investigation. She joined HSSIB in March 2017.  HSSIB investigate patient safety concerns across the NHS in England and in independent healthcare settings where safety learning could also help to improve NHS care. HSSIB investigations aim to reduce patient harm by:

• Supporting the involvement of patients, families and carers in healthcare.
• Supporting healthcare staff to carry out their roles and care for patients safely.
• Creating safer healthcare environments and processes.
• Making healthcare services more efficient.
• Sharing best practice and innovations in patient care.

She has worked at a strategic level in a variety of healthcare settings spanning primary and secondary care. Her roles have included professional nurse leadership and mentoring of nursing teams, mobilisation of new services including service and workforce redesign, and training and education in incident investigation.

Nichola has developed clinical governance systems in both primary and secondary care, established systems for identifying patient safety risks and has worked collaboratively with local and national bodies relating to healthcare. Her key qualities are empathy, ability to build rapport and ability to influence.

Nichola has completed The Health Foundation’s GenerationQ leadership and quality improvement programme completing the Ashridge Masters in Leadership (Quality Improvement).  She also has significant experience in coaching, action learning and wellbeing.

During the peaks of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Nichola worked in intensive care at an NHS trust in the Midlands.