Jonathan Beebee
Jonathan is a Registered Nurse in Learning Disabilities. He is the Royal College of Nursing’s Professional Lead in Learning Disabilities and Chief Enablement Officer/Nurse Consultant for PBS4, a social care provider that supports people who display challenging behaviours, including offending behaviours.
Jonathan has previously worked in a secure forensic CAMHS hospital, a Youth Offending Team, and run adapted sex offender treatment programmes as part of a community learning disability service. He has undertaken work for the Department of Health mapping the needs of offenders with learning disabilities and has been Learning Disability Policy Manager for the Care Quality Commission to improve regulation of the support people with learning disabilities receive.
Dr Zoe Brummell, MBChB, MSc, MRCP, FRCA, FFICM, RCPath (ME)
Dr Brummell is a Intensive Care and Perioperative Medicine Consultant at University College London Hospital. Her interests are in patient safety, healthcare policy, qualitative research, communication with families, end of life care, medical ethics and medical law. Dr Brummell undertook a PhD at University College London looking at learning and organisational learning as an outcome of healthcare policy, specifically evaluating the NHS Learning from Deaths programme. She is now undertaking an MA in Medical Ethics and Law at Keele University. In 2023 Dr Brummell was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to look at Improving family involvement and bereavement care in end of life care in adult Intensive Care. Dr Brummell is the Academic Career Development co-lead for the NIHR Central London Patient Safety Research Collaboration and a Medical Examiner at UCLH.
Saranna Burgess
Saranna trained to be a nurse as a mature student. Before that, she worked as an unregistered worker in learning disabilities and mental health care settings. She is now a Registered Nurse with an MSc in Mental Health and Law.
Saranna has worked in acute physical healthcare, within a tertiary Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and in drug and alcohol services within community mental health care services for most of her career. Ten years ago, she moved from patient-facing nursing into the safeguarding world and from there to patient safety and quality.
Joanne Canning
Joanne Canning is a Registered Nurse with a background specialising in respiratory nursing. She is a Matron within a Corporate Assurance Team, combining her clinical expertise and drive for improvement across the Trust.
During the Covid pandemic, Joanne’s father was admitted to an NHS hospital where, during his inpatient stay, he suffered a traumatic bleed to his brain. Failings in his care delivery caused a delay in hospital staff recognising the signs of deterioration, which resulted in a delay in her father’s diagnostics and treatment. Joanne’s loving father sadly died in September 2022 despite her raising repeated concerns with the hospital.
Joanne had an unpleasant and exhausting experience with the complaints process, and through her determination to ensure lessons are learned, she now uses her experience to deliver training sessions, using her story as a real example to engage the audience in making positive changes to their practice.
Lucien Champion
Lucien Champion is the Head of Investigations (Mental Health Homicides) NHS England South East and frequently presents at MFC webinars, particularly those around Duty of Candour, Mental Health, and Mental Health Homicides. Lucien is a mental health nurse with over 20 years of experience. He has worked across many areas and held posts in hospitals, community services, and in private-sector care. His clinical interests include embedding learning in teams following serious incidents and service development.
Throughout Lucien’s career, he has recognised the importance of supporting staff at all levels of care delivery, and he has been key in organisational development to meet the challenges of a modern care system.
Since 2015 Lucien has worked for NHS England with responsibility for mental health homicides. He has been working with Making Families Count since 2016 and he brings his invaluable inside knowledge of the NHS to their work.
Jo Collins
Jo is currently the Deputy Head of Patient and Carer Experience at AWP and has worked in complaints, pals, patient safety and patient experience in various combinations for 20 years. Prior to this, she managed 2 GP practices in Wiltshire. She has been with Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership since 2011.
Jo is a champion of patient and family engagement and currently looks after the PALS and Complaints Service, Family Liaison Service and the Patient and Carer Experience Team.
Dr Sarah Constantine
Sarah Constantine has been with Avon and Wilshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust since 2019. She became a Consultant Psychiatrist in 2001 specialising in older adults, having also been accredited in general adult psychiatry. She has achieved an MSc in Healthcare Leadership and the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson NHS Leadership Academy qualification. Sarah is also trained in lean quality improvement (QI) methodology.
Before her move to AWP, Sarah worked as a Clinical Director and Deputy Medical Director for a large mental health/community physical health trust. She is an expert in mental capacity assessments, the application of the Mental Capacity Act, and is a special visitor with the Court of Protection. Sarah is a Caldicott Guardian and is also responsible for Professional Management of Medics and Responsible Officer, Medical Education, Research and Development and Mental Health Legislation.
Rich Evans
Rich Evans has spent a lot of time working with families bereaved by suicide in his previous role with Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. This involved him visiting the family at home after a death by suicide to discuss what had happened, providing emotional support, and doing his utmost to answer any questions they had. He spent 5 years undertaking this work and met with many families during that time.
Currently, he is teaching mental health nursing students as part of their undergraduate degree to becoming a registered nurse. Suicide prevention and postvention support are part of this course. In addition, he is responsible for a Master’s level Postgraduate Module for healthcare professionals around supporting people at risk of suicide. One of the module teaching sessions focuses on postvention support.
Donna L Forsyth MCSP, CMIOSH
Having recently retired from being Head of Investigation at NHS England, Donna Forsyth is now Director, Education Architect, Trainer and Coach for the not-for-profit organisation Patient Safety Science. Donna was the architect and author of the original Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and she initiated and led the Patient Safety Investigation Branch pilot ahead of assisting the creation of HSIB in 2016.
She co-authored the CIEHF publication “Learning from Adverse Events” in 2020. She is a chartered musculoskeletal and sports physiotherapist as well as a chartered safety practitioner who has influenced and supported the transformative incident investigation strategy, policy and guidance in health and social care. Since 2007 Donna has been an advisor on event analysis for the World Health Organisation. In 2010 she completed air accident investigation training at Cranfield University.
Jan Fowler
Jan Fowler is a former senior NHS health professional. She used to be finance director for Making Families Count.
A nurse by background and with over 25 years working in NHS at Director level, primarily in Director of Nursing and Chief Executive roles, Jan is passionate about positive engagement with patients and families. She was the Director responsible for the NHS England project to engage effectively with families whose loved ones had been harmed whilst in the care of the NHS, which ultimately led to the creation of Making Families Count.
Jan’s clinical and senior leadership was mainly in the acute sector as Director of Nursing and Chief Executive, moving to become Chief Nurse at NHS South Central Strategic Health Authority in 2011 and to a Director of Nursing role in NHS England in 2013. This role was combined with Director of Commissioning for Health and Justice and Director lead for Mental Health Homicide Investigations for the South of England.
She was a member of the National Nursing Informatics Strategic Taskforce and chaired the Care Records System for the South of England. Jan was on the programme board for National SPfiT, was a member of the NHS Employer Policy Board, and a Registered Panellist for the Nursing Midwifery Council. She currently carries out independent reviews for NHSE/I as a Clinical Reviewer.
Jan has also chaired a charity supporting families with a child affected by rare and life-limiting genetic conditions for over 11 years.
Raf Hamaizia
Raf Hamaizia is Head of Lived Experience and Co-production at Cygnet Healthcare, a Trustee of Mental Health Design and Non Executive Director at Co-production Care.
Raf is a leading mental health campaigner and expert on recovery, co-production and Lived Experience.
Julian Hendy
Julian Hendy set up Making Families Count in 2014 together with Julie Kerry, who was then Assistant Director of Nursing and Regional Mental Health Homicide Lead for NHS England South. Julian is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. In 2007, Julian’s father, Philip, was murdered by a mental health patient with a psychotic illness cared for by Avon and Wiltshire Partnership NHS Trust.
In 2010 Julian made a film for BBC2, which explored what had happened to his father (and others) and questioned why many mental health services appear unable to learn effective lessons from such homicides.
He went on to establish the Hundred Families charity, which supports and advocates for families after Mental Health Homicides and works with the NHS and others to embed effective learning and prevent further avoidable deaths. Julian is a lay member of the NHS Independent Investigations Governance Committee, NHS South’s Independent Investigations Review Group, and sits on the ministerial advisory panel for victims at the Ministry of Justice. He’s also an advisor to the Welsh and Scottish Governments on victim engagement following mental health homicides.
Len Hodkin
Len Hodkin is a criminal defence solicitor based in South London and a Trustee for the Hundred Families charity. He was Chair of Directors of MFC from 2021 until 2025. He also presents and facilitates at MFC webinars.
Len’s mother, Sally Hodkin, was attacked and killed on her way to work by a mental health service user with a history of extreme violence and drug abuse. An independent investigation commissioned by NHS England in 2017 found that NHS and police failings had contributed to Mr Hodkin’s murder. In 2018 Len acted as a legal representative for the family at his mother’s inquest. The coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing at the conclusion of the two-week inquest.
Len and his family have campaigned strongly to raise awareness of failings in care regarding this case, issues with the wider system of investigation of mental health homicides, and how families are so often failed by the NHS investigation procedure.
Len is a compelling and engaging speaker on the family experience of the NHS investigation process.
Dr Zoe Picton Howell
Zoe is mum to Adam Bojelian, a multi-award-winning young poet and healthcare advocate who lived with cerebral palsy, acquired at birth, and died from sepsis aged 15 in 2015.
She is also a solicitor, healthcare academic, medical education tutor at Edinburgh University’s medical school and director of the Adam Bojelian Foundation CIC, a not-for-profit organisation which provides education and training in healthcare law and ethics to NHS and wider organisations and staff. It also runs a weekly free legal advice clinic as part of the Law Works Network.
Zoe has served on numerous research and guidance drafting committees, regionally and nationally, including Royal College, NICE and UK government guidance. Zoe is a member of both the Law Society’s (the professional body for solicitors) Mental Health and Disability Policy Advisory Committee and its Human Rights Policy Advisory Committee.
Zoe was a chapter author for Disability Matters and has published and presented nationally and internationally on child health law, particularly best interest decision-making and children’s rights. Her doctorate from Edinburgh University Law School, explored with 40 UK paediatricians their understanding of the relevant law and ethics when making end-of-life decisions for disabled children.
Karen Lascelles
Karen Lascelles, our Family Engagement Consultant, has been a mental health nurse for over 35 years and currently also works as a senior lecturer for mental health nursing. For the last 15 years Karen has had a clinical academic role specialising in the area of self-harm and suicide. She has extensive experience working with families bereaved by suicide and established a family liaison service within her previous NHS Trust. She completed a professional doctorate investigating the experiences and support needs of adults who care for an adult family member or friend they consider to be at risk of suicide.
Sue Massingham
I lost my daughter Ellie to suicide in September 2020. She was 26 when she died and had battled a lifelong medical condition alongside the mental health impact it created. Everything had got too much.
The holistic care between both physical and mental health professionals was just not there and at times worked against each other. I found myself battling the system, being the intermediary between different Trusts and the only person who could advocate for my daughter with a whole person perspective.
My traumatic experiences continued after Ellie’s death going through a serious incident review and an inquest.
In my determination and drive to not let others to go through what I did, I support Oxford Health Trust as co-chair of their suicide prevention strategy alongside the Chief Medical Officer. I have supported Making Families Count for a couple of years now sharing my lived experience as a guest speaker. It is my pleasure to extend this support in being part of the Making Families Count family panel.
Neil Meade
Detective Inspector Neil Meade has been with Avon and Somerset Police for 27 years. He has been a detective for more than 20 years and involved in homicide investigations for the last 10 years as part of the Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire major crime collaboration. He has been involved in the investigation of over 40 murders. He has been crime family liaison coordinator for 4 years overseeing the police’s response to family liaison following a homicide. As part of his family liaison role, he is responsible for ensuring the police FLOs are suitably trained, current, and fit to offer families the best service following the death of a loved one.
Frank Mullane MBE
In 2003 I was thrust into the domestic abuse sector when my sister and nephew were murdered by the husband and father. I had been trying to keep them alive.
Frank is the CEO of Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse (AAFDA), a centre of excellence for reviews after domestic homicide and for specialist peer support. Frank helped ensure Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) became law, was asked by the government to help develop the model and continues to work closely with the Home Office to enhance the methodology. From its inception in 2011, AAFDA has been a member of the national panel that quality assures DHRs and Frank is a Home Office-appointed reader (provides assessments of DHRs to the panel). He is a Home Office accredited Chair for DHRs and trains others to undertake them. Frank is a member of the national Victims’ Panel chaired by the Justice Minister and was on the assessment panel for the recruitment of the first-ever (Designate) Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs.
He co-authored a book “Domestic Abuse, Homicide and Gender: strategies for policy and practice” (2014) and has had three chapters published in different books, including in Domestic Homicide and Death Reviews (2017) and “When Parents Kill Children” (2018). He has developed a model for helping families to be integral to reviews after domestic homicide, thought to be unique in the world. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Gloucestershire (outstanding work on domestic violence and homicide).
Frank’s sister Julia and nephew William Pemberton were murdered in 2003. Frank previously worked as a business consultant and is a qualified accountant.
Louise Pye
Before starting work within patient safety in 2018, Lou served as an officer in the police force for 30 years, most of which was as a detective. During this time, she specialised in the field of family liaison (FLO) working with families following a murder, manslaughter, road death or mass fatality incident and spent a period as a National FLO Advisor. Lou’s role was responsible for implementing, training, advising, and supporting this area of work locally, regionally and nationally and she was recognised for her work in the Queen’s New Year Honours (2017).
Lou’s work includes providing strategic leadership to the area of engagement and ensuring meaningful family engagement is central to all maternity investigations by designing systems, resources and processes to support investigators with their work.
Lou also has a particular interest in education and is currently providing training internally and to the wider NHS within the course ‘Engaging and involving patients, families and staff following a patient safety incident’ after having been involved in the writing of the supporting guidance by the same name for the NHS England Patient Safety Incident Response framework.
Lou holds a degree in sociology.
Rosi Reed
Rosi Reed’s son Nico died unexpectedly and suddenly in an NHS-run supported living home. After a two-year battle for an inquest, a three-day Article 2 inquest was followed by a two-and-a-half-year investigation which found Nico died because of poor care and poorly commissioned care. The investigation was then investigated by the Parliament and Health Service Ombudsman who ordered written apologies to be made to Nico’s family. From start to finish, the investigation process took 9 years.
At the beginning of 2015, Rosi joined the new training organisation “Making Families Count”. She was Development and Training Coordinator until 2025, and also co-authored MFC’s patient safety handbook “Compassionate Communication, Meaningful Engagement”.
In addition to her work with MFC, Rosi worked for two years under NHSE as part of the steering group for the “Learning from Deaths” guidance and co-wrote the “Learning from Deaths Guidance for Families”. She worked on creating a training package for LeDeR investigators and was a member of the HSIB Citizens Partnership Group. She is currently a member of the NIHR-funded Response Study Citizens Panel monitoring the impact of PSIRF nationally, a member of the advisory group for the research project EPSPE, a project examining patient harm and is part of the Diversity in Research Group with the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. In addition, Rosi is a very active member of the HSJ Patient Safety Congress Advisory Board.
Derek Richford
Derek Richford lives in Kent. He has four children and four grandchildren; Harry would have made five. In November 2017, Harry died at QEQM hospital in Margate, aged seven days.
Derek spent over four years investigating Harry’s death and what occurred. Along the way, he managed to get a 3-week Article 2 Inquest that showed seven gross failings amounting to neglect. The Trust was found guilty in the first-ever CQC criminal prosecution for unsafe care and treatment and fined over £700k. Harry’s case led to the investigation into East Kent Hospitals’ maternity service by Bill Kirkup, resulting in the “Reading the Signals” report.
Trevor Stevens
Trevor’s career was spent teaching in schools and working as a publisher and trainer for educational publishers, and he is now retired. His daughter Tobi took her own life in December 2020 whilst in the care of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust:
“When Tobi was at home with us during the pandemic, from March to September 2020, she gave no clue that she was struggling with her mental health. When she was back at university in Norwich on her own, her mental health deteriorated rapidly and before she died she took several overdoses, about which we were kept in the dark. The serious incident report into her death concluded that ‘Tobi’s death is more likely than not to have resulted from problems in care delivery and service provision of the Trust.’”.
It is clear that there are many lessons to be learned from Tobi’s death. Trevor’s focus since Tobi’s death has been to tell her (and her parents’) story so that the importance of including families in the treatment of young people with mental health problems is recognised and valued as a potentially life-saving resource. In October 2025 Trevor received the Inspirational Story Award at the 2025 Mental Health Awards.
Jan Sunman
Jan Sunman is one of the original members of Making Families Count and, until recently, was the Chair of Directors. She frequently presents at our webinars. Jan started her professional career as a social worker specialising in supporting children with mental health needs and their families. Since then, she has volunteered, campaigned and worked in the field of learning disability for 38 years.
Jan is currently working with Stephen Habgood and Susan Willgoss, who is the Lived Experience Influencer in the National Suicide Prevention Alliance, on a joint project with Autism Oxford and Making Families Count on Autism Suicide Prevention with Surrey County Council.
Previously, she campaigned against cuts to short break services for disabled children and their families and spearheaded the foundation of the Chiltern Centre as a charity providing respite care to serve disabled children in South Oxfordshire. The Chiltern Centre continues to support many local families.
Jan also worked for Royal Mencap Society as a regional development officer and won a Mencap National Partnership Working Award in that role. Later, she helped develop Oxfordshire Family Support Network (OxFSN), a local charity for families supporting relatives with learning disabilities. In addition, she was a member of the Transforming Care Programme Board in Oxfordshire.
She has taken part in training for reviewers for the Learning Disability Mortality Review process.
In the past, Jan has served as a trustee for two national charities, The Royal Mencap Society and NOFAS, a charity dedicated to supporting people affected by Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.
Jan’s personal experience of the loss of her eldest daughter, Katy, who was disabled and who died prematurely at the age of 25 from sepsis, has made her very aware of the issues families face when a loved one dies in complex and traumatic circumstances. She has worked with a number of families of disabled relatives facing traumatic loss.
She has two other children, her daughter Laura is a children’s nurse and her son, Matthew – a steam train addict – has severe learning disabilities and autism.
Sue Willgoss
Sue is mother to Matthew, Daniel, Jamie and Elliott. Sadly, they lost Daniel at 25 years old when he took his own life in 2018.
The night Daniel died, Sue held his hand and promised him something positive must come from their loss and things must change. Daniel was autistic.
Sue has since been driven by her promise to try to improve understanding, help, support and outcomes for autistic children, young people, adults, and their carers. Daniel’s Serious Incident Review considered that his ‘death is more likely than not to have resulted from problems in care delivery/service provision of the Trust’ – that Trust being Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Sue founded #LiftLoudForDanny, an organisation that supports those with mental health difficulties and their carers.
Sue was asked a few weeks after Daniel’s death if she would work alongside the Trust to help them learn and improve from what had happened. In 2020, Sue was asked if she would come to work for NSFT on a fixed term contract. She now has a permanent position as an Advisor for Suicide Prevention with Lived Experience.
Sue was first introduced to Making Families Count by NSFT when they delivered a conference in Norwich in 2019. She has attended many of the webinars.
She is a Lived Experience Influencer for the National Suicide Prevention Alliance. The NSPA has given her opportunities to present to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Suicide Prevention at Westminster, speak to the Minister for Suicide Prevention and also present at their national conference in 2023 on Autism and Suicide Prevention Strategies. Through her work with NSFT, Sue has attended Learning Sets and Workshops for the National Suicide Prevention Programme and brought the subject of Autism and Suicide Prevention to the agenda.
Sue has since spoken in other areas including Greater Manchester, who have since funded the development of an edition of the Zero Suicide Alliance Suicide Prevention training on helping people recognise and support autistic people who may be suicidal. This is ongoing work which Sue has been involved with and will be launched April 2024 to coincide with World Autism Awareness Day.
Currently, she is also working with Jan Sunman and Stephen Habgood on a joint project with Autism Oxford and Making Families Count on Autism Suicide Prevention with Surrey County Council.
Sue is also chair of trustees for the Suffolk Parent Carer Forum and an Expert by Experience for Norfolk and Waveney ICB through Rethink.
Sue is autistic herself.
Kirk Wilson
Kirk is a retired police officer where he was also a ‘FLO’ passing his course in 2008 making his way to become a Family Liaison Co-ordinator and also being part of the FLO training team.
He joined Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust ( NSFT) in 2023 after his retirement where he helped launched the role from new within the trust.
He is also a TRiM (Trauma Risk Management) practitioner and is passionate about supporting bereaved families and also colleagues.
Ashley Windebank-Brooks
Ashley Windebank-Brooks is Head of Patient Safety for an NHS Trust, a centre of excellence in several fields of health care in the Southwest and one of the largest hospital trusts in the UK.
Ashley has worked for the NHS for 10 years in a variety of roles including contracting, commissioning, across mental health and acute care. His past roles all had a focus on problem solving, learning and understanding why things happen, and how we support people to improve. He is a technical member of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. Giving a voice to patients and their families is a core value for Ashley, particularly at difficult times such as following a patient safety incident.
Magda Wrobleska-Trojanowic
Magda is family liaison team lead in Hampshire and IOW Healthcare NHS Trust, specialising in engagement and involvement of those affected by patient safety incidents. She is a recognised national leader in NHS Family Laison Officer (FLO) practice, co-chairing the National NHS FLO Forum and contributing to national initiatives in this area.
Magda was appointed as the Trust’s sole Family Liaison Officer in July 2019 and has since successfully expanded the service through additional team resources. She qualified as a barrister in 2010, initially practising in civil litigation before joining Hampshire Constabulary as a Police Constable and specialist Safeguarding Officer. Her policing career also included work in investigations, including major crime, and she served as a Police Federation representative focusing on ill health retirement.