About Us

Gemma started her NHS career as the Administration Manager for the Microbiology Lab in Ysbyty Gwynedd, moving to Conwy Local Health Board to work as an Information Analyst. Gemma has held a number of roles throughout her career including a secondment to a national role as Corporate Support Manager for Local Health Boards across Wales, Third Sector Contracting Officer and more recently as a Project Manager working on the transition of Independent Practices to Health Board Managed Practices.

Gemma was successfully appointed to the role of Academy Manager in September 2019 and has been involved from the beginning of the Academy journey. Gemma has a strong understanding of the opportunities that multi-disciplinary Primary and Community Care services can offer our patients and of the importance of social and community solutions in ensuring wellbeing.

Robyn started her career in the NHS as a Graduate Management Trainee in 2016, Robyn has spent time in a number of areas across the health board, including Primary Care, Community, Secondary care and Children's services giving her a real understanding of the complexities of delivering healthcare to the local population.

Robyn is a starter finisher through and through, she will work through a project methodically while ensuring all stakeholders are involved and timelines are on track.

Stella has spent her whole career in the NHS, and been in research and evaluation roles for the last twelve years. Stella has extensive experience working on clinical trials as both Clinical Research Officer, and as Trial Manager on an NIHR funded palliative care trial.

Stella has been with the Academy since 2019 working on the Advanced Paramedic Practitioner Pacesetter, and undertaking a Masters by Research alongside the project. She joined the team on a permanent basis in 2022 and is looking forward to getting more involved with some of the Academy’s other innovative projects in primary care.

Stella has a passion for qualitative methods, but is slowly learning to embrace quantitative data!

Liz undertook GP training in North Wales and has been a GP for 25 years in the area mainly as a GP partner, but also worked in the Out of Hours service and as a locum GP at different times. She has also previously been a Primary and Community Care Assistant Medical Director in the Central Area of BCUHB until 2022, so involved in appraisal, revalidation, education and governance of primary care.

She is a GP trainer, and has helped train and support ANPs, medical students and Physician Associates and pharmacists into clinical roles in primary care.

She believes that supportive educational opportunities and reflective time and space are essential for good clinical practice, benefitting primary care clinicians individually, recruitment and retention generally, and leading most importantly to the best patient care.

She is excited about this new role to help coordinate and support these opportunities in BCUHB

Jess has been a GP for 17 years and working with the Academy team since 2019.

Jess leads on the training of  our multidisciplinary team members including; Nurses, Physiotherapist, Paramedics, Pharmacists, Medical students, Physician associates and GP Trainees.

Jess recently had a poster at RCGP 2021 - Using a GP in a role specifically designed to develop confidence and independent practice in group of Advanced Practitioners in a Teaching Hub.

Jess is passionate about creating a supportive environment for multidisciplinary learning and working in Primary Care.

Nikki Barlow has joined the Primary Care Academy team working across North Wales to provide support for, and lead on, specific areas of work including skills, education and training for the non clinical workforce within both independent and Managed Practices.

Nikki will also work with the team and contribute to the delivery of other work streams and projects focusing on the sustainability of Primary and Community services.  Her previous work experience includes community services and schemes, Primary Care, GMS practice, MDT working and a range of cluster networking.

Nikki’s has spent time as the Primary Care cluster co-ordinator for Central & South Denbighshire within the Central area. She was responsible for the development, implementation and integration of the primary and community services strategy across the cluster including the development of the integrated model of community based health and social care.  This was in addition to supporting the cluster leads in the collation and production of cluster plans and supporting the overall development and administration of clusters.  Nikki also supported training schedules to develop and train staff/colleagues both clinical and non clinical.

Clare joined the NHS 6 years ago as a project manager but has been exposed to some really exciting projects since joining. With a career background in sales and marketing in publishing magazine and newspaper houses in North Wales and London, Clare has utilised her engagement skills to drive multi-disciplinary projects from concept to successful delivery.

Starting her career in the NHS as the Community Resources Teams (CRT) project manager, Clare was leading on a number of work streams including developing the 9 CRTs in Conwy and Denbighshire working across both Health and Social care to support culture change, team building and renovating and upgrading estates for the teams.

Clare then moved over to Primary Care to become the project manager leading the innovative ‘MY LIFE’ project in Conwy West which was multi-agency project which focussed on improving the health and well-being of the population of Conwy West Cluster by education, encouragement and support to make beneficial lifestyle choices.

Clare also has experience in quality and service improvement which are currently being used to design, develop and implement Skills, Education and Training Hubs across 4 sites in Managed Practices across North Wales.

Angela has worked in a variety of care settings as a registered nurse and midwife for nearly 40 years! This has taken her all over the UK and overseas working in areas such as neonatology, cardiology, occupational health nursing and for the last 25 years in primary care. Her primary care career started when she was a Nursing Officer within the Royal Air Force, and she was hooked! On returning back to north Wales she trained as a primary care Advanced Nurse Practitioner and more recently attained a Professional Doctorate in Healthcare in 2017.

Angela remains passionate about improving patient care within all that we do, with a focus on continually supporting our workforce to promote positive outcomes. She has been a huge advocate for primary care nursing for many years, helping to drive education, training and development opportunities locally. She has received a Queen’s Nurse Award for her service to community nursing and has contributed to service changes at national level.

She loves to travel, and is planning to tour with her campervan and rescue pup. Although, expecting a small terrier pup he’s now the size of a Labrador!!

Meleri has been a GP for 7 years and is new to the Academy team.  She spent many years in training away from her beloved North Wales, and has now returned, ready to convince anyone ready to listen about why they should come here to live and work.  She has an interest in health inequalities and is looking forward to harnessing local innovation in recruitment to improve access for all. In her spare time she is often found roaming the beaches or mountains with her family or tending, rather unsuccessfully, to her garden.