Who We Are
Devices for Dignity operates nationally, bringing together the right team of expert clinicians, academics, members of the public, carers, charities and industry to deliver solutions to address specific needs.
D4D has a multidisciplinary Core Team hosted at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Members of the team come from a range of backgrounds – healthcare, research, management, charity, technology, industry – and work together with other experts to make D4D projects a reality.
Our Core Team
Professor Wendy Tindale
Clinical Director
Professor Wendy Tindale OBE is Consultant Clinical Scientist and Scientific Director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. She holds a Chair at the University of Sheffield and is Clinical Director of Devices for Dignity. She leads one of the largest NHS medical technology centres in the UK and has experience in front line patient care and healthcare innovation. She has contributed to national and international committees, including Royal College and Government advisory bodies.
Professor Tindale was honoured with the title of Healthcare Scientist of the Year at the 2016 Healthcare Science Awards.
Liz Pryde
Programme Manager
Liz joined the D4D team in December 2014 having spent the previous 5 years as the Industry Manager for the NIHR Clinical Research Network: Yorkshire and Humber. Liz has worked as a Project Manager on many health related projects over the last 15 years across the NHS, Academia and Industry. Having spent the last 5 years predominantly managing pharmaceutical clinical trials, Liz was excited about the opportunity to move into the medical devices sector where she has previous experience.
David Coyle
Patient Partnership Lead
David is an experienced business professional and long-term dialysis patient. In the last thirty years he has survived kidney failure, dialysis, a kidney transplant, cancer, COPD, further kidney failure and a return to dialysis. He has been a home nocturnal dialysis patient for the last five years. David’s professional background has been based in the private sector including roles in Corporate Planning, Management Consulting culminating in board level line management roles. His specialist skill areas are project management, change management and innovation. Five years ago David switched his professional focus to the health sector to follow his passion, improving the renal patient experience. Since 2013 he has held the positions of renal patient lead and project manager at D4D.
Philippa Hedley-Takhar
Business Development Manager
Philippa joined the team in January 2019 to develop strategic relationships with national partners to support Devices for Dignity’s programme portfolio and catalyse opportunities across Devices for Dignity’s clinical and cross-cutting themes.
Prior to joining the team, Philippa was Programme Manager in the Perfect Patient Pathway NHS England Wave 1 Test Bed programme co-ordinating multi-stakeholder partnerships to implement, test and evaluate novel combinations of technology and service re-design supporting the care home community and NHS services at system-level; and develop training and resources for health professionals to support people with long-term conditions to use technology for self-management.
With over 15 years’ experience in economic development, inward investment and strategic innovation in the advanced manufacturing, digital, and health technologies sectors, and an MSc in Urban Regeneration, Philippa was previously Head of Investment & Partnerships at Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), working in the Commercial Team to establish the Yorkshire & Humber Digital Health & Wellbeing Ecosystem (a partnership with the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance); and develop relationships with national funding bodies, the SME community and healthcare innovation networks.
Dr Katherine Jeays-Ward
NHS Innovation Manager
Communications Lead
Katherine joined D4D in December 2014 as a project manager, with additional responsibility as Communications Lead. She has over ten years’ experience of managing complex multidisciplinary projects across a range of organisations and sectors. Recent project work, as either a co-investigator or project manager, includes technology development around ventilation masks, antimicrobial resistance, and urinary tract infections. Previous projects have included working closely with patients to widen patient engagement in device development and the delivery of a patient-led event around dignity and independence, and the Expanded Newborn Screening project, which resulted in national policy change around the routine screening of newborn children in the UK.
Prior to moving into project management and technology development, Katherine obtained a PhD in developmental genetics from the Institute of Cancer Research, and spent a further four years as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Sheffield.
Dr Angel Jimenez-Aranda
Digital Technology Lead
Angel is the Digital Technology Lead at D4D. He has prime responsibility for promoting the development and adoption of digital healthcare technologies in the D4D consortium. His goal is to maximise the operational efficiency in the selection and execution of high impact research and innovation projects. He has an extensive experience developing and evaluating digital solutions for clinical decision support and patient empowerment. He has a successful track record leveraging funding (SBRI, NIHR, InnovateUK) and partnerships opportunities.
Angel has been an active member of the delivery team in the Perfect Patient Pathway Test Bed Programme (2016-2018). This programme, funded by NHS England and led by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, aimed to build infrastructure and test innovative combinations of technology and care pathway development to improve patient outcomes and experience.
Prior to joining D4D, Angel worked in the Higher Education sector for 8 years as the director of a University College, Chief Operations Officer of a biomedical engineering research group, and manager of the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU).
Kirsty Kassim
Programme Administrator
Kirsty has worked for D4D since its formation in 2007. She has worked at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in various admin roles for over 20 years, the last 10 in the Department of Medical Physics. She loves the challenge of supporting the D4D multidisciplinary Team.
Dr Avril McCarthy
MedTech Lead
Avril is MedTech Lead at NIHR Devices for Dignity HTC, with responsibility for all MedTech aspects of the portfolio of projects. Avril is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield.
Avril is passionate about developing new medical devices that bring benefits to patients and has experienced a wide and varied range of projects incorporating collaborative working with industry, academic colleagues, and product users, within multi- and interdisciplinary teams. In Avril’s previous roles as Medical Device Innovation Lead at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT she was responsible for developing new devices for the NHS Trust, and Lead Clinical Scientist for the Biomechanical Evaluation and Function Group, specialising in clinical gait analysis provided as a clinical service to Sheffield Children’s Hospital. She was also responsible for clinical research applications of biomechanical analysis, such as modelling of orthopaedic procedures including osteotomies.
A graduate of the University of Liverpool, Avril also has a PhD in Orthopaedic Surgery Simulation for training from the University of Sheffield.
Nathaniel Mills
Paediatric Programme Manager
Nathaniel project manages the paediatric theme within D4D, this includes D4D Junior which cross cuts D4D’s existing themes and also the TITCH (Technology and Innovation Transforming Child Health) collaborative which is a network of experts from across the paediatric health sector. The network also includes academic, industry and charity representation.
Nathaniel is a trained nurse and prior to his role with D4D was the lead nurse for the South Yorkshire Clinical Research Network (Now CRN: Yorkshire and Humber).
Abigail Needham
Business Development and Project Manager
Abigail is the Business Development and Project Manager working across NIHR Devices for Dignity MedTech Co-operatives, NIHR Children and Young Peoples’ MedTech Co-operative and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
Abigail is a trained Physiotherapist and prior to joining Devices for Dignity was working in the pharmaceutical industry. She has over 12 years’ experience working as a Sales Representative and Account Manager working in numerous areas including Diabetes, Cardiovascular, Respiratory – Asthma and COPD and Vaccines.
Lise Sproson
Senior Research Associate
Lise joined D4D in 2013 as a Research Associate, in order to help identify and support research projects which have a rehabilitation and assistive technology focus. She is also actively involved in a number of D4D’s ongoing Portfolio research projects and currently undertaking her own research into the use of biofeedback technology in rehabilitation of swallowing problems.
Prior to joining D4D, Lise worked clinically for 23 years as a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, treating patients with swallowing and communication difficulties following neurological injury.
