Sonia Mackenzie

Key achievements:

Led the successful design, £60k funding acquisition and delivery of a national series of four cardiometabolic disease management and prevention summits. Bringing together 50+ senior NHS leaders, clinicians, patients and system partners to identify how prevention can be improved in everyday practice aiming to support the aspirations of the NHS Long Term Plan. Established and chaired multidisciplinary steering groups to shape the programme, ensuring all stakeholder groups were represented and heard, managing personal agendas and conflicting priorities. The programme will deliver practical resources to improve cross-boundary working, including a physician-focused toolkit to support implementation across care pathways.

Managed the development and implementation of Medical Care – Driving Change, the RCP improvement hub designed to support physicians and NHS organisations in delivering service transformation. The platform translated best practice, digital innovation and evidence-based improvements into accessible resources across key areas including patient safety, clinical pathway redesign, digital transformation and leading change. This programme utilised a monthly 'spotlight' approach creating and showcasing small scale improvements for members to implement locally producing over 200 resources.

Relaunched and delivered the RCP’s Excellence in Patient Care Awards, a global programme recognising and celebrating high-impact improvement work led by members. Oversaw the end-to-end process from application through to event delivery for over 100 guests, including coordinating the review and shortlisting process to ensure robust assessment of submissions. Leveraged insights from over 150 applications to identify opportunities to spread and scale successful improvement initiatives, supporting wider adoption across organisations and contributing to a culture of shared learning and continuous improvement.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead the team delivering multiple improvement programmes from inception through to evaluation
• Develop project plans, governance frameworks and reporting mechanisms to ensure effective delivery and accountability.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders including patients, physicians, senior clinical leaders, NHS organisations and college officers.
• Deliver and facilitate workshops, learning events and stakeholder engagement activities to support service transformation.
• Produce high-quality reports, evaluations and performance dashboards to support strategic decision-making and demonstrate impact.
• Manage multiple competing priorities, risks and dependencies across a diverse portfolio of projects.
• Support business development activities, partnership opportunities and the growth of improvement programme

Key responsibilities:

• Supported patients across nine GP practices to access services addressing social determinants of health, including housing, financial wellbeing and social isolation.
• Built effective partnerships with voluntary and community organisations to improve service capacity, support service development and contribute to performance reporting and stakeholder engagement activities across the Primary Care Network.

Key responsibilities:

• Managed 20+ customer relationships across the Northwest of England and North Wales, leading onboarding projects from requirements gathering through to implementation,
• Oversaw customer reviews, operational performance reporting, and service improvement activity, including change requests, complaints, and contract renewals.

Key responsibilities:

• Led the quality and improvement function for a thermal coatings facility operating within ISO 9001 standards,
• Managed a team of quality professionals and implemented quality improvement strategies to improve operational performance.
• Introduced corrective and preventive action frameworks, performance measures and governance processes.
• Played a key role in driving cultural change and embedding continuous improvement methodologies across the facility.

Key responsibilities:

• Led quality, compliance and continuous improvement activities for a major aerospace manufacturing facility.
• Managed multidisciplinary team of up 14 staff and supported organisational transformation initiatives.
• Delivered Lean improvement projects, Kaizen events and operational excellence programmes across UK and European operations.
• Led internal and regulatory audit programmes across facilities in the UK, Europe and Asia.
• Supported strategic planning, policy deployment and performance management processes.
• Implemented robust quality management systems and improvement frameworks aligned to AS9100 (ISO 9001) standards.
• Analysed business performance data to identify improvement opportunities and deliver measurable operational benefits.