Dr Amanda Woolley

Organisational Development Consultant, facilitator and coach at Freelance

Share
Organisational Development Consultant, facilitator and coach
Policy Fellow, Centre for Science and Policy

Amanda Woolley currently holds the portfolio for system leadership development for the NHS Leadership Academy in the North East and Yorkshire. Prior to this appointment she has worked on national NHS transformation programmes. In various roles she supported leaders in the local health and care system and their frontline teams to change models of health care delivery and translates the learning from these projects back into national policy for NHS planned care services. Amanda has written guidance for health commissioners and providers and facilitates learning and engagement between local organisations and national policy bodies.

Amanda is particularly interested in how knowledge of behaviour change, risk perception, problem-solving and creativity can support sustainable adoption of new innovations and better outcomes. Amanda has always valued working closely with those responsible for implementing new policy initiatives. Through these interactions she came to understand many of the barriers to realising the benefits of policy changes and saw the potential for improvement based on her academic background in judgement and decision-making psychology. Investigating the implementation gap further, systems and complexity theory have become equally influential as frames for these challenges.

Amanda studied Philosophy and Psychology as an undergraduate at Heythrop College, University of London before receiving her PhD in Psychology from Kings College London, sponsored by the Division of Health and Social Care Research. Her doctoral thesis explored cognitive models for clinical intuition in general practice and its effect on early and missed diagnoses.