Safe Medication Management Programme > About Us

Specialist SMM Programme Project Team

Clare Kirk, Programme Lead
Shayne Hunter, IT Systems
Steve Addison, Communications
Sene Tala, Project Manager
Amanda Ashcroft, Project Manager
Colette Burns, Project Manager
Paula Campbell, Implementation Advisor and Project Management Support

Clare Kirk, Programme Lead

Clare graduated from Otago in 1972. She and her husband set up private practice in New Plymouth in 1975 and remained in practice until late 2002 when they moved to Wellington. Clare took on the position of Professional Advisor for Physiotherapy at Hutt Valley District Health Board where she managed 30 physiotherapy staff and also continued to have a clinical case load in the out patient clinic. In 2005 Clare was employed as a Client Service Manager at Quality Health New Zealand. Her portfolio included 19 of the 21 District Health Boards who were accredited with Quality Health New Zealand at the time, the Aged Care sector and Not for Profit Health organisations.

Clare has audited Physiotherapy clinics against the Allied Health Services Sector Standards since 2005 and now leads the Safe Medication Management Programme Team.

Shayne Hunter, IT Systems

Shayne Hunter has 27 years experience in information systems and business covering retail, wholesale, distribution, banking and finance, telecommunications, media, health & disability, education and various other government sectors. His experience includes:
• Management of business and IT projects and programmes
• Standards development including chairing the medicines terminology and business process / messaging standards expert advisory committees for HISO
• Facilitating internal, cross-organisational and sector consultation covering a range of topics
• Business / user requirements capture and solution design

Steve Addison, Communications

Steve Addison has more than twenty years experience in public relations and journalism. His career has ranged from being a senior journalist at the Otago Daily Times to communications roles with the Department of Conservation, Canterbury District Health Board and, New Zealand Cricket – where he was public affairs manager for six years.
He is an accredited member of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand.
Steve is managing communications for the SMM Programme.

Sene Tala, Project Manager

Sene Tala completed her nursing degree at Whitireia Polytechnic in 2002 and went on to complete a Clinical Masters of Nursing at Massey University four years later. As a Public Health nurse for four years, Sene led the Wellington Public Health nurses in the successful year long Meningococcal B immunisation campaign. Sene then joined the Pacific Health Team at Capital and Coast DHB for two years as the clinical coordinator. Sene is the project manager for the Unit Dose and Bedside Verification cluster.

Amanda Ashcroft, Project Manager

Amanda Ashcroft trained as a nurse in the early 1980’s. She spent her first year at Hutt hospital and then worked in London, at the Royal Marsden, a cancer research hospital.

After returning to Wellington hospital Amanda worked initially in Oncology then went to Intensive Care for the best part of ten years. She gained an excellent grounding for midwifery in the Emergency department, where she worked for two years. Amanda then trained as a midwife and worked as an ‘independent midwife’ on call for two years. In returning to the workforce, after the birth of her third daughter, Amanda returned to Hutt hospital as a core midwife, and recently joined the Safe Medication Management team as a project manager for the Medicine Reconciliation cluster.

Colette Burns, Project Manager

Colette Burns graduated with a first class honours in Pharmacy from the University of Strathclyde in 1995. While employed at City Hospital, Birmingham, she studied at the University of Keele gaining a Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy in 1999.

Following a move to Kent Colette specialised in aseptic manufacture at the Mid Kent Oncology Centre [Maidstone], initially concentrating on chemotherapy then subsequently in the manufacture of radiopharmaceuticals. As the manager of the Oncology Centre’s Radiopharmacy in 2000, Colette was responsible for the quality assurance and quality control mechanisms required to operate an aseptic manufacturing unit.

An “overseas experience” brought Colette to New Zealand in 2002, where she was introduced to the NZ Healthcare system at Wanganui hospital.

On return to the UK she settled in Edinburgh as part of NHS Lothian’s Genito Urinary Medicine team [GUM] developing the new role of lead clinical HIV and Dermatology pharmacist. Whilst working within this multidisciplinary environment, Colette gained her Supplementary Prescribing certificate from the Robert Gordon University, [Aberdeen] in 2006. As an HIV and Dermatology prescribing adviser, Colette sat on clinical advisory boards and managed the introduction of new medicines developments, implemented protocols, guidelines and wrote training packages around medicines management.

Further career development brought Colette to NZ once again, this time in 2008 as Pharmacy Manager at Hutt Valley DHB and as a project manager for the SMM Programme.

Paula Campbell, Implementation Advisor and Project Management Support

Paula graduated from the Wellington Hospital School of Nursing in 1972 and combined family life with Nursing in Orthopaedics, AT&R and Medicine at Capital & Coast DHB until she resigned from her position as Charge Nurse/Team Leader, Internal Medicine at Kenepuru Hospital in 2001.

After a six month break from the workforce, Paula joined the Information Services department at Hutt Valley DHB as Project Leader for the Electronic Medical Record Programme – the development of which extended over six years. More recently Paula has managed various IT projects in primary care for Kowhai Health Trust in Lower Hutt.

Paula has a Bachelor of Nursing and a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Informatics. She was a member of the HISO Expert Advisory Committee that developed standards for Referrals, Status messages and Discharge Summaries in 2006.

She holds a PMP credential and is a member of the Project Management Institute of New Zealand.

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