Lesley Preece

Lesley Preece is an educationalist used to working across the full range of provision. She particularly enjoys children and their families where learning is be quirky – from complex to brilliant, and behaviour, colourful. She has driven innovative development at local, regional, and national levels with multi- disciplinary teams consisting of Social Workers, Carers, Psychologists, Physiotherapists, Academics, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, and the Police. Her default interest is always Diversity, Inclusion, and Access.

After a surgical accident in 2005 qualified Lesley as a Patient Partner, she subsequently lost her vocation through prejudices associated with Mental Health support for PTS and sleep disorders. She tried to ‘give back’ by writing guidance for families and employers of ITU survivors seeking to return to work but found that hospital services could not respond to individual initiatives. After discovering patient support groups dominated by angry folk seeking to blame, she withdrew and rebuilt her life as an Employment Adviser working between GP surgeries and JobCentre Plus; then as an Estate Manager of a very elderly Retirement community.

Lesley is not good at retiring. In 2014 she moved to Brighton. Medical difficulties arising from her earlier misadventure drove her to seek help from Sussex MSK Services where she met David in his role as Patient Director. She was thrilled to find a respectful, thoughtful, shared way of contributing to service improvement focused on patient need and signed up as an early Patient Partner. She now works with a team of 9 partners using project management, mentoring, and governance skills to develop services. Lesley has a family 5 adult children and their partners and 8 grandchildren. There are 20 seats at the family table.