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Nurse First Delivery Team

Dave Dawes
Dave Dawes is the Managing Director of Nurse First CIC and is a nurse who has been a founding member of 4 social enterprises over the last 8 years. He is the first nurse to be elected to the Board of Social Enterprise UK and the first social entrepreneur to be elected to the Council of the Royal College of Nursing. He was one of the youngest Chief Executives in the NHS and had held a number of NHS management posts in Health Authorities and Hospital Trusts and has published extensively in nursing and management journals. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on social entrepreneurship, e-learning and leadership. He jointly led the e-learning programme which won the Institute of IT Training Award for e-learning project of the year in 2003. He also sits on the boards of Social enterprise UK, Unlimited Potential, Togetherworks and PrepOnline and the Leadership Succession Committee of Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nursing. He has a MA in Managing Healthcare, a degree in Mathematics and Post-graduate diplomas in Health Economics and Healthcare Management.
He lives in Buxton with his son Ben and two manic fluffy puppies.


Ali Richards is a Director of Nurse First CIC and is a nurse and as well as working for Nurse First is Director of GTR Coaching LTD a company using coaching techniques to facilitate online relationships for business and healthcare using social media. She is a business coach/mentor and guardian angel with Community and Business Partners. Ali has a background in Organisational and Personal Development and General Management. She is a successful podcaster and blogger and was jointly responsible for the popular busynurse podcast. Her personal blog has topped 55,000 views per month and she has regularly written for a top US blog site. Ali has worked both in the NHS and in the private sector and has run four companies. At the NHS Leadership Centre, Ali was responsible for facilitating networks of trainers and programme administrators across the country and for ensuring that over 34,000 nurses went on leadership programmes.  Ali has also published articles in professional journals and is a reviewer for Nursing Management. She has been a member of a variety of voluntary organisations and professional bodies and regularly presents and facilitates at conferences both in the UK and internationally.

Holly Matthies
Holly Matthies is the Office Manager of Nurse First CIC and her work history includes everything from NHS nursing assistant to supporting disabled students to canvassing voters in two countries. She has co-written a book, Designing Human Systems, on the importance of making IT systems suit the people using them, rather than the other way around. She is originally from the United States and likes living in a country with a nationalised healthcare system.