Meet the Team

Ciara Collins

Chair

Critical Care Matron - Harefield Hospital, Heart Lung and Critical Care Clinical Group GSTT Foundation Trust

Ciara originally from Ireland trained and completed nurse training in London, qualifying in 2005. After a short time on the wards Ciara moved to general intensive care where her passion for critical care was born. Ciara has 16 years’ experience in critical care nursing covering general, burns and cardio thoracic intensive care- transplantation and mechanical support. Prior to her current role as Matron for Critical Care in Harefield Hospital she was lead nurse for ECMO.

Ciara holds post registration courses in intensive care nursing, mentorship and leadership and management. She is an ECMO CNS and is trained in mechanical life support.

Ciara found her love for cardio-thoracic, transplantation and mechanical support nursing when she joined Harefield in 2011. Ciara is a passionate NHS leader and strives to ensure that the team are well supported in all aspects of their role, professionally, academically and psychologically.

Ciara’s motivation to join the forum was to help bring critical care nursing back to the forefront. She would like to network with other experts in the field and help guide the direction of critical care nursing on a national level.

Ben Reuel Ballono

Band 7 Critical Care Practice Development Nurse – Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust

Coming to the UK back in 2015, my first role was in Critical Care in Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. I requested to come into critical care because of my previous 4 years’ experience in this area in the Philippines.

Working in the NHS as a critical care nurse for the past few years have both been rewarding and challenging. The grace, resilience, and humanity of critical care nurses has always been something I’ve admired. Nurturing and developing critical care nurses who embody these qualities is my passion. I am currently employed at University Hospital Lewisham as a Practice Development Nurse in Critical Care.

In my role as a Practice Development Nurse, I work with a team of educators who develop and run university accredited courses for critical care nurses at different points of their career. On top of maintaining the continuing development and education of our staff, I also take part in the making of local policies and guidelines.

I have a predilection for technology and innovation in critical care. I also have a keen interest in higher education, standardising best practices, overseas nursing support, and improving staff and patient experience.

While on the steering committee, I hope to give insight into the ever changing role of the critical care nurse. As well as feed-forward the views and welfare of the members that I will represent.

Dominic Rose

Chief Flight Nurse, Capital Air Ambulances and Senior Intensive care nurse Southmead Hospital, Bristol

Dominic has worked with Capital Air Ambulance since 2012 when, at the time, he also worked as a senior nurse at the Southmead Hospital in Bristol. 

He joined Capital initially as a part-time Flight Nurse Coordinator with enormous critical care and major trauma experience. Since then he has acquired significant experience in aeromedical transport and also in the logistics, management and organization of patient transfers and retrievals. His role also includes CQC and EURAMI compliance management, teaching aeromedical and life support skills, with a particular interest in clinical simulation.

Despite his full-time position at Capital as the Chief Flight Nurse, Dominic remains an intensive care nurse for the NHS in Bristol.

Kim Williamson

Band 7 Critical Care Outreach Nurse practitioner – Frimley Park Hospital 

Kim completed her nursing degree at Leeds University and qualified in 2000.  She spent the first few years in a variety of medical and surgical areas, then after a few months exploring the world she found her passion for critical care nursing in 2005.  After five years in ICU, learning and studying she entered the world of critical care outreach where she is actively working to date. She completed her 

Kim has an absolute passion for critical care and outreach and the fact that each and every day very day is different; from attending emergency calls, delivering teaching, assessing ICU admissions or seeing patients who have left ICU alongside supporting ward staff to best look after their sick patients the role is endlessly variable and rewarding.

Kim is a UK Resuscitation Advanced Life Support instructor so also spends time teaching a variety of life support courses in addition to being a link in her unit for critical care transfers.  Kim completed her BSc Clinical Practice (Intensive Care) University of Surrey (May 2010), and about to complete her MSc in advanced practice in December 2019.

Given her expertise and strong background in critical care and outreach nursing, Kim is really looking forward to working with the steering committee to help support our members and further drive standards and competence in this field of nursing nationally. 

Nadeem Khan

Nadeem Khan joined Bradford University as an Assistant Professor in April 2022. Having qualified and practiced professionally in a large surgical ICU abroad, Nadeem decided to move to the UK to develop his nursing career.

Nadeem progressed to become a lead nurse in oncology before moving to critical care where he has continued to develop his clinical, managerial, and teaching roles. Notwithstanding his clinical commitments, he has managed to obtain a series of qualifications throughout his career, including a BSc in health and social care, a critical care specialist course, and a post graduate certificate in higher professional education (teaching).

Nadeem’s interests are education, professional workforce development and retention in adult critical care areas as well as equally, diversity and inclusion. He has completed his Ph.D. in 2021 whilst working full-time in critical care as a senior charge nurse. Nadeem has extensive teaching experience in both clinical and academic settings. He has taught at Oxford Brookes University as an associate lecturer/teaching fellow and contributed to the development of various in-house education programs within the adult critical care settings whilst working as a clinical educator and practice development nurse in Oxford.

Sara Walsh

Chief Critical Care Flight Nurse and Clinical Services Manager - Gama Aviation

Sara Walsh is the Chief Critical Care Flight Nurse and Clinical Services Manager at Gama Aviation, where she runs a fixed-wing emergency retrieval service. Her vast international experience has allowed her to develop skills in an open minded and adaptable manner. Evidence based practice and patient centred quality care is of high importance, which is reflected in the way she develops policies and runs the service.

Sara has also been involved in the development of new international standards for the aeromedical industry (EURAMI). Sara remains clinical by means of remaining on the nurses bank within ICU and by undertaking flights with Gama Aviation. She is passionate about critical care and aeromedical nursing and strives to share her passion with others.