Introducing the Team

Holly is the Project Officer for the Wessex Healthier Together Initiative. She is passionate about getting the correct information out to the right people and using quality improvement to develop and improve best practice for treating Child and Young People across the region.  She believes that improving healthcare for children relates to ensuring that the parents and carers feel empowered and understand what is going on around them.  In her spare time is a keen Lacrosse player and actively involvement with the local American Football Team.

Samantha Belfrage is a current PhD student at the University of Winchester, UK. Her research interests include parental health literacy, including the voices of those seldom heard in research and patient and public involvement. Samantha has a MSc in Public Health from the University of Southampton, UK and is a registered Public Health Practitioner. She has ten years’ experience of working in a local authority public health team where most of her work focused on improving the health of children and young people. Samantha is also a qualified secondary science teacher, having taught in both mainstream state schools and alternative provisions.

Holly is a specialist midwife working within public health in Southampton. Holly has worked across the midwifery service in the community and hospital setting. She spent many years working on the maternity day assessment unit and now works as a specialist midwife in optimal weight for pregnancy and public health. She is passionate about providing pregnant women with the resources to promote health during pregnancy. She sees Healthier Together as the perfect platform to empower pregnant women and new parents. She aims to provide helpful, practical information to mothers to alleviate anxiety and signpost appropriately to other health services.

David is a senior doctor working in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. He is passionate about innovation and education and sees his new role within Healthier Together as the perfect opportunity to improve practice and reduce variability in the treatment of common acute paediatric conditions in Emergency Departments across Wessex. He has previously spent time as a Fellow in Medical Education and chaired the Royal College of Paediatrics Trainee Committee. Outside of work he is a keen cyclist, runner and swimmer.

Oliver is a General Practitioner living in Hampshire. He works as a locum doctor with practices and the Out of Hours Service in the Southampton and New Forest region. He works one day a week teaching GP trainees. His interest and enthusiasm for paediatrics began with an academic training post at Southampton General Hospital and was consolidated by a rotation in paediatrics during his GP training, when he gained the Diploma in Child Health.