A team with unique
clinical expertise

Our consultancy is informed by industry experience.

Our Team

KBC’s Senior Leadership Team

KBC’s Managing Partners both have the unique advantage of clinical experience. This provides a candid appreciation of both clinical and non-clinical team workforce challenges across the public and private healthcare sectors.

Our Leadership team is supported by a UK-wide network of affiliate consultants, each with their own principal area of expertise.

Meet Our Managing Partners

Matthew Bluck

Managing Partner

MA (Health Care Ethics and Law), PGDip (Health Service Management), DipHE (Professional Studies – Nursing)

Having started his career as a nurse, working in a Regional Burns Unit, Matthew moved to a city centre Emergency Department, before an interest in Health Care Ethics and Law led to a move into medical workforce planning before specialising in clinical workforce reviews.

Today, Matthew is a clinical workforce expert with unparalleled experience having led KBC for over 14 years delivering sensitive, complex projects and reviews for over 50 NHS clients, Royal Colleges, regulatory bodies, and clients in Qatar, Dubai and the Republic of Ireland.


Outside of KBC, Matthew has delivered workforce projects in the NHS and private sector for over 23 years, holding positions within the North Western Deanery, two Strategic Health Authorities, a large Acute teaching hospital and three private sector organisations.


In a joint post as a Workforce Development and Change manager and as a member of the NHS North West Improving Junior Doctors’ Working Lives Team, Matthew delivered the clinical workforce plan for the making it better consultation, the largest in the history of the NHS; and supported the early implementation of the European Working Time Directive for Junior Doctors and the 2003 consultant contract across the North West.


Over the last 10 years, Matthew has returned to NHS posts to cover vacancies and maternity leave for clients, with Management roles in Surgery and Emergency Medicine. Matthew also returned to an NHS post to support the Covid response in North Wales.

Helen Maynard

Managing Partner

BSc Hons (Clinical Practice), RN DipHE (Professional Studies – Nursing)

Helen brings over 26 years of health service and 11 years healthcare consultancy experience, having held numerous posts in the NHS (and beyond).

Helens posts have mainly been in the MAU and Emergency settings. She was also Senior Nurse for the Metropolitan Police Service, where she and the wider team were instrumental in changing the strategic direction of health care delivery by introducing custody nurses into the custody setting. Most recently Helen has worked as a Matron in an Emergency Department in a large London trauma centre.

 

Helen joined KBC over 11 years ago, initially starting out as an SME, taking ownership of clinical engagement, providing clinical teams with a strong voice in all our projects, to help achieve greater client satisfaction. Now as Managing Partner, Helen brings a unique skill set, her aspiration on every project is to ensure the right level of clinical engagement, working collaboratively with teams to ensure purposeful involvement and active contribution. Helen strongly believes KBC’s success relies on ensuring clinical team are listened to, their insights explored and represented.

 

Passionate in her work for KBC, both on projects and in leading the strategic direction of the business, Helen leads our large affiliate network with a focus on progressive engagement, and a positive patient and staff experience being at the core.

 

Helen’s experience of working in NHS teaching hospitals shapes her collaborative approach to consultancy with both clinical and management teams. Helens leadership of KBC promotes the inclusive, open and transparent culture within the company which ensures all our team contribute to our mission to be the best.

Julie Merry

Chief Finance Officer

Julie Merry is a Chartered Accountant with extensive experience as CFO for a wide variety of consultancy and software businesses.
Julie started her career in audit and M&A at PricewaterhouseCoopers in their London and New York offices. Julie supports KBC with financial advice and is a key partner across all functions of the business.

Julie is KBC’s lead in financial and strategic planning and as part of the management team has developed growth plans to progress the business.

KBC’s Core Team

Our Core Team is comprised of healthcare professionals.

Highly motivated to make a measurable difference, they’re passionate about transforming clinical and management team efficiencies with effective workforce reviews.

Sophie Cookson

Business Manager

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc

Sophie joined Kendall Bluck Consulting in 2021 and has successfully supported a number of significant reviews, including financial recovery and workforce reconfiguration projects across diverse organisations in complex health systems.

Ben Swift

Principal Consultant

BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences, BSc (Hons) Air Transport Management

Ben is our newest recruit to KBC. He has a first-class honours degrees in Biology and Air Transport Management and is a qualified commercial pilot.

Ali Garland

Lead Nurse

MSc (Advanced Clinical Practice) and qualified ANP

As an ANP in cardiothoracic surgery, working within the medical rota to manage the ward-based care of patients, Alison has worked as the lead for pre-op cardiac surgery

Catherine Hey

Nursing SME

MSc Advanced Clinical Practice, BSc Nursing Sciences, RN. ​

Catherine is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner in the Emergency Department at a busy teaching hospital. Catherine has extensive ED experience working at Band 7 for a number of years before completing her MSc and moving into an Advanced Clinical role. 

Adrian Levine

Medical lead

BSc, MBBS, FRCS (CTh)

Having qualified as a Doctor in 1987, before progressing to the post of Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at a large NHS Trust for over 19 years, now Adrian brings a wealth of practical and consultancy experience to our team as Medical Lead.

Beccy Tombs

Your Marketing Team

Working as our Lead Marketing Consultant at Your Marketing Team

Beccy manages KBC’s Marketing Strategy and implementation, shaping the tactical communications plan to support growth and new client acquisition.

KBC’s Affiliate Consultants Network

We have a team of affiliate consultants each with their own individual area of healthcare expertise.

Our commitment to working with current and ex-healthcare practitioners ensures we have a unique understanding of sector specific challenges, supporting our vision to recommend efficiencies that support and enhance department productivity.

Our Approach

Offering a truly independent expert view, our approach is structured around a three-stage programme designed to support organisations through incremental workforce alignment.

We work in partnership with all stakeholders, utilising proprietary software to develop the most effective people strategy to staff clinical services. This is underpinned by whole organisation evaluation designed to identify future support needs.

ALIGN

REVIEW

REALIGN

Our Services

Our mission is to create best-practice workforce alignment strategies to facilitate the most cost-effective way to staff clinical services. All services are unique to an individual client’s needs.

A nurse in blue scrubs holds a patient's hand, offering comfort and reassurance

Emergency Department

For many patients, the gateway to care is the Emergency Department (ED). Through interviews with lead clinicians we build clinical workforce models which align to departmental activity.

A smiling doctor in a white coat discussing medical solutions with a businessman

Specialist Reviews

Our comprehensive proprietary diagnostic and modelling tools can be utilised across multiple departments from medical, surgical, women’s and children’s services to mental health and clinical support.

Two smiling nurses in blue scrubs discuss patient information on a tablet in a hospital hallway.

Whole Organisation Evaluation

Our implementation and benefits realisation programme identifies where efficiency opportunities exist and sets out practical, high‑level solutions. 

Job Planning

Job Planning is critical for consultants to ensure that their career progress aligns with both their individual and team aspirations and ambitions, as well as their organisations priorities.

Reconfiguration

Reconfiguration is the process of improving patient care by making significant changes to the organisation of, and delivery of healthcare services.