The Wales Fertility Institute is the only NHS funded service covering South and West Wales. Being part of one of the largest NHS Health Boards, Swansea Bay University Health Board, WFI uses an unique approach to fertility treatments where the priority of the service is the quality and safety of the care provided to our patients. WFI utilise the stringent NHS governance processes to ensure that all aspects of care provided to our patients are undertaken in line with NHS requirements. The Senior Management Team are made up of:
Dr Paul Knaggs – HFEA Person Responsible, Consultant Embryologist
Francesca Steyn - Clinical Service Manager
Gurpreet Kalra - Clinical Lead & Consultant
Julia Bradley – Lead Fertility Nurse/Matron
I have recently re-located to Wales from Buckinghamshire, England, as I wanted to come back to Wales having been born in Cardiff. I have been a nurse for over 30 yrs, with over 20 yrs experience in women’s reproductive health, gynaecology, sexual health and contraception. Most recently I was a fertility nurse specialist at Luton & Dunstable hospital’s NHS fertility unit, which was a satellite unit for Bourn Hall clinic in Cambridge. During Covid re-deployment I went back to my roots in the hospital’s early pregnancy unit, as their nurse sonographer. For the last 7 months I had been working for Hywel Dda UHB as the emergency gynae/early pregnancy nurse specialist, whilst also monitoring and sorting fertility referrals/consultations for the UHB patients, that had sadly been on the waiting list for over 2 yrs. This made me realise how much I miss fertility patients and when I saw the role of matron here at WFI I knew it would be a great move, just as the move to Wales has been. I am a passionate advocate for women’s reproductive health in all its aspects but particularly sub-fertility and gynae issues. I am looking forward to continuing to innovate and drive forward the fertility agenda here at Swansea Bay UHB with WFI. I look forward to meeting and working with new colleagues and teams.
Stephanie Herring – Quality Manager
Stephanie has worked within the IVF sector since joining the NHS fertility service in 1994. She is a successful senior governance professional and with her drive to ensure a quality service Stephanie has continually worked within the service to ensure that a patient focused, quality service is offered to all patients accessing the Wales Fertility Institute. Stephanie’s passion is quality and she has a never ending belief that there should be continuous service evaluation and improvement to ensure that our patients are cared for in a caring and safe environment. She continues to share the belief that there is always room for improvement and that there is always the opportunity to learn. She has successfully achieved ISO accreditation for both the quality management system and the diagnostic andrology laboratory service within WFI and continues to ensure there is structured process to ensure robust quality assurance, compliance and risk management frameworks to achieve external quality certification and legal and regulatory organisational compliance.