Professor Louise Toner
Professional Advisor
IBA Development
Professor Louise Toner leads the IBA programme development at Birmingham City University. Louise introduced the IBA framework into the university in 2015 by running a series of programmes. These included a bespoke course supporting Maternity & Midwifery staff and another to support students attending the High Achievers Programme. In 2019, IBA was embedded into a new 20 credit MSc module titled Understanding and managing behaviours of self, teams and organisations which was offered to national and international students. Under Louise’s leadership, IBA Pilot Programmes have gone on to be shortlisted in the category of ‘Wellbeing Initiative of the Year’ by the Times Educational Supplement (TES) Independent School Awards.
More about Louise
Louise is a nurse, midwife and academic by professional background; she has a wealth of experience working with the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and within the higher education sector again across all countries, bar Northern Ireland. Since moving into higher education, she has maintained strong partnership working with colleagues within health and social care across all sectors; she is a member of the UK Universities Council of Deans. In her current role Louise has responsibility for advising on the faculty’s academic portfolio, collaborative course provision and international activities ensuring it is the right offering to meet the workforce needs of employers and the personal and professional development needs of qualified health and social care professionals. She is a member of their Education Partnerships Group established to enable universities, NHS Trusts and other healthcare providers to work together to recruit and retain students to facilitate sufficient qualified staff entering the workforce. In addition, she is a member of the British Commonwealth Association (BCA), chairing their Education Sub Group and representing the BCA on the Greater Commonwealth Chamber of Commerce in Birmingham/West Midlands.
A Non-Executive Director in the NHS Louise Chairs the Trusts Quality Governance Assurance Committee and will be taking on the role of Chair for a newly established Research, Innovation and Improvement Committee.
Louise has also worked for a hugely successful charity in the UK – Macmillan Cancer Support where she was responsible for an Education Development Programme for specialist nurses in Cancer and Palliative Care. She was previously Chair but is now Trustee of the Wound Care Alliance UK a charitable organisation who provide education and training for non-specialist healthcare staff both qualified and unqualified in the field of Tissue Viability. Her interest in Wound Care led to her establishing the faculty’s Wound Healing Practice Development Unit of which she is the Director. This Unit delivers specialist workshops by our Professors in Wound Healing, undertaking product evaluations often in association with product manufacturers. As a surgical ward sister in practice Louise has a special interest in cancer care – the subject of her Masters degree awarded by the University of Glasgow.