John Drew

John Drew is an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. He is Director of Staff Experience and Engagement at NHS England.

The scope of John’s role includes health and wellbeing and staff engagement for the NHS in England. He also led on the delivery of the People Plan, which includes the aspiration contained within the People Promise to develop a compassionate and inclusive culture and to make the NHS ‘the best place to work’.

Before being appointed to this role, John was Director of Improvement and Culture at Oxford University Hospitals, a role which included responsibility for People, Communication, Improvement and Analytics. Prior to joining the NHS, John led McKinsey’s work with NHS hospitals in the UK as well as other international health systems. He trained originally as an engineer and worked in manufacturing industry before entering consultancy. He has deep expertise in quality improvement, particularly the application of Lean principles combined with culture change. In 2005 he co-wrote an award-winning book, Journey to Lean.

He is passionate about supporting people to bring about improvements in quality and productivity, as well as in how teams function and how organisations are led and run. He is increasingly of the view that the core assumptions we hold – and are often taught – about how organisations are run and what constitutes ‘efficiency’ need to be challenged and renewed. Reinventing Organisations is recommended reading for insights into why this is urgent and how it might be done.