Get to Know Us

Most consultancies stop at the recommendation. We don’t.

PHLS was founded by people who designed the systems others now use, and led the national programmes others are now trying to implement. Between us, we bring senior public health consultant expertise, built inside Public Health England and NHS England at national level, together with the operational and change management discipline to take work from strategy through to delivery.

That combination is not new to us. It’s how we worked together before PHLS existed, and it’s what we’ve built PHLS around: subject matter expertise and delivery capability in the same team, so that advice doesn’t sit on a shelf, it becomes the way things actually run.

All three of us are independent of NHS England. Billie and Jan retain their public health consultant registration. That means we can work as independent reviewers, critical friends, and advisors, without the conflicts of interest that come with existing NHS contracts.

Meet The Team

PHLS was founded by three people who worked together at the heart of national NHS screening quality assurance in PHE and NHSE. We share a simple starting point, good people doing good things. Jan and Billie bring senior public health consultant expertise, built and tested at national level. Kate brings the operational, governance, and commercial discipline that turns plans into delivery, and is the driving force behind the relationships, opportunities, and groundwork that bring PHLS’s work to life. We work the way we always have: combining vision, evidence, pace, and delivery in the same room.

Director, Operations and Strategy

Kate O'Connor

Kate led the operational transformation of national NHS screening quality assurance as Strategic Operations Lead for Public Health England's Screening Division, implementing the national operating model that put every UK screening programme on a consistent, well-governed footing. This builds on more than twenty years of leading strategy implementation, business operations and organisational change across national and local government, both in the UK and abroad.

Kate is the connector and the primary relationship-builder with clients, quick to build trust, quick to spot an opportunity, and the one who makes things happen. Her role is client-facing as much as operational: she sources and manages associates, leads client progress reporting, and provides the standardised, repeatable operating environment that makes Billie and Jan's technical work deliverable.

Director, Public Health Consultant

Billie Moores

Billie led national NHS screening quality assurance from 2019, most recently as Deputy Director of Screening, with senior national leadership for England's cervical cancer elimination plan and the HPV self-sampling programme. This builds on 12 years as a consultant in public health, with a particular focus on clinical pathways, together with reducing health inequalities.

Billie asks the questions that get straight to the nub of an issue and builds trust quickly - she's the person people want on their team, and it shows in the pragmatic solutions she delivers, built to last rather than just to tick a box. She has also led external reviews of screening QA elsewhere in the UK and advised other countries developing their own screening and early detection programmes.

Director, Public Health Consultant

Jan Yates

Jan has led national NHS screening at senior level, most recently as a national Senior Clinical Lead for screening covering quality assurance, QA development,R&D and expert clinical advice. Her career has spanned director-level public health leadership more broadly and a range of educational roles. She led the development of a national screening QA framework for the Republic of Ireland, bringing together clinicians and managers who had previously worked to different standards into one shared, trusted system.

Jan brings energy, pace, and a relentless focus on what happens next, turning ideas into action and decisions into momentum. She also designs and delivers Courageous Leaders, a leadership development programme for senior public health professionals, commissioned and recommissioned by six NHS health systems over eight years. She is a qualified executive coach and co-editor of a leading public health textbook.