During 2013-14, Joe McCrea combined roles as Social Media Lead for NHS Change Day – the single largest improvement event in the NHS – and Head of Engagement for Tameside Listens, the biggest patient and stakeholder listening exercise in Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s history.

This gave him a unique insight into current contrasting challenges and priorities from frontline and national perspectives.

He is a course tutor for the NHS Leadership Academy’s ‘Nye Bevan Leadership Programme’ and has designed social media strategies for the NHS Confederation and a leading UK local authority.

He has Board level experience in Non-Executive, Cabinet Ministerial Adviser, Parliamentary, Top 5 Consultancy and Senior Civil Service roles. He is a former Special Adviser at the Department of Health, Prime Minister’s Adviser in 10 Downing Street and a member of Cabinet Office Senior Management Team.

A communications pioneer for over two decades, he won numerous innovation awards in 1999 for designing and leading implementation of the world’s first Government-wide integrated policy, strategy and online communities network – the Knowledge Network – years before social media became pervasive.

One of his proudest moments came in 2001, when a word he first coined in 1994 while inventing the Labour Party’s Rapid Rebuttal operation officially entered the English language in the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: “Pre-buttal” (noun) – a pre-emptive response to an anticipated attack.