Paul Thomas McDonough Smith

Biography

Paul TM Smith has returned to freelance consultancy after resigning as Director of Operations and Care Developments for the Prestige Care Group where he was also the NI for all regulated activities. Prior to this he was the Managing Director and nominated individual of MBi Social Care Limited and Qualia Care Limited until March 2017
At prestige he has assisted the group to add over 150 beds since his arrival and add nursing care into all services 167 registered nursing beds from a previous provision of a mere 26 beds. Prior to joining Prestige, he had created and registered and grown the MBi and Qualia provider companies comprising just over 450 beds, from a starting point of 26 unregistered beds and had seen the companies awarded IIP and triple end of life Beacon status with all 'Good' rating with the CQC.
Paul joined mbi consulting as Operations/Commercial director but quickly assumed the Managing Director mantle. He later joined the board becoming a shareholder in both Qualia Care, which he founded, and Mbi Social Care
He has been a director, or senior management across several of the UK’s largest and most successful care groups for much of the last 25 years while also enjoying a brief sojourn consulting in the NHS and briefly running his own freelance consulting concern following his successful tenure as Head of dementia and mental health for the 3rd largest care provider in the UK.
During the last twelve years, he has been involved in high-profile service start up, take over (the rescue of the failed largest UK operator Southern Cross) turn around, rebranding and consolidation and he has worked extensively within crisis resolution and service remodelling for both private sector concerns and within the NHS.
He is an advanced practice nurse with 38 years of continuous, revalidated registered practice. He has achieved professional and academic qualifications in psychiatric nursing, community psychiatric nursing, dementia studies, dementia care, nurse education, psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, clinical and indirect hypnosis, project management and is also a master practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming. He is an author, public speaker, and researcher
In the last several years and prior to taking up his most recent role, where he was unfortunately signed to an exclusivity clause, Paul was involved in national research and standards-setting which included working either directly, or as a consultant to, DoH research projects, Royal College of Nursing guidelines and as part of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) stakeholder contributors’ pool. In 2019 Paul has been appointed as steering group panel member to the Royal College of Nursing Older People’s forum
He was a major contributor to the creation of the National Quality Care Framework dementia modules and the National Dementia Pledge (Care England) He was a member of the NHS Institute for Excellence and Innovation care homes program until its demise and he is an advisory panel member of the Royal College of Nursing newly formed care home reference group
He played a major role in the implementation and ongoing coordination of over 200 care homes within the FITS program. The FITS program was the largest ever UK research initiative into reducing the use of anti-psychotic medications across care homes and was a joint DoH, Alzheimers Society and the University of Worcester partnership research undertaking
Paul has shared the experiences of thousands of patients, their families and friends and has won numerous awards including the prestigious improving lives award. He has high industry recognition and trust and is known for his innovative work in dementia and older person’s mental health.
Paul was greatly honoured to be a visiting research fellow (2008 - 2010) at the Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. He has presented extensively at national conferences and forums and has authored and contributed to several books and articles, many which have been published in international journals
As senior management Paul has assisted half a dozen highly successful start-ups including European Care Group which during his tenure went from 3 care homes to 112 plus over 200 LD services, with the HC-One takeover of 247 care homes from Sx and during the early days of BUPAs move into care homes and latterly with MBI Social Care and Qualia Care which were both start-ups
He is adept at troubleshooting and turn around and rebranding
His passions are dementia care, health and social care innovation, service design/redesign, environment design and adaptation for disability (physical and cognitive) mind-body therapy and governance for excellence.

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Dementia, Older persons mental health, stress and stress adaptations, adult mental health

Personal Interests

Martial arts, body culture, history, philosophy and personal development

Books

News