Karl
Director of Strategy & Partnerships
HCPC-Registered | Master of Public Health (MPH)
Karl is the Director of Strategy and Partnerships at The McGilligan Practice. He leads on growth, commissioning relationships, pathway design, and integration with public services, employers, and community partners.
His work focuses on developing and scaling psychological pathways that address system pressures such as:
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High-intensity service users (HISU)
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Emergency Department avoidance
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Crisis prevention and stabilisation
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Loneliness and isolation
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Functional recovery and return to stability
Karl’s background is in public health, system leadership, and risk management. He has held senior and consultant-level leadership roles within the NHS, including Associate Director posts, giving him deep understanding of how health and care systems function and how people experience them when they are in distress, excluded, or repeatedly escalating.
His Master of Public Health (MPH) underpins his approach. He applies population-level evidence, behavioural science, and inequality insight to the design of services that are:
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Preventative rather than reactive
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Focused on early stabilisation
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Designed to reduce avoidable crisis use
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Accessible to people facing barriers to care
Karl leads the development of The McGilligan Practice’s commissioned pathways, working with:
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Integrated Care Boards
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Local Authorities
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NHS providers
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Employers and third-sector partners
His role includes:
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Designing pathway models (Stabilise, Avoid, Connect, Recover)
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Building commissioning and partnership relationships
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Supporting governance, risk, and assurance frameworks
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Aligning services to system priorities and outcomes
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Translating clinical excellence into scalable, sustainable services
Karl's work is driven by a belief that good mental health care must sit within good systems, systems that are fair, accessible, preventative, and capable of responding to complexity without defaulting to crisis.