Anna Watkiss

Specialist Areas

With over 25 years’ experience working in the case management sector, Anna is TBL’s clinical lead and a senior case manager. She has taken an active part in writing BABICM’s competencies, standards and ethical code and delivers these principles within her day to day practice with clients and staff. She is passionate about placing the client at the heart of all she does, empowering them and maximising their engagement in the rehabilitation process to achieve positive outcomes.

BSc in Psychology 1993
MSc in Occupational Psychology 2003

Anna graduated from Stirling University in 1993 with an Honours degree in Psychology. She commenced her career working with Case Management Services Ltd in 1994 as an Assistant Psychologist. This role involved carrying out neuropsychological assessments under supervision of a Chartered Clinical Neuropsychologist and interviewing family members of individuals with traumatic brain injury. She improved her clinical skills working with clients with complex neurological issues by working at a private neuro-rehabilitation centre. In addition, Anna started working on building a database of published research in relation to brain injury. She also researched and maintained a database of costings to reflect the changing climate of disability issues.

Anna continued to develop her clinical skills working with clients and their families in the community as part of CMS Ltd. This involved ensuring the delivery of effective rehabilitation input, recruiting and staffing support worker packages, and working on meeting client-identified needs. In addition, in this role she worked on producing guidelines and protocols for working with individuals with traumatic brain injury and risk management strategies.

Anna continued her studies and completed her MSc in Occupational Psychology in 2003. At this time Anna also took on the supervision/line management of all case managers working for CMS Ltd. This involved regular supervision meetings to ensure best practice was adhered to and a quality service was provided. She continued to be involved in supervising case managers and was a director of the company until she left CMS Ltd in 2013.

Anna has been a case manager since 1998, managing clients who have sustained traumatic brain injury and other catastrophic injury who live in the community. She has worked with a range of adults and children with brain injury and spinal injury, including those with complex needs. Anna works from the client’s perspective, assisting them to set and achieve their goals, applying evidence-based rehabilitation in the community.

Anna became a Chartered Occupational Psychologist in 2009. She is an Advanced Member of BABICM, being the current chair of their professional practice and membership group and a council member. She was one of the working groups leading the development of core competencies for BABICM produced in 2010 and the Standards for Practice. Anna continues to work on professional standards with the group. Anna is also a full member of CMS UK. Anna is registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and is a member of the British Psychological Society. She is a regular reviewer of articles for the journal Brain Injury.
She has significant experience of preparing Immediate Needs Reports and Quantification Reports. Since 2009, Anna has prepared expert reports for court for clients with a brain injury. She has been instructed by both claimant and defendants.

Anna works for TBL as our National Clinical Co-ordinator. In this role she is responsible for providing supervision to other case managers, including reviewing clinical effectiveness, clinical competencies and training/development needs and ensuring that all case managers work from a client goal-directed perspective. She is passionate about placing the client at the centre of what we do and maximising their engagement in the rehabilitation process. She is currently developing research into outcome measures in case management practice.

Anna continues to act as a Senior Case Manager and is happy to work on complex cases. She has a particular interest in co-ordinating community rehabilitation packages, and running rehabilitation programmes for individuals who have sustained brain injury. Anna continues to be involved in quantification reporting.