We’re pleased to share that Sarah Hopkins has been appointed as Director of Quality and Governance at Liaise, following her recent role as Head of Quality. Sarah steps into the role following the appointment of Deborah Cotton-Soares, our former Director of Quality and Governance, as a Non-Executive Director, ensuring continuity, stability and strong leadership across Liaise’s quality and governance agenda.
With more than 20 years’ experience in health and social care, Sarah brings deep clinical expertise and a strong, values-led approach to leadership. She began her career as a Nurse Educator and Clinical Manager before moving into senior quality and governance roles across the UK, UAE and Australia. Her experience spans elderly nursing care and residential nursing mental health services. It includes senior positions with organisations such as Bupa, Advinia Health Care, Towerview Care Group, Allity Aged Care and Kalyra. In these roles, she led clinical governance, quality improvement and regulatory compliance across multi-site services.
Since joining Liaise in 2025, Sarah has led our quality and governance work, working closely with the people we support and our operational teams to strengthen oversight, embed best practice and support the delivery of safe, consistent and high-quality care.
In her first six months, Sarah has already made a significant impact. She has overseen a restructure of the Quality and Compliance function, introducing a regional support model that enables closer collaboration with operational teams and more proactive oversight at an individual home level. Her work has also included delivering quality and governance regional meetings for managers, improving Liaise’s quality systems to strengthen incident reporting and learning, and enhancing audit processes to better identify strengths and areas for improvement.
Looking ahead, Sarah’s focus will be on developing a refreshed Quality Framework, implementing a new Care Management System, improving reporting and insight for Home Managers, and continuing to grow the Quality Checkers programme, supporting even greater involvement of the people we support in shaping and improving the homes in which they live.
Sarah’s appointment strengthens our leadership team at an important stage in our journey. Her depth of experience, collaborative leadership style and commitment to quality and lived experience will play a key role as we continue to deliver positive outcomes for the people we support.
