Melanie Ottewill is a registered nurse and qualified social worker and has worked in both statutory and non-statutory settings.

Melanie is currently working as a National Investigator with the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. Prior to this post, she worked in Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (BSUH) for over 20 years in different clinical settings as well as posts such as the Joint Head of Complaints before becoming the Head of Clinical Investigations in 2008.

Melanie has conducted over 100 Serious Incident Investigations and led on the implementation of Duty of Candour within BSUH. She is passionate about increasing the focus on human behavioural factors in incident investigations and ensuring meaningful engagement with patients and families who have experienced harm during their care.

Dr Martin Langham is a human factors (HF) engineer and psychologist who also trained in forensics and incident investigation. Martin’s interest is in human error, investigation methods, and ethics. Martin has investigated causality of nearly 600 incidents in the domains of security failure; road, rail, marine, medical, and aviation accidents. Martin has written many of the UK HF guides for Government and has led many investigations into human error – including Operation Paget for the Royal Coroner. Martin’s work in the domain of healthcare includes diverse investigations from mortuary error to the care of neonates. He has contributed to the investigation of over 30 incidents for the NHS. As Martin’s is now semi-retired his voluntary work includes life as a JP and as a Community Magistrate.