Dr Joanna Fletcher-Smith is an HCPC registered occupational therapist by background.  She is Case Management Service Lead at Harrison Associates and holds a caseload of catastrophically injured clients, predominantly those with brain injury and complex polytrauma.  She leads a team of health and social care professionals delivering case management services to children and adults nationwide.  In addition to this role, she is an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham School of Health Sciences.

Following her early clinical career, Joanna spent a decade working at The University of Nottingham, starting as research therapist and progressing to Chief Investigator with promotion to Senior Research Fellow.  Joanna won awards for her research including the Society for Research in Rehabilitation’s ‘Verna Wright Prize’; Royal College of OTs ‘Research Capacity Award’ and ‘Early Career Researcher’; Health Education England’s ‘Gold Clinical Scholar’; and World Stroke Organisation’s ‘Young Stroke Professional’. Joanna was the lead author of a Cochrane systematic review and has published in several high-impact journals. She reviewed for editorial boards and contributed to the RCP’s National Clinical Guidelines for Stroke. She has presented nationally and internally and held roles including Research & Development Officer for RCOT’s Specialist Neurological Practice Section and Council member for the Society for Research in Rehabilitation.

During her case management career, Joanna was proud to win the CMSUK ‘Catastrophic Case Manager of the Year’ award in 2021. Since then, she has used her research knowledge and expertise to support both CMSUK and BABICM through involvement in their research groups.

Joanna is passionate about ensuring clients receive the highest quality of case management and the provision of optimum evidence-based health and social support services.  As such, she is dedicated to supporting IRCM’s mission to safeguard people who use case management services, by setting and upholding standards for registered case managers.