Speakers

Jennie Jones qualified as a solicitor in 2001 and during her legal career has resolved injury claims in a wide range of areas,
including health care and employer liability accidents. This experience enabled Jennie to use and develop her skills in
identifying the underlying reason why an incident occurred and working with all involved to attempt to achieve a practical
solution which allowed those involved to move on with their lives. Jennie has a wealth of experience in the practice standards,
regulation and complaint handling gained over 15 years in practice and six years as a Director of Nockolds.

Since 2014, Jennie has lead the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS) which is a complaint mediation service funded by
the General Optical Council. The OCCS team mediates to help resolve the consumer complaints arising between consumers and
opticians across the UK. The service also undertakes analysis of the mine of invaluable data obtained by the OCCS to lead the
sharing of insight and knowledge gained with the industry.

Jennie heads the Veterinary Client Mediation Service (VCMS). Following the successful trial, which commenced in October
2016, the RCVS Council on 28 September 2017, unanimously approved the decision to continue the service. Having received
over 10,000 enquiries over the past five years, and with mediations achieving a resolution in over 75% of mediations, the
VCMS provides an impartial, collaborative and non-judgmental resolution process for escalating complaints. Jennie oversees
the mediation process, and provides a crucial link between the RCVS and stakeholders in the veterinary sector. Jennie’s role
is to ensure the VCMS delivers an impartial, efficient and effective resolution service meeting the needs of animal owners,
veterinary professionals, practices and their representatives, and shares the insight gained by the service to benefit both
practices and their clients.

With significant experience of adversarial dispute resolution, Jennie is committed to promoting ADR and in particular
mediation. She explains that: ‘emotive and professional disputes that can often benefit from this type of resolution process. By
acknowledging concerns, empowering the parties, we can often achieve a cost and time effectively resolution.’