Huw began his career as a personnel and project manager for a Royal London Borough.  Then, big 4 trained, became a training manager for a nationwide blue-chip company.  Moving into recruitment in 2003 and after winning business from the likes of Rolls Royce, EDF Energy and Lloyds Bank, he quickly focussed on public sector, creating the most successful recruitment division in the country for the largest provider of non-medical staff to the NHS in the UK and the largest social care and housing division throughout the whole of the South West. Progressing to Head of UK Public Sector, in 2017 he noticed that the NHS was not getting value for money from recruitment businesses or management consultancies.

Huw set up his training, consulting and recruitment business (Davies Furlong Consulting) in 2018.  Since then he has delivered training for Analysts throughout the country and successfully completed consultations for Devon Partnership, University of Exeter, Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals and Bristol Community Health along with a number of smaller, not-for-profit organisations.  A specialist in Soft Systems Management, Huw has developed a universal solution to the communications gap between specialist teams such as Informatics and other non-technical users.  Davies Furlong Consulting is now also a training and consulting partner to AphA, the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts along with being an Advisor to the University of Exeter’s MSc in Health Informatics.

A keen rugby player and coach, Huw spends his spare time developing his creative side including carpentry, music and writing.  A former Chair of Governors for a special needs school, he is a dedicated supporter of supporting the community with pro bono work and sponsoring community groups.

John is a freelance trainer and consultant with over 20 years of experience of  training in statistics, analysis and research. 

John started his working life, equipped with a Maths degree, as a junior researcher at Manchester University. From here he attained a medical MSc in Epidemiology and moved to work in a local Health Authority, firstly as a research officer but then as the local statistician supporting local health organisations .  In this time he worked within NHS Secondary Care Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Primary Care Trusts and shared informatics services, as well as the local university.    

In 2007 he decided to work at a national level, and worked for the Information Standards Board for 3 years, firstly as the national public health and statistics lead, working on some big initiatives including GUM services, National Drug Treatment Monitoring, Mental Health minimum data sets, Healthcare associate infections and HPV.  

Before going freelance in 2018 (John Varlow | Training and Consultancy), John was the Executive Director of Information Services at the NHS Information Centre, and most latterly the National Director of Analysis at NHS Digital.  In this time he was responsible for hundreds of analysts and recognised the need for appropriate skills, training and structure.

John has also worked and taught at a number of Universities in the UK  and abroad, and was responsible for delivering the 2019 technical training program for the Association of Professional Health Analysts (AphA).  His NHS experience at local, regional and national level makes him ideally placed to deliver training and consultancy services to staff working within the NHS and Social Care.  

In his spare time John is a keen musician and singer. He also enjoys acting on stage and acting at murder mystery evenings for charity – he has yet to work out how this can be incorporated into his training and consultancy sessions!