CPOC Board

Derek Alderson is an emeritus Professor of Surgery at The University of Birmingham and immediate past president of Royal College of Surgeons of England, a post he held from 2017 to 2020. The RCSEng are a key CPOC Partner. Derek has a long-standing interest in perioperative care, being heavily involved in the development of multi-disciplinary teams and multi-professional working for patients with upper gastro-intestinal cancers more than 20 years ago. 

"We need to encourage everyone to lead healthier lives, ensure that the surgical patient is as fit as possible before operating, get rid of the unnecessary delays in hospital that frustrate patients and staff, and perhaps most importantly, develop resources that ensure recovery from surgery and promote rehabilitation . There are many challenges, not least the need to expand our workforce and persuade those responsible for commissioning health care that  peri-operative care should sit high on their agenda."

Mike Grocott is the Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Southampton, Director of the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (2022-27) and a Consultant in Critical Care Medicine at University Hospital Southampton. He has served on the Council of the Royal College of Anaesthetists since 2016 and was elected Vice-President (2019-20).  He chairs the board of the National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia and is an NIHR Senior Investigator. He was founding director of the NIAA Health Services Research Centre (2011–2016) and chaired the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (2012–2017).

"The Centre for Perioperative Care is bringing health and care professionals together to improve the care of people having surgery, enabling the perioperative care team to deliver the best possible care and improve our patients’ surgical experience."

Dr David Selwyn is a Consultant anaesthetist and the medical director of Sherwood Forest Hospitals. As the director of CPOC Dr Selwyn is also a co-opted member of the RCoA council. 

"I am delighted to have been appointed as the inaugural director for the Centre for Perioperative Care. I combine a significant leadership/managerial role with undertaking clinical duties as a consultant in anaesthesia and adult critical care for half of my time. CPOC represents a unique opportunity to promote, advance and develop perioperative care. This will involve cross-organisation, cross-specialty working and relationships and the changing of patient pathways and integration of services through a multidisciplinary team approach."

Mrs Scarlett McNally is a Consultant Orthopaedic surgeon in Eastbourne.  She was elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2011 (the ninth woman ever).  She has an MA in Clinical Education and an MBA and was lead author for ‘Exercise the miracle cure’.

“Surgery is fantastic, but 10% of operations will have a complication.  We need people and families, staff and teams to be pro-active. I think there is a weird mix of standard proven processes and individualising care with that patient. Hopefully the good basics (eg exercise) will carry through beyond the “teachable moment” of the operation.”

Jugdeep Dhesi is a Consultant Geriatrician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. She is clinical lead for the award winning Perioperative medicine for Older People undergoing Surgery (POPS) service, Vice President at the British Geriatrics Society and President of Age Anaesthesia Association. She has led the development of novel education and training programmes for medical and allied health professionals and established a research programme in perioperative medicine. All of this work focuses on improving quality of care for the high risk surgical population, through fostering a collaborative and proactive approach working with patients, their carers, healthcare professionals, managers and policymakers.

Lawrence Mudford has had a 38-year healthcare career working as a dentist and dental educator within both primary and secondary care. This has included serving on the board of the Faculty of General Dental Practice and as a member of the General Dental Council.

"The NHS Long Term Plan recognises the need for an integrated healthcare approach focused on a “shared responsibility”. CPOC is timely and welcome, as it allows the patient’s journey to be central and at the heart of personalisation of care."

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Jonathan Epstein is a Consultant Surgeon at Salford Royal Hospital with interests in Surgery for Intestinal Failure and Inflammatory Bowel Disease as well as playing a full role in Emergency General Surgery. This practice has made him acutely aware of the impact of complications on patients undergoing surgery. He has a strong interest in medical education having been Director of Postgraduate Medical Education in Salford. He is President-Elect of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain & Ireland and sits on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Chris is an Associate Medical Director and Consultant in Public Health at a local Trust and a practicing GP in inner-city Nottingham. He was previously Executive Director of Public Health in Nottingham for 10 years, past national Vice President of the Association of Directors of Public Health, and past chair of examiners for FPH.  He is the local Integrated Care System clinical lead for Health Inequalities.

“Perioperative interventions are a key opportunity to help reduce health inequalities, and by linking with work in the local communities, offer the potential to make a sustainable difference long term.”   

Dr Andrew Rochford is the Improvement Clinical Director at the Royal College of Physicians and Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Royal Free London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He has a strong background in clinical leadership, patient safety, quality improvement and education and training.  

He is currently chair of the Patient Safety Committee and Medicines Safety Joint Working Group and provides clinical leadership to the Patient and Carer Network, Accreditation services and National Audit programmes hosted by the RCP, as well as the Chief Registrar programme.

Andrew has led a number of national improvement collaboratives with NHS England and been a member of several RCP working groups.  His previous clinical roles have included portfolios for patient safety, clinical improvement and multi-professional education.  At a local level he has successfully implemented initiatives on Clinical Decision Units, Hospital at Night, Medicines Management and End of Life Care.

Hannah is an Operating Department Practitioner with both clinical and academic experience, having held both teaching and senior leadership roles in Higher Education Institutes. She is currently President of the College of Operating Department Practitioners and Head of the School of Health Sciences at Birmingham City University. 

“ I am delighted to be invited to join the CPOC board to represent the College and the Operating Department Practice Profession.  The College is committed to working collaboratively for the advancement of perioperative care and we are looking forward to contributing to the work of CPOC to improve the patient experience.”

Suman Shrestha is a consultant nurse in critical care at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal College of Nursing Professional Lead for Acute, Emergency and Critical Care. He is a qualified advanced critical care practitioner. He leads the Perioperative Care Forum of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

"Perioperative nursing is dynamic and continually evolving to meet the changing needs of our patients. The RCN welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on improving the holistic care we deliver to our patients and the support we provide to all staff working in this setting."

Ruth is currently a Nurse Development Lead with responsibility for co-ordinating education and training, practice development, clinical workforce and governance. Whilst she is an adult trained nurse, this role is within a paediatric setting and therefore she is responsible for almost 500 nurses. Her role extends to the perioperative environment. Ruth is a theatre nurse by background with over 20 years’ experience within the perioperative environment and continues to undertake a clinical shift each week.
 

Michael Mulholland is a GP at Unity Health a 4 site practice for 23000 patients across the Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire border where he has practised for nearly 20 years. Within the RCGP he has had roles ranging from Chair and Council Rep of Thames Valley Faculty, to being part of the GP at Scale and Regional Ambassador programmes before being elected to national roles firstly as Vice Chair (Professional Development) and now Honorary Secretary

"The RCGP is pleased to be a part of multidisciplinary approach to perioperative care led by CPOC given the key role of General Practice in perioperative care outside the hospital setting."

Mike Swart works at Torbay Hospital in Devon. He has been involved in the development of perioperative medicine locally and nationally for more than 20 years, and is the joint clinical lead for anaesthesia and perioperative medicine for the NHS GIRFT programme.

"I believe anaesthesia is preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative care: anaesthesia is perioperative medicine and perioperative medicine is anaesthesia."

Waqas is the only UK Specialist Registrar in Cardiology & Intensive Care with a particular interest in cardiogenic shock, heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support.  He is currently chair of the Academy of Royal Colleges Residents Doctors Committee, lead national trainee representative on the Board of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and trainee representative at NHS Blood & Transplant.  He studied Medicine at the University of Oxford and has trained at Royal Brompton & Harefield, Guy's & St Thomas', Imperial and Barts Health.

The career of Frances, who prefers to be known as Fran, was mainly in History, Art, Literature and publishing – from portraiture to producing ‘The Chronological Atlas of World War II’, with her husband, Barrie Pitt. When Mr Pitt developed vascular dementia she returned to study, finally gaining an MA in medieval studies in 2007.

She cared for Mr Pitt at home for 12 years. He died in 2006, after a spell in hospital, where Fran saw much wrong with his care. However, her criticism was balanced and creative, which led to her being invited in 2007 to become a ‘Musgrove Partner’ (Patient Rep.) at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset, a role she has actively played in many areas and departments in the hospital ever since, but mainly, and most passionately, in dementia strategy, which took-off soon after she joined. The first project she worked on was refurbishing a care-of-the-elderly ward, fifth in a core team of four clinicians, all of us given training and substantially funded by the King’s Fund; MPH being one of only a few institutions chosen for their ‘Enhancing the Environment for People with Dementia’ programme.

‘I am thrilled to be invited to join the board, and a little over-awed by the illustrious company. Mostly, I consider myself extremely fortunate to be part of the Nationwide change that we all hope to bring about. One of my roles in dementia strategy has been to follow the ‘best practice’ pathway, trying to foster good communication and co-operation between groups who always seem to be in competition, while perhaps injecing a little common-sense. I consider myself to be a critical friend, and take both of those roles  seriously.’ 

Bob is a retired chartered town planner who served for much of his career as a local authority director. He has developed leadership and managements skills over his working life. Since his retirement over 10 years ago, he has brought these skills to bear both as a member of the Lay Committee at RCoA (now PatientsVoices); and now continuing as a member of review teams visiting anaesthetic departments under the Royal College's Anaesthetic Clinical Services Accreditation scheme (ACSA). In 2021 he was awarded the President's Commendation for services to the Royal College. Bob is also a committee member at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

"I am delighted to be joining the CPOC Board. I hope to bring my experience of the perioperative process to help promote its benefits to patients and the wider public. There remains work to be done on raising the profile of perioperative care and ensuring that the concept is more widely embedded in health provision."

Anna Paisley has served as a Council member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh since 2015. She has contributed to a wide range of College activities, in particular as Chair of the Patient Safety Group, Global Surgery Foundation and Website Development Working Group. She represents the RCSEd on the Steering Group of the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcomes & Death (NCEPOD) and Health Improvement Scotland Team Based Quality Review Programme; she also previously represented the College on the GMC Scottish Advisory Group on the Wellbeing of the Medical Profession.

Anna is a Consultant General and Upper GI Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh and Honorary Senior Lecturer for the University of Edinburgh. She has had a long-standing involvement in Patient Safety, having been named the Doctor of the Year in the 2010 Scottish Health Awards for her role as Lead in NHS Lothian for implementing surgical standards of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme.

She has a particular interest in surgical training and assessment and undertook postgraduate research at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh into the Assessment of Basic Surgical Trainees leading to the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Oxford. She was awarded Fellowship of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2015. Having helped to develop the Edinburgh Surgical On-Line Programme, she was Director of Year 1 of the MSc in Surgical Sciences since its introduction in 2008 to 2023. Currently, Anna has recently completed a four-year post as Training Programme Director for General Surgery Specialty Trainees in South-East Scotland.

Claire Frank is a preoperative assessment pharmacist based in North Wales.  As joint lead of the guidance development team for the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) Handbook of Perioperative Medicines she is passionate about evidence-based perioperative medicines management. Her other interests include optimising non-surgical comorbidities earlier in the perioperative pathway and raising the profile of pharmacy staff within the perioperative MDT.

 “I’m honoured to be the first non-medical CPOC fellow and excited by the opportunity to help further CPOC’s aims of multiprofessional collaboration and excellent patient care by engaging with the wider healthcare team. By making every contact count we can empower patients to improve their experience, outcomes, and future health.”