7 June 2023

The Clinical and Care Professional Lead describes her love for good data, and how she often refers back to some key advice from Prof John Moxham.

What is your role within King’s Health Partners? 

I have recently been appointed to my longest ever job title of: Clinical and Care Professional Lead - Population Health Management and Equalities for NHS South East London Integrated Commissioning Board.  

Population health management involves the use of data to both design and deliver the right services to meet our population needs. To stratify populations and identify opportunities for improvement, to work collaboratively with colleagues and patient groups to develop services that deliver best outcomes for best value, to constantly evaluate and improve on the care we deliver and with an important focus on reducing unwarranted variation in health outcomes. 

I hope to bring to the role my many years’ experience as a GP and a longstanding interest in service design, data, public health, and addressing inequalities. I will be doing this role alongside my clinical work as a GP in Lewisham and working with the wonderful Clinical Effectiveness Southeast London (CESEL) team, a quality improvement programme for primary care. 

What do you enjoy most about your role? 

I am equally excited and apprehensive about the task ahead.  

Data is such a powerful tool, but only good data that is used wisely. I am excited to be part of a team that wants to use accessible, robust and relevant data to help connect people, to develop a deeper understanding of patients’ needs, and work in a genuinely collaborative way to offer the best possible care to the people who live in southeast London. 

What are the benefits of working in partnership? 

To quote Marjorie Godfrey, from The Institute for Excellence in Health and Social Systems 

“Improvement in healthcare is 20% technical and 80% human.”  

I plan to focus not only on the getting the data as good as we can but also on the ‘80% human’, bringing people together, hearing different views and voices, learning from each other’s successes and mistakes, valuing everybody’s contributions and ideas with a clear task and goal. With evidence-based improvement methods and harnessing the many examples of effective partnership working across southeast London I believe we can help the amazing people working in health care feel more valued and effective, and those receiving healthcare to have greater confidence that services are working to meet both their individual and community’s needs. 

What would be your one career top tip? 

A few years ago I bumped into KHP legend Prof John Moxham, who lives down my road, and was bemoaning the state of the world – John shared some wise words which I will pass on – they went something like this… 

‘When it all seems crazy around you, find something important that is in your power to do, and do it.’ 

I think of these words frequently particularly when I am struggling to get things done, this encourages me to reflect on the value of what I am hoping to achieve, take it step by step, try not to be overwhelmed by complexity or be distracted by things out of my control. Thanks John.