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Farewell to Medical Director Derby Hospitals’ executive medical director, Miss Alison Fowlie, is retiring after a career spanning 42 years in the NHS. Early in her career, Alison pioneered the use of ultrasound in fetal medicine, travelling behind the Iron Curtain to show doctors in Russia and other Eastern Bloc countries how ultrasound could be used to detect abnormalities in unborn babies. Miss Fowlie first came to Derby in 1990, arriving at what was then a new maternity wing at Derby City Hospital, to take up her second consultant post in obstetrics and gynaecology. This was a move which Alison herself describes as ‘one she has never regretted’, and she has since dedicated her energy to putting quality and safety at the heart of Derby’s clinical services. She became clinical director for obstetrics and gynaecology in 2000 and has made a tremendous contribution to the development and advancement of maternity care here in Derby.
She was instrumental in the development of Derby’s fetal medicine centre and she introduced resident obstetric consultants on-call seven days a week. Since becoming the Trust’s executive medical director in 2009, her clinical leadership has put quality and safety at the heart of patient care. She has been the driving force behind the creation of a Trust-wide Patient Safety Team, which has led improvements to significantly reduce avoidable harm. Her contribution to patient safety was recently endorsed when Derby was benchmarked against a study of hospitals in USA, UK and New Zealand, which clearly showed that Derby has a strong safety culture, with significantly better scores for safety climate, team work and job satisfaction. Alison has made a tremendous contribution both to Derby Hospitals and the NHS as a whole and we wish her a happy and healthy retirement.
(continued from front page) I have pledged to be the best that I can be. As a Cub Scout Leader as well as a nurse, I’m taking my pledge from the Scout Hymn. Scouts pledge to be the best that they can be, and I will do the same - we can’t be perfect (well, not all the time) but we can do our best every day, and strive to improve whenever we encounter difficulties.”
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Staff across the Trust are being encouraged to make a pledge to try something simple but different to improve patient care for national NHS Change Day. For further information visit flo/for-staff/make-my-pledge/
Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust