Newcastle Hospitals consultant vascular surgeon Rachel Bell has been appointed as a national leader for vascular surgery with the NHS England improvement programme Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT).
Miss Bell is the immediate past president of the Vascular Society of Great Britain & Ireland (VSGBI). She has previously been the chair of the Circulation Foundation and is a past president of the British Society of Endovascular Therapy. She also represents the north-east region on the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for vascular surgery.
She is one of two clinical leads heading up the GIRFT vascular workstream, alongside former VSGBI president Jon Boyle.
She said: “I am delighted to have been appointed as joint national GIRFT lead with Jon, as I am a big fan of the GIRFT values and processes. We recognise that, post-COVID, there is some important work to do, using our data to help arterial centres with pathways and timelines to interventions.”
Read more on the appointment here.
The GIRFT programme aims to improve the treatment and care of patients through in-depth review of services, benchmarking, and presenting a data-driven evidence base to support change. Clinical leads across more than 40 workstreams undertake reviews of their specialty, examining how things are currently being done and how they could be improved.
Professor Tim Briggs, GIRFT chair and NHS England’s National Director for Clinical Improvement and Elective Recovery, said: “I am very pleased to welcome these two highly experienced clinicians to the GIRFT programme, to continue the excellent work begun by Mike Horrocks.
“Vascular surgery was one of the first specialties reviewed by GIRFT and, as such, there have been many changes in the intervening years. It’s now time to look again at the current provision of services to review progress and see where further improvements can be made.”
