Dr Alison Sheppard

My name is Alison Sheppard and I’m thrilled to be joining HEE as a National Enhance Clinical Fellow. Based in sunny Yorkshire, I have a background in emergency medicine with a passion for population health, quality improvement and medical education.

Working in urgent care has given me a front row view of what more could be done upstream both to improve patient care & experience and reduce the pressures on staffing & systems. Despite best efforts, we’re still trying to shift the paradigm towards a health and wellbeing approach whilst simultaneously tackling the increasing detrimental effects of the social determinants of health and an ageing population with complex multi-morbidity.

A few years ago, I decided to be part of the change I wanted to see. I got involved in projects with the NHSE Vanguard and Productive General Practice workstreams, testing new models of care and service improvement. I also work in undergraduate medical education at the University of Leeds, which is a privilege to influence and support some of the next generation and gives me great hope they will be our future champions of population health!

Joining the Enhance team is an exciting new challenge for me, bringing together my knowledge, experience and skills. I believe that colleagues working across integrated care systems need a shared vision of what good looks like, and the supporting skills to be active participants in the change. The Enhance Generalist Skills Programme syllabus gives us a perfect place to start evidencing our skills, identifying gaps and accessing evidence-based resources for professional development. I’m excited to see how our trailblazer sites are putting these ideas into practice already and what learning we can take with us on to the next step of the programme. I hope to meet lots of you along the way!