Miss Rachel Bracegirdle

Rachel graduated with honours from the University of Surrey in 2011 with a degree in Dietetics and started her career at the Royal Surrey Hospital, Guildford; gaining experience in a wide range of specialities. Rachel chose to specialise in Oncology in 2013. Currently, she is the Senior Specialist Thoracic Oncology Dietitian at Guys Hospital, London. Rachel is passionate about providing multidisciplinary, holistic care to patients.

Rachel cares deeply about patient outcomes and their continual improvement and has undertaken several service evaluations, including an evaluation of a healthy lifestyle programme she was involved in developing and running as a joint collaboration with the physiotherapy team. The findings of this were successfully presented at the National Cancer Research Institute Conference. In addition, Rachel has worked closely with other Allied Health Care Professionals in the thoracic team to have various abstracts accepted at the World Lung Conferences.

Rachel is an expert in her field and has worked closely with charities, written book chapters, completed postgraduate master’s modules and presented at various study days, to both develop and share her knowledge.

Reason for applying for the scheme

Having worked in the NHS for 10 years, Rachel has extensive experience and knowledge of the healthcare system and fully appreciates the positive relationship between effective leadership, better patient outcomes and organisational performance.

Rachel was delighted to see opportunity for the NHS Regional Clinical Leadership Fellow Scheme and appreciates what a great opportunity this is to gain both experience and education in healthcare leadership and to understand the wider context in which leaders operate in the NHS. Rachel is keen to continue to learn and develop her skills and utilise this in the future, with the ultimate aim of providing optimal patient care.