As part of her role as RCGP Chair, Helen had a high media profile with over 200 TV, 200 radio and 20,000 appearances in printed media (newspapers). She sat on national workforce committees, the national emergency pressures panel and met with politicians and policy makers at Dept of Health, NHS England, the General Medical Council, Health Education England, Public Health England, the Care Quality Commission, National Institute of Clinical Excellence, CMOs office and other relevant bodies. She was also the Vice Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.
Helen was previously RCGP Honorary Treasurer (2012-16), the first female to hold this position. As Honorary Treasurer she had responsibility for all matters related to the College finances and assets including premises, IT and human resources.
As Chair of the Board of NASP, she is helping shape the direction of this new independent body (to be a registered charity in 2020), establish an academic basis of the social prescribing movement and raise its profile.
She is a part-time GP partner at The Westgate Practice Greenhill Health Centre in Lichfield (formerly known as The Cloisters Medical Practice), Staffordshire, a very large but friendly group practice which she joined in 2002, having just completed her academic GP training in inner city Birmingham and at the Medical School in Birmingham University.
Prior to training as a GP, Helen worked in Obstetrics and Gynaecology for several years and this experience shaped her clinical and academic aspirations. She was a personal mentor for doctors in difficulty in the Midlands until 2016, a scheme supported by the West Midlands Deanery and RCGP Midland Faculty. She continues to provide personal mentoring to a range of colleagues.
Helen was the Head of Primary Care Teaching (undergraduate) in the Medical School of the University of Birmingham until becoming RCGP Chair.
She was Clinical Director of the NIHR accredited Primary Care Trials Unit at Birmingham until July 2012. She was also Head of the dynamic Academic GP Trainees programme at Birmingham (including MOD, NIHR and locally funded academic GP trainees). She ran an MSc module in Community Gynaecology and taught communication skills and ethics.
Her diverse research interests have spanned gynaecological cancer screening, all aspects of women's health, epidemiology and data linkage studies. The subject of her PhD was 'Variation in NHS Utilisation of Vault Cytology Tests in Women post-hysterectomy'.
She is naturally enthusiastic and dynamic with a sense of humour and plenty of pragmatism.