15 August 2022

Congratulations to Professor Simon Conroy on being shortlisted for the ‘Clinical Leader of the Year’ HSJ Award, for his work with the Acute Frailty Network.

Professor Conroy joined CNWL in July 2021 from the University of Leicester. A consultant Geriatrician since 2008 and an additional PhD in Preventing Falls in Older People, he researches different models of care for frail older people and contributes to national frailty initiatives.

“Since 2015, we’ve been running the Acute Frailty Network (AFN), a national quality improvement collaborative designed to support acute hospitals in England to deliver evidence-based care for older people with frailty,” he says.

“The AFN aims to support the adoption of innovation and improvement by sharing best practice and involving wider health and social care systems. It focuses on things like coaching, mentorship and development; an improvement academy for the NHS. Through the Network, we’ve supported 120 hospitals and 60 specialised clinical frailty services around the country to improve services and outcomes for frail older people.”

Professor Conroy says additional collaboratives have been developed along the way, including the Specialised Clinical Frailty Network (SCFN), to explore how frailty-focused clinical pathways might improve outcomes for patients requiring specialised treatments such as neurosurgery or cancer.

“I’m really proud of the work and it’s been a pleasure to be involved. Disseminating learnings from research and the networks, and working with clinicians on the ground on how to implement or make improvements is the most liberating.”