Dr Rachel Weaver

Rachel Weaver’s first degree was in Anatomy and Equine Physiology at Bristol University, followed by a PhD studying osteoarthritis at the Royal Veterinary College and University College, London. Following a period working with UCL Business on spin-out companies, Rachel worked on an international joint venture to set up a new cell-culture laboratory and then in clinical trials using SMS and other digital technologies to increase uptake and compliance.

Following a graduate medicine degree at King’s College, London and Academic Foundation training in north-east London, Rachel joined the Academic GP Programme, undertaking a Masters Degree in Primary Care Research at the University of Cambridge as part of her training.

Currently an ST4, prior to undertaking the National Medical Director’s Fellowship Rachel was working as an academic fellow and at a GP practice near Cambridge, having recently finished a placement working on Public Health England’s national guidance unit during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rachel’s areas of professional interest include health inequalities and workforce resilience within primary care.

Reason for applying for the scheme

Rachel Weaver applied for the National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellowship to develop her interest in how leadership, management and policy interact with the broader primary and community care workforce, who are responsible for the vast majority of patient contact within the NHS.

Everyone in the Health Service wants to see better outcomes for patients and it is good medical leadership that empowers people to make that possible, as a growing body of evidence now clearly shows. Good leadership is good for health systems, their employees and society as a whole as well.

For a number of years multi-disciplinary teams have shown how leaders can bring people together, and the pandemic has accelerated the removal of artificial barriers to best practice. Removing bureaucracy has allowed people to innovate and made the NHS surviving the pandemic possible, but in so doing it has also provided a unique opportunity for leaders to gain the headspace for innovation.

Rachel sees leadership as key to bringing on individuals so that systems as a whole can be stronger; a resilient workforce, with resilient leaders, should be the goal of any organisation, but in the NHS it prevents the burn-out that has such significant consequences. In medical practice, that means forming the relationships, across organisations and departments to make sure that there are the strong ties that produce innovative solutions.