Deborah Thompson

Deborah Thompson MSC, Dip HE, RGN is a Director at NHS Elect Director covering Urgent Care Delivery Networks. This involves leading the design and delivery of two large-scale improvement programmes across the UK; The Ambulatory Emergency Care Network and Acute Frailty Network. In addition, she also designs bespoke programme support and expertise for frontline teams to improve emergency care. Deborah has 37 years of experience as a clinician and manager in NHS acute services.

During her career, Deborah has undertaken a variety of roles from Ward Sister through to ‘acting’ Director of Nursing. In 2003, she diversified her career path by undertaking the role of general manager in Emergency Services leading to a role as Director of Operations. Since then she has worked on a number of national healthcare improvement programmes and since 2011 has focussed on improving emergency flow leading the improvement and expansion of ambulatory emergency care (AEC) services in over 120 organisations in the UK. This work expanded to include the Acute Frailty Network in 2015 which aims to improve the quality and safety of emergency care for frail older people in the first 72 hours. She is passionate about working with front line staff to support them to understand and improve emergency patient flow, and has a particular interest in clinical pathway redesign and working with health communities on a large scale to design processes to safely provide ‘same day’ emergency care reducing the reliance on hospital beds for treatment and ensuring frail older people don’t spend a day longer than necessary in a hospital bed.