Bhavin Mehta

Adult Lung Therapy Lead, Royal Brompton Hospital

I have been a Physiotherapist since qualification in 2004 working in respiratory care for 14 years. I was the association of chartered physiotherapists in respiratory care (ACPRC) chronic respiratory disease champion for 1 year in 2010. I have worked across a range of healthcare settings in the UK but the vast majority of my experience is in secondary and most recently, Tertiary care. My main area of clinical interest is in pulmonary rehabilitation. I am clinical lead for a multiprofessional therapy team providing care to patients with chronic respiratory disease over the past 2.5 years. I am also our trusts digital AHP lead.

I have been fortunate enough to develop my leadership skills through my role as well as attending the emerging clinical leaders course at the Kings Fund in 2019. I have had an interest in quality improvement since 2017 after participating in my organisations QI competition. I was able to present work I did in improving inhaler training within our consultant led COPD clinic at the European Respiratory Society conference in Madrid last year. I have helped coordinate and mentor on our trust QI competition.

The ARC fellowship will provide Claire Purkiss (my co-applicant) and I the opportunity to explore and co-design a prehabilitation health and wellbeing programme for patients undergoing curative lung cancer surgery. We will look at options around digital delivery vs. Face to face programmes. I am excited by the mentoring, support and opportunity the fellowship will provide to acquire skills in project management, stakeholder engagement and to further develop my leadership and quality improvement experience.