Medic lands top healthcare award

An inspirational medic has scooped a prestigious award celebrating the individuals and organisations revolutionising healthcare in the West Midlands.

Dr Sarb Clare MBE, a deputy medical director at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, has won the Meridian Innovation and Improvement Champion Award at the WMAHSN Meridian Celebration of Innovation Awards 2020.

She said: “I am honoured to have won this award last night – along with the other winners who were also recognised for their outstanding innovation.

"My work on Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) is my true passion and mission. It saves lives, empowers clinicians with knowledge, skills and ability to make decisions, and most importantly it improves the patient journey.

“We are currently working on project ‘EPICENTRE’ which involves taking POCUS out into the community - a novel acute care model to prevent admissions. Alongside this I have started training some local GPs to offer this service in the community. This is a really exciting time to be involved in acute medicine.”

A doctor for 22 years, with 12 of those as an acute medical consultant at trust, Sarb graduated from the University of Manchester and was one of the first UK trainees within acute medicine and the first appointed acute physician at City Hospital in 2008.

She has been pivotal in developing acute medicine and speaks nationally on acute medicine models, acute oncology and ultrasound at the front door. She has created and delivered numerous innovative services including Acute Echo Clinic, AMU Virtual Clinic and the Ambulatory Medical Assessment Area, which are fundamental for high quality care.

She’s widely credited with transforming medical rotas to address continuity of care whilst being mindful of teaching and training for junior doctors. All these initiatives have been recognised by national bodies such as the Society Acute Medicine (SAM) and the Royal College of Physicians and have been shared widely with other NHS Trusts.

Dr Clare’s leadership was commended throughout the pandemic where she not only looked after hundreds of very sick Covid-19 patients but rewrote rotas overnight, created clinical pathways and delivered educational resources to redeploy staff as well as supporting her colleagues and juniors wellbeing during a very difficult period.

Tammy Holmes, head of innovation exchange at WMAHSN, said: “We would like to congratulate all of the winners at this year’s Meridian Celebration of Innovation Awards. We received many fantastic entries and are truly humbled by the work that has been taking place within the region, in what has been an incredibly challenging year.”

Meridian Innovation Exchange is a platform open to any individuals or organisations to find healthcare innovations, share ideas, build groups, and grow networks to collaborate and improve healthcare provision across the West Midlands.

The platform helps users showcase their ideas, spread good practice, and bring about change with collaborators from across sectors.