Ailsa Swarbrick Head of Perinatal, Children and Young People’s Mental Health

About me

Ailsa is a GenerationQ Fellow and Sciana member, and Head of Perinatal, Children and Young People’s Mental Health at NHS England and Improvement.

Before this role, Ailsa Swarbrick led the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) National Unit, which comprises around 25 people, since 2012.

FNP is a public health programme for vulnerable first-time mothers and their babies, developed in the US, with a robust evidence base. It offers intensive nurse-led home visiting from early pregnancy until children are two years old.

The National Unit leads the implementation and quality improvement of FNP in around 130 local authorities, with a workforce of over 800 nurses. Ailsa has overseen the expansion of FNP, and led the National Unit’s transition from the Department of Health to Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, working in consortium with the Dartington Social Research Unit and Impetus-PEF, a venture philanthropy charity.

Ailsa’s background is as a civil servant, for the Department of Health and the Department for Education, with a focus on developing policy to support children’s well-being, and translating policy and rigorous research into well implemented practice in the real world.

Through GenerationQ Ailsa is aiming to develop the skills and knowledge to help her lead a step change in outcomes for the vulnerable families FNP supports, designing and iteratively testing improvements with a view to then scaling them up. This will include adapting the current model so that it responds even better to individuals’ needs and local contexts, refocusing quality improvement methods and developing ways to share learning. Ailsa comments: ‘This is an ambitious project, and an exciting opportunity to make a real difference to reducing inequalities and improving outcomes. I am sure that Generation Q will give me new insights and perspectives into how to lead this work successfully.’