Dr Joanne Watson Health and Care Strategy Director

About me

Joanne is a Quality Improvement Fellow and Health and Care Strategy Director at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust.

She graduated from UMDS (London) in 1991. She trained as a physician in Wessex specialising in endocrinology and diabetes. Her first consultant position was in Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust in 2001.

She deviated from this traditional career path in 2008 with the Health Foundation Quality Improvement Fellowship at the Institute for Health Care Improvement and Harvard School of Public Health. Always interested in patient-centred care, this Fellowship convinced her that the way forward for health care is through the people’s experience – service users and staff alike.  

Since returning to the UK in 2009, she has worked with the King’s Fund, SW SHA, the Point of Care Foundation and South West AHSN to bring international expertise in person-centred care to the UK, building the importance/ relevance of experience to change practice.

In 2016, she moved to Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, an integrated care organisation, as Deputy Medical Director, to head up QI there and implement a new care model.

As part of her Quality Improvement Fellowship, Joanne worked on her own specialist interest –  increasing patient involvement in the commissioning of diabetes care. Joanne’s goal was to make patient-centred diabetes care a reality in the NHS. Her Fellowship further developed her skills in leading service change as part of a multi-disciplinary team so that she could begin making a difference on her return to the UK.

To help her do this, Joanne used her work with the Harvard Clinical Effectiveness Course and work experience at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to tap into expertise in the US on how to improve and measure processes in health care.

Joanne has also worked as a research registrar as a NovoNordisk Medical Trust Fellow working at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, with Dr David Kerr as her supervisor. Her research centred around hypoglycaemia and in particular, the way caffeine affects responses to this.