Dr Stephen Farrell Consultant Paediatric Surgeon

About me

Stephen is a GenerationQ Fellow and Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

He has completed nearly four years as Clinical Director for the Surgical Paediatrics Directorate, incorporating a number of children's surgical specialities.

After qualifying in medicine at Queen’s University Belfast in 1998, Stephen went on to specialise in surgery. He completed a doctorate at Queen’s in 2005 and received his paediatric surgery fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh in 2008.

Stephen took up his first locum consultant position at Cambridge University Hospitals in 2010. From 2011-12 he was Paediatric Transplant Fellow and Deputy Chief Resident Medical Officer at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, Australia.

On his return to the UK he re-joined the Cambridge University Hospitals team as a locum consultant, before being appointed to his current role in March 2013.

Stephen has a keen interest in quality improvement and clinical leadership, and in 2013 was successful in becoming a Health Foundation GenerationQ Fellow, subsequently obtaining a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Leadership from Ashridge (Hult International) Business School. He has continued his interest in clinical leadership development in the role as co-clinical programme director for the Chief Resident’s Programme, a clinical leadership development programme for trainee doctors provided by the Cambridge University Health Partners and The Judge Business School.

'I’m particularly interested in how I can develop strong relationships with others within the hospital trust and outside of it. I see relationships as absolutely integral to being able to initiate, influence and lead change effectively.'

He’s also keen to explore the idea of developing a managed clinical network for children's surgery across the east of England region. 'Establishing a network of specialist outreach clinics in district general hospitals could improve the quality of care for children with paediatric surgical conditions, by enabling them to be seen as close to home as possible. It would also promote communication and collaboration between different health care teams, including paediatric surgeons, general paediatricians and adult general surgeons in the region.'