National Clinical Director for Improvement, NHS England; UK

Dr Amar Shah is a Consultant forensic psychiatrist & has held the role of Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) since 2017. He leads at executive and Board level on quality, performance, strategy, planning, analytics and communications. Amar has led the approach to quality at ELFT for over a decade, and has embedded a large-scale quality improvement infrastructure and quality management system, with demonstrable results across key areas of organisational performance, and three consecutive ‘Outstanding’ ratings by the Care Quality Commission.

Amar is the National Clinical Director for Improvement in England, leading the application of improvement across England’s health and care system since 2023.

He is the national improvement lead for mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, leading a number of large-scale improvement collaboratives on topics such as restrictive practice, workforce wellbeing and equalities.

Amar is chair of the Scientific Advisory Group at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and also acts as faculty with IHI, teaching and guiding improvers and healthcare systems across the world.

He is honorary professor at the University of York School for Business and Society, and an honorary fellow with the Faculty for Public Health. Amar has completed an executive MBA in healthcare management, a masters in mental health law and a postgraduate certificate in medical education. He is a regular national and international keynote speaker at healthcare improvement conferences and has published over 50 peer-review articles in the field of quality management. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) by His Majesty the King in 2024 for services to healthcare improvement.