Ali Curtis,
RN DIPN BSC (HONS)

Council Member

Matron & Clinical Operations Manager, Benenden Hospital Trust

Ali is the Matron & Clinical Operations Manager for Outpatients, Diagnostics & Therapeutics at Benenden Hospital Trust in Kent, and has been a member of the Council since 2009.

Ali has worked in a range of surgical and acute settings, including A&E, HDU and surgical wards, and also specialised in Pain Management, both chronic and acute, before taking up the role of lead clinical nurse & manager of the adult pre-operative assessment service at Benenden Hospital in 2004.

After setting up the service together with her Lead Anaesthetist, which included providing a dedicated area to deliver the service from and training a team of nurses and healthcare support workers deliver preoperative assessment, Ali has produced protocols and guidelines to support the work of the service and has led the continued development of this service since that time. She has produced an electronic patient record dataset that is used by the nurses in preoperative assessment and continues to support the basis of the Hospital’s Enhanced Recovery Programme.

Ali was recently one of the contributing authors in the latest edition of Pudner’s ‘Nursing the Surgical Patient’ chapter focusing on preoperative assessment and preparation.

Ali remains passionate about Preoperative Assessment and firmly believes in the importance of this role for nurses and of the necessity of inter-professional working as being key to success in this area of health care.