Ailsa Brotherton is the Executive Director of Improvement, Research and Innovation at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and an Honorary Professor at the University of Central Lancashire.

Prior to joining the trust, Ailsa was Director of Transformation for the Single Hospital Programme at Manchester Foundation Trust. She has also held the positions of Interim Clinical Quality Director for the North of England with the Trust Development Authority/NHSI, Associate Director for Quality Improvement Programmes at the Haelo Innovation and Improvement Centre based at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, and post-doctoral Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire.

Ailsa is a Health Foundation Generation Q Fellow, graduating from Hult Ashridge with a Masters degree as part of this improvement fellowship. Her PhD and programme of research were in the field of clinical nutrition. Ailsa has experience of designing and delivering quality improvement and large-scale change programmes at national, regional and local levels.

Ailsa has a particular interest in system level improvement, working across organisational boundaries. She is currently working with the improvement directors and clinical leads across Lancashire and South Cumbria in collaboration with Professor John Clarkson FREng, University of Cambridge, to test the Engineering Better Care framework across the ICS. As part of this collaboration, the team is designing a bespoke Improving Improvement Framework, building on the learning from their initial work at system level.