Chetna is presently the Deputy Director of People and Culture for the London Region. She leads the portfolios of Talent, Leadership, Staff Experience and EDI for the Capital. She is a values led leader with a particular passion for social justice and the role we can all play in ensuring a fairer society for all our population.

Chetna began her career as a government scientist at Porton Down, MoD. Following on from this she completed a PhD in cancer chemotherapy for CRUK. Her research work has resulted in a number of high impact academic publications as well as a patent. On completion of her research, she worked as a postdoctoral scientist for AstraZeneca, before joining the NHS in 2003 as a graduate trainee (GMTS).

Chetna has undertaken a variety of management roles since completing GMTS. Her first role was a joint role between the local authority and NHS where she designed healthy sustainable communities with local authority partners. She has redesigned, transformed and commissioned a systemwide diabetes pathway in partnership with patients and clinical leaders. This work has increased the quality of care for patients whilst also saving the local system £1m per annum.

In 2010, Chetna took up the position of Associate Director for the former East Midlands Health Innovation and Education Cluster (EMHIEC) at Leicester Medical School. The EMHIEC delivered 31 bespoke educational projects to meet service need. All projects were academically evaluated.

In 2012, she joined Health Education England as Head of Research where she created the clinical academic careers pathway for all clinicians outside medicine and dentistry. Over 200 clinicians have now successfully joined the programme.

She was then seconded to Health Education England’s national team to lead the delivery of their patient safety agenda, specifically the Commission’s report published in 2016 on ‘Improving Safety through Education and Training’.

She joined the Leadership Academy in 2019 as Head of GMTS, a role she was particularly fond of having joined the NHS through this route . Chetna is passionate about delivering high quality leadership training for the next generation of NHS managers.

Chetna has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate students across clinical and non -clinical curriculum including, biochemistry, Quality Improvement, leadership in the NHS and patient safety. She has recently successfully supervised her first PhD student who studied CQC Care Home closures.