Aidan Fowler is the National Director of Patient Safety and Deputy Medical Director in NHS England and a Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health and Social Care. In this role he has developed the first ever National Patient Safety Strategy and implemented the complex programmes within it. He was previously the Director of NHS Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and Director of the 1000 Lives Improvement Service for NHS Wales. He had responsibility for QI/PS across the Welsh NHS and was a board member of Public Health Wales.  Aidan was a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon in Gloucestershire for ten years and Chief of Service for Surgery for four before entering the NHS Leadership Academy Fast Track Executive Training Programme during which he worked as an executive at University Hospitals Bristol and subsequently worked briefly as a Medical Director in Mental Health and Community care in Worcestershire. Aidan trained as an Improvement Adviser (IA) with the IHI in Boston and was IA and worked on Patient Safety Programmes in the South West of England. He has also worked as faculty with the IHI in the peri-operative safety domain in Qatar, infection reduction in Portugal and teaching improvement and safety in the UK and internationally. Aidan's surgical training was in the South West but he graduated in medicine from University College London.