UL Hospitals Group announces appointment of a new chief clinical director

UL Hospitals Group has announced the appointment of a new chief clinical director.

Professor Brian Lenehan, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon with a special interest in spinal surgery has been appointed to the role following the retirement of Dr Gerry Burke last month. 

Prof Lenehan was educated in St Aloysius College, Athlone, and graduated from the UCD School of Medicine in 1997. He completed his higher surgical training in trauma and orthopaedics with the RCSI in 2008 and his specialist fellowship training in adult spinal surgery in Vancouver General Hospital, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Prof Lenehan took up his post as consultant orthopaedic surgeon in University Hospital Limerick in 2009.

Since that time, Prof Lenehan has held a number of positions within the group, including administrative head department of trauma and orthopaedics; regional clinical lead trauma and orthopaedic clinical programme and, since 2019, associate clinical director, perioperative directorate. He has been the clinical lead for a number of important service developments in the Mid-West, including the establishment in the region of the Irish National Orthopaedic Register, trauma assessment clinics and Orthopaedics and Rheumatology MSK Triage Programme. Prof Lenehan also sits on the Training Committee and Council of the Irish Institute for Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery, RCSI.

Prof Lenehan has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications. He was appointed Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of Limerick Graduate Entry Medical School (GEMS) in 2011 and adjunct clinical professor in GEMS in 2019.

Since March 2020, Prof Lenehan has been sitting on the UL Hospital Group’s Executive Crisis Management Team set up in response to Covid-19.

“It is certainly a very challenging time to take up this post,” said Prof Lenehan of his appointment.

Prof Lenehan said he was keen to take on the role of chief clinical director at this stage rather than towards the end of his career.

“I am being supported in balancing my administrative functions with my clinical workload and it is important for my patients and for my GP colleagues to know that I am not stepping back entirely from clinical practice and that I am still accepting GP outpatient referrals and seeing patients. I feel that if I continue to be close to where the care is being delivered, I can be more effective in my role in linking our clinicians with the larger management team. I am very much looking forward to it,” said Prof Lenehan.

“We have throughout the Covid-19 pandemic seen high numbers of presentations to our emergency department both medical and surgical. We have fundamentally changed how we deliver care within the UL Hospitals Group. Emergency and trauma surgery cases have continued throughout the pandemic but scheduled care has been significantly curtailed. Now that we appear to be emerging from the worst of Covid-19,we are planning how we can gradually and safely increase scheduled care activity within the hospital group while remaining conscious that we may have to stand up our Covid-19 capacity again at short notice. As a surgeon, I am acutely aware that we need to start bringing in patients for their procedures, for their appointments and for their consultations as soon as possible”.

Colette Cowan, CEO, UL Hospitals Group, said: “It is often said that a crisis brings out the best in people and that has certainly been true of our senior clinicians in UHL. Prof Lenehan has shown exemplary leadership in recent weeks and months and I am delighted that he has accepted the post of group chief clinical director. Even as we look to restore services in the coming weeks, we must start to look beyond Covid-19 and continue our strategic planning to improve care in the region. Prof Lenehan’s experience and advice will be invaluable in that regard.”