Lilian Chiwera
Current Chair Surgical Site Infection Prevention (SSIP) Surveillance & Prevention Expert
Lilian Chiwera is an independent Surgical Site Infection (SSI) surveillance & prevention expert with experience setting up and coordinating a very successful SSI surveillance service at Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) (UK) from 2009 – 2022. She has Digital Transformation, extensive experience in critical care nursing, quality assurance and microbiology in pharmaceutical industries and is currently exploring SSI surveillance, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) (including SSI prevention) policy implementation at Sherwood Forest NHS Trust (UK). This experience will consolidate prior SSI/IPC experience at a large acute Trust.
She held various roles for the Infection Prevention Society (IPS) society and is a member of Hospital Infection Society (HIS) Guidelines Development Committee. Furthermore, Lilian was a member of the National Institute of Care Excellence (NICE) SSI quality standard Topic Expert Group (TEG) in 2013 and has experience of presenting SSI work at various local & international conferences IPS, HIS, NICE and Surgical Infection Society Europe (SIS-E). A holder of an MSc in Infection Prevention and Control, Diploma of Higher Education in Nursing studies, BSc. Honours degree in Applied Biology and Biochemistry, specialising in Microbiology, various clinical, infection control and allied health care courses and a Florence Nightingale Leadership Development course, Lilian has been a finalist for various Awards for her work in SSI prevention.
Thanks to her experiences she is in a very strong position to fully support IPC/SSI surveillance and prevention work in the UK and globally. She is the Founder of the new Surgical Site Infection Prevention Society, a global SSI prevention group, looking to raise the profile of SSIs to new heights. She is very passionate about improving patient safety and experience, with love, kindness and compassion being integral to what she delivers.