Professor Alison H Holmes

Alison Holmes is a Professor of Infectious Diseases and is the Lead for Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at Imperial College London and Director of Infection Prevention and Control (DIPC) for the Imperial College AHSC and Co-director of the Centre for Infection Prevention and Management at Imperial College .

Alison graduated from Cambridge and London. Following work in communicable diseases in Oxford, she won a Glaxo training fellowship in Infectious Diseases which she completed in Boston and also obtained a Masters in Public Health at Harvard. She established and developed the syllabus for the MSc in Infection Management for Pharmacists in the UK, which she now co-runs. She is author of numerous papers and book chapters and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Hospital Infection and the International Journal of Health and Human Rights.

Alison has served on a secondment to the Department of Health as a National Clinical Champion and advisor on reducing hospital acquired infection, and is a member of national strategy committees. She serves on several other national committees on antibiotic prescribing, education and surveillance. She is an expert member on the Governmental Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI) (http://www.dh.gov.uk/ab/ARHAI/) and is a programme leader at the National Centre for Patient Safety & Service Quality (http://www.cpssq.org/)

The principal areas of her research are in hospital epidemiology and infection prevention and control, including the field of antibiotic stewardship to address the threat of antibiotic resistance. Her work addresses infection management, patient safety and public health within acute healthcare and provides a clear example of applied research in healthcare delivery.  In particular she has demonstrated how patient-focused research can have a powerful and rapid impact on the health of the patients concerned, with implications for the NHS as a whole.   

Alison’s work also involves investigating models of health care and methods of improving systems to ensure best practice and a reduction in healthcare acquired infection (HCAI).