Blog UK National Screening Committee

Deborah Tomalin

Deborah has been the Director of Public Health Commissioning and Operations for NHS England since April 2019. She is responsible for the commissioning and operations of the Section 7a services in England – screening (cancer and non-cancer), immunisations/flu and Child Health Information Services. Underpinning the successful delivery of all these services is the digital transformation of screening.
Deborah joined NHSE in April 2013 as the Associate Director of South East Coast Strategic Clinical Networks & Clinical Senate, creating the 4 strategic clinical networks and a clinical senate. In 2014, she became Director of Commissioning across Surrey and Sussex, which covered specialised commissioning, public health and primary care. She became Director of Commissioning for Kent, Surrey and Sussex (South East Region) in 2017, responsible for public health and primary care.
Before joining NHSE, Deborah spent over 16 years setting up and managing ‘clinical networks’ in the NHS, starting as the Director of the Sussex Cancer Network in 1999 and, by 2010, directing one team running 14 managed clinical networks in Sussex. She started in the NHS over 40 years ago, training as a nurse in 1982. She completed a BSc in Nursing Studies at St Georges Hospital/Kings College (KQC) as one of the first nurse graduates. She then held various nursing posts in London, ran clinical research trials, and undertook research for the Royal College of Nursing and the Nursing Research Unit at Kings College, London.
Wanting more operational experience, she moved to an acute trust in 1992 in Brighton to establish a clinical audit function and a clinical risk management system with a spell as Assistant Director of Quality, which led to the cancer network position at the Health Authority. Her breast cancer in 2016 was screen-detected, little knowing she would be responsible for those services 3 years later.