Founder and Trustee

Dr. Alison Smithies OBE MD FRCPath

Having begun her career as a GP, Alison developed a clinical interest in family planning, and a research interest in cytology to gain her MD. She went on to prove her exceptional strategic and operational skills as right hand woman to two Chief Medical Officers at the Department of Health. Alison’s government experience of managing the AIDS crisis proved invaluable to her charity work in South Sudan.

She moved to Wiltshire in the 1990s, working on primary care strategy and delivery across the NHS region, and involving herself in Salisbury Diocese Sudans Medical Link. Not content with assisting with the Link’s aid assessments in South Sudan, she threw herself into front line work in rural Kajo Keji, delivering hands-on primary health care, and helping to train staff. She founded HCSS in 2007 in order to raise funds to build a clinic in Kajo Keji, to improve conditions for the patients and staff she had so enjoyed working with. Now in her tenth decade, she is still contributing to the work of HCSS, and is an inspiration and guiding light for all who have joined in her mission to improve the health and wellbeing of people in South Sudan.