Agnelo has been a doctor in the NHS for nearly 40 years, including 36 as a GP. He has worked as a clinician, a GP trainer, and an appraiser. He has combined this with being a school governor for over 18 years and holding strategic leadership roles in the NHS at every level, including as chairman of the governing body of a clinical commissioning group.
Agnelo has led with innovation and transformation in the NHS and held several senior leadership roles simultaneously, chairing governance groups at London and national levels, with an interest in patient safety and learning from incidents when things go wrong.
Despite being proud of the achievements of the NHS, he remains frustrated that avoidable medical harm has become normalised with a culture of defensiveness, absence of accountability, ineffective national regulation, and missed opportunities for learning.
Increasingly, even healthcare professionals and their family members suffer avoidable medical harm, even when acting as advocates. Agnelo was drawn to the essential work of Avma in supporting and advising people who have experienced harm to navigate a complex system to obtain information, explanations, or the redress they deserve.
