Clinical practice experience
Dr David Hodgson is an Emergency Medicine Consultant and Emergency Department Clinical Director currently practising within Queensland Health, Australia. He has over a decade of consultant-level experience in emergency medicine, having previously worked across multiple NHS organisations in England, including major trauma and high-volume emergency departments. He manages the full spectrum of adult emergency presentations and has extensive experience supervising junior clinicians, supporting multidisciplinary teams, and delivering care in complex and high-pressure environments. His clinical practice is grounded in evidence-based medicine, national guidelines, and structured clinical governance systems. In addition to his clinical work, he provides independent expert evidence in adult emergency medicine, primarily in clinical negligence cases across England, Wales, and Scotland.
Clinical interests
Dr Hodgson’s clinical interests centre on patient safety, early recognition of serious illness, and the optimisation of emergency care systems. He has a particular interest in improving diagnostic accuracy and reducing delays in time-critical conditions through structured pathways, decision-support tools, and system redesign. He also has a strong interest in the interface between emergency medicine, ethics, and law, supported by his LLM in Healthcare Ethics and Law, which informs both his clinical governance work and medico-legal practice.
Research interests
Dr Hodgson has experience in research development and delivery, including protocol development, completion of a clinical topic review, and contribution to multi-centre trials. He has also led extensive quality improvement programmes within emergency medicine.
Teaching & training
Dr Hodgson is a GMC-recognised trainer and experienced educator. He has provided educational supervision to foundation doctors, core trainees, higher specialty trainees, CESR trainees, and advanced clinical practitioners. He has delivered teaching in emergency medicine, quality improvement, and resuscitation, and has previously served as an Advanced Life Support and Advanced Paediatric Life Support instructor. He currently holds an academic title as Senior Lecturer (Academic Title Holder) with the University of Queensland Rural Clinical School.
Summary of publications
Dr Hodgson has contributed to peer-reviewed and educational publications within emergency medicine, including multiple publications in the Emergency Medicine Journal. He has also contributed to academic discussion in the BMJ. He has played an active role in national guideline development, including as first author of guidance produced through the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. He also serves as a peer reviewer for the Emergency Medicine Journal, with a focus on quality improvement publications.
Memberships of professional bodies
4
Management experience
Dr Hodgson has held multiple senior leadership roles within the NHS, including Associate Medical Director for Quality and Safety, Trust Clinical Lead for Quality Improvement, Trust Clinical Lead for Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC), and Interim Trust Lead for Mortality. In these roles, he led organisation-wide quality improvement strategies, implemented the QSIR programme, developed governance systems integrating incidents, complaints, mortality reviews, and claims, and contributed to the implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework. He also led system-wide development of Same Day Emergency Care pathways. He currently works as an Emergency Department Clinical Director within Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service, with responsibility for departmental performance, workforce, quality and safety, and service development.
