Dr Ruchi Sinha is consultant paediatric intensivist based at St Mary’s Hospital in London. Her interests lie in infectious diseases, risk and governance and policy and planning for paediatric critical care. 

Regionally and locally she has been co lead for paediatric critical care in the North Thames Paediatric Network (NTPN) and is currently co-lead for Governance in the NTPN. In this role, she has been instrumental in the creation of a web-based app, Nettrack, to track network pathway incidents highlighting barriers to specialist access for clinicians within the network, aiming to improve patient flow and safety within the network. She also developed the consent document for initiation for Long Term Ventilation as part of Pan London Ethical Framework for LTV – another example of her innovative and collaborative approach to network challenges for complex patients. 

Dr Sinha is the paediatric critical care lead for the paediatric airborne HCID (High Consequence Infectious Diseases) unit at St Mary’s and nationally. In this role, she has led on guideline development, education and simulation and has led on the clinical management of a ventilated neonate with MPOX. Dr Sinha wrote national and international guidance on airway management of HCID with the Paediatric Critical Care Society and has been instrumental in the development of a paediatric HCID ethics collaborative with the 4 airborne centres in the UK, including important work on parental presence in HCID. She is the paediatric critical care representative on the working group at NHSE specialised commissioning for the development of the national HCID transport service specification. 

From her work in HCID and Paediatric critical care, Dr Sinha was a member of the COVID Expert Advisory Group in 2020 and led on the strategic planning and delivery of paediatric critical care services nationally whilst supporting adult critical care services with surge capacity. She represented paediatrics at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Vaccines and COVID 19 in 2021 and since then has been appointed the National Specialty Advisor and chair of Paediatric Critical Care CRG at NHSE.  In this role she has led on winter planning for paediatric critical care services, and has overseen the development of national service specifications including level 2 paediatric critical care, transport and ECMO. She works closely with UKHSA, PCCS and the paediatric critical care operational delivery networks to inform policy and strategic planning. In her role she is a member of key national steering groups informing policy on acute paediatric capacity and infectious diseases including the RCPCH Bronchiolitis steering group, RSV and Palivizumab steering group, GIRFT and PICANET.