Director Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC), Consultant in Perioperative Medicine and Critical Care at Southampton University Hospital NHS Foundation trust (UHS), Professor in Perioperative Medicine and Critical Care at the University of Southampton
Denny is the Director of the Centre for Perioperative care and a Consultant in Perioperative and Critical Care Medicine at University Hospital Southampton. She brings extensive experience in clinical leadership, research, education, and service transformation in perioperative care.
Denny led the development of a multidisciplinary perioperative service in Southampton, integrating digital innovation, shared decision-making, and community-based prehabilitation to improve outcomes and patient experience. Her work has been widely recognised, with digital tools such as virtual surgery schools and the MyOp prehabilitation app now featured in the NHS Digital Playbook.
Denny is founding co-President of the International Prehabilitation Society (IPOETTS) and Co-Lead of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre’s Perioperative and Critical Care Theme at University Hospital Southampton. She has chaired expert consensus guidance on surgery schools, shared decision-making, nutrition, and prehabilitation, and co-chaired the CPOC–NIHR–Macmillan implementation guidelines on prehabilitation for patients with cancer. Her research with the Fit 4 Surgery research group in Southampton has included multimodal prehabilitation trials (Wesfit; Safefit; Inspire) and risk evaluation prior to major surgery. Professor Levett’s research has focused on optimising surgical outcomes, empowering patient self-management, and improving the cost-effectiveness of care through targeted interventions.
Professor Levett also has an interest in adaptation to hypoxia and was a founding member of the Xtreme Everest Hypoxia Consortium at UCL. She was the research lead and a climber on the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Research Expedition, a high altitude field study of hypoxia adaptation. Her PhD thesis involved evaluating exercise capacity at up to 8000m on Mount Everest. (www.xtreme-everest.co.uk)
