Professor Denny Levett

MA, BM BCh, PhD, MRCP, FRCA, FCICM, ChPOM
Consultant Anaesthetist, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust & Director of CPOC

Denny was appointed as the Director of the Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC) in October 2025. CPOC is a cross-speciality, interdisciplinary initiative that aims to deliver high-quality, evidence-based, patient-centred perioperative care to improve patient outcomes and enhance value across the surgical pathway. 

Denny is a professor of perioperative medicine and critical care at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton. She led the development of a multidisciplinary perioperative care service in Southampton integrating digital innovation, shared decision-making and a community-based prehabilitation service to improve patient outcomes and experience. 

Denny is founding co-President of the International Prehabilitation Society (IPOETTS) and co-Lead of the Perioperative and Critical Care Theme at the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. Her research has focused on optimising surgical outcomes, empowering patient self-management, and improving care cost-effectiveness. Her research with the Fit 4 Surgery research group has included multimodal prehabilitation trials (Wesfit; Safefit; Inspire) and risk evaluation prior to major surgery. She has chaired expert consensus guidance on surgery schools, shared decision-making, nutrition and co-chairs the implementation group for the CPOC–NIHR–Macmillan guidelines on prehabilitation for patients with cancer. 

Denny 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. (www.xtreme-everest.co.uk)