Spotlight: Allergy UK’s new Deputy Head of Clinical Services  

Anne Biggs, who has recently joined Allergy UK as Deputy Head of Clinical Services, reflects on her professional personal journeys with allergy and her mission to help dispel misinformation and increases prompt access to the right advice and information at the time of need 

What first drew you to specialise in allergy?

Some 17 years ago, I started working as a children’s community nurse and was caring for babies, children and young people at home who were suffering with untreated severe eczema, asthma and suspected food allergies. At that time, there were no local allergy services. When you see patients at home you step into their world and see firsthand their struggles and the impact of not being able to access the right treatment.

Something I don’t often share in my clinical practice is I suffered from severe eczema as a child and, as an adult, have multiple food allergies, asthma and hay-fever. I have memories of my parents feeding me smarties in the bath trying to peel offpyjamas that had stuck to my skin where my eczema bled overnight. As a young adult I had my share of A&E trips for anaphylaxis. Like many of us who choose to work in allergy services, having a personal understanding of what it feels like to be itchy, wheezy, sneezy can be what draws us to work in this area.

I remember so many families and their difficult journeys in trying to access support. I was fortunate enough to join a newly formed community allergy service lead by Dr Dalbir Sohi and to be one of the founding members. This service was commissioned as an MDT one stop shop where health visitors and school nurses were able to directly refer into a community allergy clinic, run weekly by a GP, a dietitian and myself and all with a specialist interest and training in allergy. Our aim was to reduce delay in accessing expert allergy advice and we had several initiatives to support this; we screened A&E attendances, ran large- and small-scale training events for primary healthcare professionals, devised an A&E eczema guideline, ran group patient education sessions and rolled out ‘train the trainer’ sessions for school nurse and health visitors to support education settings. I worked with fantastic colleagues, parents, children and teenagers during my time as an allergy nurse. It is a hugely rewarding role to be able to see the positive impact of diagnosing, treating and supporting families managing allergic conditions.

Tell us a little about your career path so far and the experiences that have most influenced your work

I qualified as a children’s nurse in 2005 and, after spending a few years in both acute and intensive care units, I joined children’s community services in two large London boroughs. Here I fell in love with community nursing, the autonomy to make positive changes for your patients and to services and the privilege of providing nursing care at home. This led me to my role as an allergy clinical nurse specialist. After seven years in this role, I went on to be the matron for the children’s community and specialist nursing services. In this role, I established and launched a new paediatric Hospital at Home service which, in its first year, was able to make a statistically significant reduction in A&E attendances for children and young people with asthma. In my most recent role I was the Director of Care for a children’s hospice. I hold in my memory the faces and stories of those impacted most by allergies and their stories.

Patients and their stories have had the biggest influence on my career; they have been my motivation to advocate for their access to the level of services and standard of care they need and deserve. Having access to great mentors has shaped my career, to mention two, if I may. Dr. Dalbir Sohi, who taught me so much, both from a clinical perspective, but also in operational management, and Collette Datt who made significant changes and initiatives in allergic asthma and who encouraged my application for a Florence Nightingale Foundation leadership scholarship. This scholarship strengthened my leadership skills and gave me the confidence to pursue new opportunities. Both are driven visionary leaders that have made significant improvements to services for the allergic community by making positive changes and advocating for patients on a larger scale. I learnt a huge amount working with them and the many other fantastic colleagues over the years.  

From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges currently facing people living with allergies and the clinicians who support them?

Access to local allergy services and correct advice. Very sadly, much of what used to be said ten years ago still applies today. Allergy remains an unmet need, there are still too many deaths from asthma, often linked to allergies. Advice is confusing for patients; there is a lot of misinformation and confusing information online. The delay in accessing the right care, at the right time, from the right team is a very real challenge. Services are stretched. While care closer to home is part of the NHS 10-year plan, there remains a significant need to invest in local allergy services, training and patient pathways. It requires a system approach to ensure that patents can access the care and treatment they need in a timely manner.

What motivated you to join Allergy UK and what particularly excites you about the opportunity?

As a paediatric allergy nurse specialist, I used Allergy UK resources in my clinic, at teaching events and for my own learning.  Allergy UK was an organisation I admired, trusted, valued and respected. The favourite parts of my career have been working for the allergic community and making positive changes by establishing new services closer to home. The opportunity to work for Allergy UK and support the phenomenal allergic community, both professionals and patients and to have opportunities to influence positive changes needed for patients and services was a rare opportunity. I am delighted and proud to be working for a patient organisation I admire.   

How do you hope your clinical background will help shape the charity’s work with healthcare professionals and support for the allergy community?

I hope to bring my 20 years’ experience with community and specialist services, systems and patient stories with me to Allergy UK. Patient stories of the impact of living with complex chronic allergic conditions will be my north star. I have seen firsthand the impact of when health systems and services do and don’t work for the allergic community.  

The teams at Allergy UK work incredibly hard at enabling Allergy UK to advocate and support those from the allergic community, I am excited about being a part of the team.  

I would love to be able to showcase and share the examples of outstanding local allergy services and initiatives that teams are providing across the country, so they can be adopted and shared learning with teams looking at starting an allergy service. I have had the privilege of judging for the Nursing Times Awards for Nursing in the Community category for the past four years. Hearing exceptional teams present the work they do, I know allergy services are incredibly innovative in addressing the unmet needs of the allergic community. It would be great to be able to share and showcase the work from teams across the country.

A call out to clinical teams – please do get in touch with any innovation or clinic models you have set up with good patient outcomes so we can share good practice with our Allergy Focus audience. 

Are there any particular projects or areas of work you are especially keen to develop?

There are so many incredibly valuable projects that Allergy UK is involved with and leading on, for me, anything that helps dispel misinformation and increases prompt access to the right advice and information at the time of need are exciting and critical.  

It is still the case, in 2026, that there is not accessible equitable access to allergy diagnosis, support and advice. While the NHS ten-year plan focuses on care closer to home and in the community, Allergy UK’s mission is never more important in ensuring local level access to allergy team.

And finally – when you’re not working, how do you like to relax and switch off?

I have two not-so-small children who keep me busy. When I am not ferrying them around, I enjoy meeting friends for dinner, many are colleagues from my previous roles. Whenever I get the chance, I have learnt how to knit and crochet, and I am guilty of having many unfinished projects and lots of yarn at home!