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6. Dr Hadia Aslam

Most GPs serve their communities from their consultation rooms, but this young doctor has spent much of the past year in a vastly different working environment.

As the founder of charitable relief organisation Health Point Foundation, Dr Hadia Aslam has led the planning and implementation of a healthcare service in the Syrian refugee settlement camps in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.

Between April and October 2017 she helped set up the clinic as a volunteer, and it has now provided services to more than 80,000 underprivileged and refugee patients in the region.

Back in the UK, Dr Aslam mentors underprivileged youngsters in her local community of Bradford, West Yorkshire, while also practising as a GP.

She is also a consultant for a non-profit network advising on healthcare issues in refugee communities.

In the coming months, Dr Aslam is aiming to secure funding for a mobile medical unit for Syrian refugee healthcare staff in Lebanon, and to keep her original clinic in operation for another year.

Despite her successes to date, Dr Haslam insists she never thought she would be a GP ‘as I considered the skills would not help in a relief setting’.

However, with the benefit of experience, she notes: ‘The professional and personal development I have achieved has taken me so much further in my role as a volunteer leader and aid worker in the relief sector.’

What others say ‘She takes great interest in her patient groups and goes above and beyond in constructing care plans according to patient needs’