NICE welcomes six newly appointed board members

The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) has appointed six new non-executive directors to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) board.

The new appointees who join the NICE are from a range of backgrounds in the medical and health technology sector and bring an impressive array of expertise to the board, the NICE said.

They start from April 1.

Welcoming the newly appointed board members, Sharmila Nebhrajani, chair of NICE, said: “I am delighted to welcome these six outstanding individuals to the NICE Board. They join us at an exciting and important time as we launch a new strategy and begin to transform the way we work.

“Each bring a wealth of experience from careers in innovation and data science, life sciences and medtech, and digital publishing - all critical elements of our future work. I look forward to working with them in the coming weeks and months.”

The six new non-executive directors are:

Mark Chakravarty

Dr Mark Chakravarty, a business leader and a trained physician with 20 years’ experience across organisations including Novartis, Procter & Gamble and the NHS. Most recently he was the global Head of Communications and Patient Advocacy at Novartis Pharmaceuticals. He is also a member of the NICE Appeal Panel and was a member of the NICE Technology Appraisal Committee from 2003 to 2012.

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Jackie Fielding

Jackie Fielding has been in the healthcare industry for around 30 years and for the last decade was Vice President of Medtronic UK/Ireland. She has held a number of external posts alongside her role in Medtronic including Chair of the British Cardiovascular Intervention Association, council member of British Cardiovascular Intervention Society, and Vice Chair at the Association of British HealthTech Industries. Jackie is an advocate for authentic leadership, diversity and inclusion.

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Gary Ford

Professor Gary Ford has been a leading figure in stroke care for many years and developed the first thrombolysis protocol for acute stroke in England as well as the Face Arm Speech Test (FAST), now used to increase public and professional awareness of stroke. He remains a practicing clinician as a consultant stroke physician at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is also Professor of Stroke Medicine at the University of Oxford. Gary was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Oxford Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) in 2013, and is Vice Chair of the national AHSN Network.

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Sir Bruce Keogh

Professor Sir Bruce Keogh held the chair of Cardiac Surgery at University College London before being appointed Medical Director of the NHS and Director General in the Department of Health migrating to National Medical Director of NHS England. For a decade he was the professional lead for doctors in the NHS and was responsible for clinical policy and strategy, clinical leadership and innovation across the service.

In the Department of Health and Social Care he was the sponsor for NICE, the Healthcare Commission and the National Patient Safety Agency. Sir Bruce has also served on the boards of the Commission for Health Improvement and Healthcare Commission between 2002-2007. He is currently Chair of the Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.

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Alina Lourie

Alina Lourie has had a long career in publishing and information within the private sector, including 16 years at Thomson Reuters. Latterly she was Managing Director of the publishing arm of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Currently, Alina holds a portfolio of Board and advisory positions across a number of professional and academic bodies, including The Institute of Engineering and Technology, The Royal Society of Chemistry and Manchester University Press.

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Justin Whatling

Dr Justin Whatling has over 20 years’ experience in using technology and informatics to transform outcomes for patients. A medical doctor by training, he is currently Vice President for International Public Sector Health for Cerner outside of the USA.

Justin is also a visiting professor in health informatics in the Faculty of Population Health Science and Institute of Digital Health at UCL. He has a strong interest in entrepreneurship and developing professionalism for health informatics, and has run summer schools for health tech start-ups with the British Computer Society and techUK.