In conversation with Prof Graham Lord

“We have an opportunity to deliver on important challenges”

After six weeks in his new role, we interviewed our new Executive Director at King’s Health Partners (KHP), Prof Graham Lord.

Graham also serves as Senior Vice President, Health and Life Sciences, at King’s College London and as Chief Academic Officer, a Non-Executive Director role on the Board of Directors at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts (FTs).

Graham shared his highlights from the KHP Annual Conference, his hopes for KHP’s future, and how he switches off outside of work.   

Welcome back to King’s Health Partners. Tell us about your history at KHP.

Thank you! In 2008, I was Head of the Department of Experimental Immunobiology at King’s College London, running a number of programmes in early phase translational research and then led three-to-five-year funding cycles of our NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. That first Biomedical Research Centre predated the formation of KHP and in many ways catalysed the development of KHP.

For the last five-and-a-half years, I was putting together an academic health science ecosystem in Greater Manchester. I came back to KHP a few weeks ago, to see how we could apply some of those learnings across the partnership.

I have a long history with KHP, and it has all of the fundamental platforms to be a success as an academic health science ecosystem.

How did you feel when you began your new roles?

I felt very privileged to be offered this role at KHP and as Chief Academic Officer. It's a unique post in the UK. Managing the weight of expectation is a challenge – but one I welcome - and we can only succeed by working together. I’m looking forward to working with all the fantastic people in the office at KHP, but also within King's College London, and King's College Hospital, South London and Maudsley, and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS FTs. It’s a real opportunity to deliver on a very important set of challenges.

Southeast London has always been close to my heart even though I was brought up in Manchester. My mum comes from Dulwich, so King's College Hospital was my mum and her family's local hospital.

What were your highlights and key learnings from this year’s KHP Annual Conference?

Seeing all of the energy and enthusiasm throughout the whole day. It’s wonderful to see how committed people are to solving the significant challenges we face. My conversation with Julia Gillard in the morning set the perfect tone for the conference - how do we provide strategic leadership across a broad ecosystem while managing day to day operational pressures. What also set the tone for was the focus on equity, diversity and inclusion and the important difference between equity and equality.

As you lead the development of KHP’s strategy to 2030, what’s most important?

My goal as we remain in the development phase is to stay in listening mode. It’s really important that I hear the views of all of our key stakeholders - for example the Integrated Care Board, the Integrated Care System, local councillors and also national government - about what they think the challenges are and how KHP is best placed to solve them. How can we use expertise across the partnership to deliver significant change for health and care outcomes.

We must identify our priorities with a focus on delivery, we can't do everything, and we must focus on how we measure progress. Our strategy must also be linked to the new government’s strategy, which at the moment is also in a place of development. We need to make sure we're aligned, not just with local priorities but also national priorities.

What makes King’s Health Partners unique?

What’s key to KHP is our approach to mind and body. You can't achieve physical health without integrating mental health. We've seen post COVID-19 the almost epidemic rise in poor physical and mental health. It is an enormously pressing healthcare issue that KHP is almost uniquely positioned to address.

The healthcare problems we face are global, but I really believe KHP, with its fantastic hospitals, universities, communities, and staff, has all of the components to solve the issues we face today.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

A lot of my time centres on my three children – and most of it's focused on football. We have season tickets both at Fulham and also at Liverpool - half of my family are from London and half are from the North West, so most of my diary planning outside of work is determining when either Liverpool or Fulham are playing at home.

What’s your favourite film?

For me, humour is key, because life gets very serious doing these types of jobs. I think the best comedy film – as one of the early ‘mockumentaries’ - is This is Spinal Tap. Every time I watch it or listen to the soundtrack it makes me smile. I think any film that can do that 30 years after it was released is a good film.

What would surprise people to know about you?

I am a classically trained musician, who played lead guitar in a rock band at college that was asked to play at Glastonbury!