12 September 2019

Three key individuals have been appointed as Joint Directors of Clinical Strategy on the King's Health Partners leadership team.

King's Health Partners Director of Value Based Healthcare, Prof John Moxham will be retiring in October 2019. Over the last few weeks, we have been working with our partners to recruit to three part-time sessional roles to drive forward the considerable portfolio of work established by Prof Moxham.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Rachna Chowla, Dr Irem Patel and Dr Natasha Curran will take up these new sessional roles, working jointly as King’s Health Partners Joint Directors of Clinical Strategy, alongside their other clinical commitments from the early Autumn.

The remit of the new Joint Directors of Clinical Strategy is to grow and improve primary care collaborations with our Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), develop programmes for population health improvement and Clinical Academic Group (CAG) engagement.

Dr Rachna Chowla joins us from her role as GP Partner, Albion Street Practice, Southwark, and Clinical Lead with Clinical Effectiveness Southwark. Rachna will lead on primary care collaborations with the AHSC. Working closely with general practice and primary care networks across the six boroughs of south east London we serve to improve outcomes and develop connections to King's Health Partners priority areas such as Mind & Body and Value Based Healthcare.

Dr Irem Patel is a consultant integrated respiratory physician at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College London, and lead for the South East London STP respiratory network. Irem will lead on population health improvement to support engagement across King's Health Partners and the six boroughs of south east London to better utilise our data and our partners' capabilities to reduce health inequalities and improve outcomes, including through The Vital 5 programme.

Dr Natasha Curran builds on her roles as Medical Director at the Health Innovation Network and consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine at University College London Hospitals (UCLH). Natasha will support clinicians and academics in the acute and mental health CAGs in progressing the tripartite mission to advance health and wellbeing by integrating world class research, care and education and training to improve patient and population outcomes.

The development of this new Joint Directors of Clinical Strategy role responds to the emerging direction and priorities for King’s Health Partners. Bringing further strength to our relationships across commissioning partnerships, primary and community services to reduce health inequalities and enhance research and education collaborations to improve outcomes for local patients, staff and students.

The Joint Directors of Clinical Strategy will be members of the King's Health Partners Executive team and work closely with the CEOs’ Action Group, partner executives, CAG Leaders and institute programmes to deliver priorities across our AHSC and local system.

Prof Sir Robert Lechler, Executive Director of King's Health Partners, said: 

I am delighted by these appointments and hope that you will all join me in welcoming and supporting Rachna, Irem and Natasha in their new roles. 
Rachna, Irem and Natasha have already provided important contributions to the mission, vision and values of King's Health Partners, the Health Innovation Network and the local South East London Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) in recent years and we welcome the opportunities that working more closely with them will bring. 

Over the coming weeks, each of the Joint Directors of Clinical Strategy will be featured in interviews on our website so that you may hear more about their early plans and opportunities.