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President
Professor Lord Patel of Bradford OBE
Currently University Director of Strategic Partnerships and Senior Advisor to the Vice Chancellor at the University of East London, Lord Kamlesh Patel is tasked with creating strategic links between the university and a wide range of public and private sector organisations regionally, nationally and internationally.
Lord Patel is also Chairman of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
He has extensive experience working at the highest levels on national and international developments in government policy on a wide range of areas, including health, social care, crime, community cohesion, extremism, mental health, drug and alcohol use, equality and human rights, and higher education. He has led international health and social care initiatives and brokered developments between UK statutory and voluntary organisations and other countries (including India, Middle East, Africa) to realise real benefits for local institutions and communities.
Lord Patel has, over the years, been appointed to a number of national boards and committees, including, the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work, the Home Office’s Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs, the Healthcare Commission, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse and the Care Quality Commission. He was also Chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission. He is currently Chairman and/or Patron of over 20 not-for-profit organisations across England.
Lord Patel has contributed to a variety of Government policies including being the architect of the Government’s five year action plan for delivering race equality in mental health care. In 2007 he was appointed by the Prime Minister to act as a Ministerial Adviser to the Secretary of State (DCLG) in respect of the government’s PREVENT agenda (Preventing Violent Extremism); he was also Chairman of a National Taskforce looking at the effectiveness of prison drug treatment culminating in the publication of The Patel Report.
Lord Patel was appointed as Minister in the House of Lords Government’s Whip’s Office as Front Bench Spokesperson for:- Communities and Local Government, Ministry of Justice, Cabinet Office and the Attorney General’s Office in 2008.
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Vice Presidents
Natasha Kaplinsky OBE
Broadcaster
Natasha Kaplinsky is known as one of television’s best-loved broadcasters – hosting news across the networks from the BBC to Sky, chalking up hundreds of hours with Channel Five and ITN News in between. She has anchored news-based programmes at breakfast to the flagship bulletins at the end of the day.
Alongside her news-casting, Natasha is widely known for her triumphant appearance on the BBC’s prime time Saturday night show Strictly Come Dancing, becoming the shows first ever Champion! Natasha has also enjoyed the chance to host a variety of factual and entertainment programmes ranging from Children in Need to the BBC’s New Year live celebrations.
More recently Natasha co-founded a baby company called Mum and You where supporting Mum’s and their children is integral to everything they do.
Natasha was made an OBE in 2017 for services to the Holocaust Commission and she continues to serve on a series of Boards relating to Holocaust education.
She is a very active Ambassador for Save the Children, travelling widely with the charity to raise money and promote their work worldwide.
Professor Bola Owolabi MRCGP MFPH(Hon)
Professor Bola Owolabi (MRCGP, MFPH Hon, FRSPH) is Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England (NHSE).
She works as a General Practitioner in the Midlands.
Bola has particular interest in reducing healthcare inequalities through integrated care models, service transformation, and using data insights for quality improvement. She has spearheaded NHSE’s Core20PLUS5 approach to narrowing healthcare inequalities.
Internationally, Bola was a member of the Danish Ambassador’s Tour De Health – a ten nation healthcare policy leaders’ summit. Additionally, she was the UK representative on the Commonwealth Fund / Academy Health Tour 2023, exploring equity in national health policy across the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
She was previously National Speciality Advisor for Older People and Integrated Person-Centred Care at NHSE, where she led the Anticipatory Care workstream of the National Ageing Well Programme. She collaborated with teams across NHSE and the Department of Health and Social Care as part of the Covid-19 pandemic response.
Bola is an alumna of Ashridge Executive Education / Hult International Business School and holds a Masters degree with distinction in Leadership (Quality Improvement). She also received an NHS Leadership Academy Award in Executive Healthcare Leadership for Clinicians.
Bola is an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Birmingham. She is also a Vice President of the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH).
Michael Sheen
Actor and activist
Michael Sheen has proved himself equally accomplished on both stage and screen. Michael is now branching out to start his own social movements. In March 2019 he launched the End High Cost Credit Alliance, aimed at tackling the unfair targeting of high cost credit to those who can least afford it.
His many award-winning stage performances include Caligula and Frost/Nixon at the Donmar Theatre, and Hamlet at the Young Vic. He created, co-directed, and performed in the groundbreaking three-day live event The Passion in Port Talbot for National Theatre Wales. He has starred in three films nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award: The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears, Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard, and Midnight in Paris, directed by Woody Allen.
He is known to millions as a vampire in The Twilight Saga films and a werewolf in the Underworld franchise. His other feature credits include The Damned United, directed by Tom Hooper; Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland; Tron: Legacy, and the critically acclaimed adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, Far From the Madding Crowd, directed by Thomas Vinterberg; Sony’s Passengers in which he starred alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt and Home Again with Reese Witherspoon. Michael will next be seen in the Netflix feature film, Apostle, as well as Slaughterhouse Rulez with Simon Pegg. He recently completed filming opposite Robert Downey Jr in The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle.
On television, Michael has earned multiple awards and nominations for his performances in projects such as Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!, directed by Andy De Emmony, Dirty Filthy Love, directed by Adrian Shergold, as Tony Blair in HBO's The Special Relationship and as Dr Bill Masters in four seasons of the acclaimed Showtime series, Masters of Sex, on which he was also a producer. He has created memorable characterizations for NBC's 30 Rock, HBO's mockumentary 7 Days In Hell, the IFC miniseries spoof Spoils of Babylon, and Michael Bolton's Big Sexy Valentine's Day Special for Netflix. He will next appear in Neil Gaimon’s Good Omens for Amazon BBC.
Michael is also widely recognised as an equally effective activist, through his role as UNICEF Ambassador, Patron of Social Enterprise UK, President of the Wales Centre for Voluntary Action and many other roles. He has been recognised by RSPH for his work in advancing the cause of public health in the UK with the Outstanding Contribution to Championing the Public’s Health Award 2017, announced at the RSPH Awards 2017. He received it for his work to engage and empower deprived communities, especially in his native south Wales, to tackle social determinants and address health inequalities. -
Chair of Council
Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard FRSPH FFPH
Jonny is a Public Health Physician and Epidemiologist, and works as Head of Health Analytics at Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP), Chair of the Health Inequalities Programme Board at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London.
At LCP, Jonny leads a multi-disciplinary analytics team developing innovative analytics and technology approaches that cut through the noise of complex datasets and put actionable insights into the hands of decision makers across health and life sciences. Areas of work such as value-based care frameworks, quantifying co- and multi-morbidity health needs and service costs, and identifying patient groups with the most unmet need in order to prioritise resource allocation, will help to shift health systems from importers of illness to exporters of health.
Jonny was Editor-in-Chief of the Chief Medical Officer's 2018 Report Health 2040 – Better Health Within Reach, which recommended the development of a composite Health Index. This Index was published by the Office for National Statistics in 2020, and Jonny remains closely involved. His book, Whose health is it, anyway? – co-authored with Dame Sally Davies – repositions health as the greatest untapped opportunity for prosperity, happiness and fairness in the 21st century. Through his work chairing Northumbria’s Health Inequalities Programme Board, Jonny is putting this approach into action.
Having trained at the University of Oxford, Jonny has been awarded multiple competitive clinical-academic research positions from the NIHR and the Wellcome Trust at Imperial College London. His research has two main streams spanning non-communicable disease epidemiology. First, using big data and simulation modelling of health, economic and inequality outcomes to inform public health policy. Second, investigating the increasing diversification of morbidity and mortality in patients with diabetes and other chronic diseases. His research has been published in leading journals, including the Lancet, Nature and the British Medical Journal.
Jonny is on several advisory boards and is regularly invited to speak on a range of topics across health.
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Treasurer
Maggie Waterston
Maggie Waterston is Non-Executive Director with National Records of Scotland who work closely with Public Health Scotland in providing statistical analysis.
Maggie was a board member for The Traverse Theatre where she also chaired the Audit and Finance Committee. Maggie was also a board member for Scottish Hockey until 2018 where she led the setting up of the Audit Committee and assisted with the strengthening of finance and governance arrangements. Maggie has also held the role of Independent Examiner for a small local charity for ten years, and is currently a volunteer with Sepsis Research FEAT, a cause that is important to her.
Since 2006, Maggie has worked for the NHS in Scotland. Her first post was as Head of Finance with NHS Health Scotland (now Public Health Scotland) and later was Director of Finance and Corporate Services for Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) before retiring in April 2021. Maggie’s last 12 months with HIS was focused on managing the implications of Covid-19 within NHS Scotland and planning colleagues and managing the funding implications with finance colleagues.
Maggie holds a Business Studies degree from the University of Stirling which upon graduating led her to work with Coats Patons plc as a graduate trainee which qualified Maggie as a Chartered Management Accountant.
Maggie considers herself to be proactive and pragmatic and particularly enjoys supporting the delivery and implementation of operational and strategic plans whilst ensuring that appropriate governance oversight is in place. Maggie believes that the spirit of governance is as important as the technicalities of governance.
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Member of Council
Dr Beccy Cooper MP
Dr Beccy Cooper is a Public Health Consultant and MP for Worthing West. She began life as a medical doctor and found her love of public health in overseas development, working with WHO and several NGOs in South America and Africa before returning to the NHS to undertake public health training.Dr Cooper completed training in 2013 and found herself a newly qualified Public Health Consultant in a local authority setting.
Working with local politics, she realised that her road to improving population health in the UK lay in politics rather than officer life, and in 2017 she became the first Labour Councillor elected to Worthing Council in 41 years. The Labour Group took control of the Council in 2022 and as Leader of the Council, Beccy worked to put community wellbeing, a circular economy, sustainable solutions to our housing crisis and an immediate and effective response to the climate emergency at the heart of all council work.
Dr Cooper is also Chair of the Greater Brighton Economic Board and became MP for Worthing West in July 2024.
Charlotte Wood
Charlotte Wood is UK Managing Director at Oxehealth, a global leader in vision-based patient monitoring systems working directly with the NHS. She is a commercial leader and strategy consultant, experienced in building teams and delivering top-line growth for digital innovations in the healthcare and medical technology sectors.
Charlotte is a Fellow of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, a fellowship run by NHS England and chaired by Professor Stephen Powis to “support exceptional individuals to scale promising innovations in the NHS for greater patient and staff benefit”. Prior to joining Oxehealth, she worked at Kearney, a management consultancy, where she advised global healthcare businesses and their leaders on how to build digital products and transform their services through technology.
Charlotte holds a MChem in Chemistry from Oxford University and a MSc in International Public Policy & Public Health from University College London.
James Morris
James Morris is Director of Global Corporate Affairs and Advocacy at PwC. His background combines public policy, political strategy and corporate communications. As a pollster, he has advised political parties and NGOs in several countries, including advising the UK Labour in various guises since the early 2000s.
His public policy experience includes two stints in the UK civil service as well as a period at the Institute for Public Policy Research. He is regularly asked to comment on politics and policy, including at several universities, and has written for the Times, Observer, New Statesman and Spectator among others.
Jeremy Benson
Jeremy Benson is a career civil servant who has spent most of his career in education, particularly at the Department for Education (DfE) and at Ofqual, the qualifications regulator.At the DfE he has worked in many different areas, including finance, qualifications, construction skills and further education. At Ofqual he worked on general qualifications reform, apprenticeships, and regulation of vocational qualifications.
From summer 2020 to March 2023, he worked on the Government’s response to Covid-19, initially at the Joint Biosecurity Centre and then at the UK Health Security Agency, where he developed a keen interest in public health.
Jeremy is also Chair of Learn-AT, a primary Multi-Academy Trust based in Leicestershire.
Liz Wynn
Liz Wynn is Chief Supporter Officer at the Guardian News & Media, leading the global digital reader revenue strategy. Liz has 20 years of commercial, marketing, and operational experience in media and telecoms sectors.
In her previous role at Sky TV she took a leadership role in business continuity preparedness – through which she become increasingly interested in the contribution of employers to public health.
Malcolm Groat
Malcolm began his career with PwC London where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant before working abroad in corporate finance and strategy consulting.Malcolm took up his first non-executive role with the former Milk Marketing Board in 2004 and has since served on many boards. Until last year he was Chair at The Corps of Commissionaires, and he is currently Chair for two AIM companies, TomCo Energy and Harland & Wolff.
Meir Hakkak FCMA
Meir is International Chief Operating Officer at HIMSS, a membership association with 120,000 members, whose mission is to “reform the global health ecosystem through the power of information and technology.”At HIMSS, Meir leads the teams serving EMEA and Latin America, with a remit to grow HIMSS’s conference and media footprints, while also building relationships with Ministries of Health to expand the reach of HIMSS’s education and digital maturity models.
Meir is experienced in Commercial Finance, Strategic Planning and Business Development and has worked across multiple industries as Business Development Director at Tesco, Chief Investment Officer in Venture Capital, and as VP for Strategy and Business Development for Bob the Builder! His past journey included a period with the Department of Health Strategy Unit, correlating expansion of NHS activity with expenditure growth.
Meir has a keen interest in sustainability and biodiversity and is also currently volunteering for the Natural History Museum, helping their science and education teams with commercial growth initiatives to create and inspire advocates for the planet.
Professor Nick Harding OBE FRCP FRCGP FRSPH SFFMLM MFPH (hon)
Nick is Chief Medical Officer for Operose Health and a practising General Practitioner (family physician) with 30 of years clinical experience. He has had a unique career both as commissioner and provider of healthcare for diverse populations.Previously, he was the Chair of Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group since 2011. He also held a number of roles, including working on secondment as Senior Clinical Advisor for the NHS England Accountable Care Systems’ Primary Care Development Programme and for Right Care. Between 2014 and 2018 Nick chaired the National Specialised Commissioning Place Based Oversight Group. Nick also helped to establish Aston Medical School and currently sits on its Fitness to Practice panel.
As a commissioner, he created an award-winning CCG recognised for its innovative culture, approach to engagement and its consistent high performance. As a provider, he was a founding GP Partner for a large super partnership which is now a multi-site primary care provider. He has published widely on health-related issues.
Nilam Prinjha
Nilam is currently a Lecturer in Public Health at the University of Salford and Programme Leader for the newly developed Public Health Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship. Prior to taking up her role at Salford, Nilam held the position of Assistant Professor in Public Health at the University of Bradford.Previously, Nilam held roles as Senior Lecturer and Workforce Development Fellow within the College of Health and Social Care, University of Derby. As Workforce Development Fellow, Nilam provided strategic and operational leadership in curriculum development, working with health and social care employers to design new programme offerings to meet employer and workforce needs. Nilam also played a lead role in establishing the College's new Research Centre and developing research proposals and activities, in particular, in relation to physical activity and healthy eating.
Prior to her academic career, Nilam has worked extensively within the area of substance misuse and health inequalities. Nilam is also currently a Board member for BHA for Equality, a health and social care charity which exists to challenge health and social care inequalities.
Professor Rachel Isba
Rachel is passionate about improving the health and wellbeing of children and young people and is delighted to be a Trustee of the Society.Professor of Medicine at Lancaster University and a clinically active NHS Consultant in Paediatric Public Health Medicine in the Northwest of England, her work focuses on delivering opportunistic public health interventions, such as vaccination, in non-traditional settings, such as hospital Emergency Departments.
Rachel qualified from Oxford in 2003 and moved back to her native Manchester to undertake training in paediatrics and public health. In addition to her medical qualifications, she has Masters Degrees in Public Health, Physiological Sciences, and Infectious Diseases. A firm believer that every day can be a school day, she recently completed a Doctorate in Data Science, to accompany her PhD in Medical Education. She has a number of honorary appointments, including at the University of California, Riverside.Abigail Johnston Hume
Abi works within the Business Insights Team at AstraZeneca. Her work currently includes forecasting, performance reporting and market research within Oncology, specifically Breast Cancer, for the UK market. Abi has previously worked in the Internal Audit Team at AstraZeneca providing assurance over the management of strategic risks within the R&D and Operations functions.Abi has previously held various roles at KPMG where she worked with public sector organisations, including charities and the NHS, delivering external audits, internal audits and advisory projects, with a specialism in risk and governance. Abi holds a Biology Degree and a Master of Public Health, both from Imperial College London and she is a Chartered Accountant (ACA).
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Directors
William Roberts FRSPH
Chief Executive
William has been a senior leader in the NHS across roles in public health, commissioning, strategy, transformation and planning. He is a registered nurse who has worked in both hospital and community services, and as a nurse specialist in tuberculosis and HIV.
William is a Non-Executive Director of Housing 21 and a Non- Executive Director of POBL a Welsh housing and care provider and was previously Deputy Chair at Terrence Higgins Trust. He brings a wealth of experience across public health and inequalities from the healthcare, charity sector, social care, housing, local government and further education.
Janice Constable FRSPH
Director of Membership & Educational Services
As Director of Membership & Educational Services, Janice's responsibilities include managing a busy team to deliver individual and corporate membership, publications (including the journals Public Health and Perspectives in Public Health), conferences and events (including the Diploma in Occupational Health and the prestigious Health & Wellbeing Awards), e-learning, accreditation, CPD and training.
Janice's current priorities include continuing to grow RSPH membership and the active RSPH Special Interest Groups in areas including arts, food, behaviour change and water. Janice is also responsible for RSPH’s well respected and international webinar programme
Prior to working for RSPH, Janice was Marketing Manager for a large housing association. She also has a BSc in psychology and an MBA.
Parthy Parthipan ACMA FRSPH
Director of Finance and Corporate Resources
Parthy Parthipan is a qualified accountant and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). He is also a graduate with BSc degree in Physics and Maths.
Parthy's early career was in accountancy practice and he worked with two firms of Chartered Accountants based in central London over 6 years. He then moved to a trade association as Company Secretary and Accountant.
After 12 years with the trade association, he joined the Royal Institute of Public Health (RIPH) in October 2005 as Director of Finance and Administration. In 2008, he played a pivotal role in the merger of RIPH with the Royal Society of Health which formed the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH).
Parthy took up the role of Director of Finance and Corporate Resources for the merged organisation with overall responsibilities for Finance, IT, Facilities and HR functions. He also provides support to the CEO and the Council on governance matters and act as secretary to two sub committees.
In his spare time, he enjoys DIY and is developing his skills on picture frame making. He is also an amateur photographer and testing his skills on landscape photography and at family events.
Jennifer Peprell MRSPH
Director of Qualifications
As Director of Qualifications Jenni is responsible for the RSPH Awarding Organisation. Staff in this area develop and maintain RSPH’s extensive suite of public health qualifications. Jenni is also RSPH’s designated Responsible Officer and is accountable to the UK qualification regulators: Ofqual, Qualifications Wales and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA).Jenni has been with RSPH for over 17 years. Previously Jenni was Head of Qualifications Operations. Jenni is passionate about qualifications, learner achievements and driving the qualifications department to develop and grow for the future.HideShow full biographyMatthew Bazeley-Bell
Deputy CEO
Matthew has over 20 years’ experience working in the health and central government including leading the NHS’ public health services in London.
He is a charity trustee for the Bristol Folk House which helps its community to ‘learn, make, create, and appreciate’ and he co-founded ‘Out to Swim Bristol’ and led the establishment of it as a national organisation and movement for inclusion in aquatics and sport.HideShow full biography