Chief executive of The Health Foundation is ranked in HSJ Top 50

This is the third time the annual list has been published and Stephen Thornton is one of 20 new entries to the 2008 list. The HSJ Top 50 is decided on by a panel of experts from health policy and management fields.

The entrants to this year’s list come from varied healthcare backgrounds, they include: clinicians, managers, politicians, senior civil servants, strategic health authority chief executives, policy experts and other key players in healthcare.
 
Stephen Thornton says, ‘It is heartening to see that a quarter of those of us that are new entries into this year’s ‘HSJ Top 50’ are there because of our passion and commitment to improving the quality of patient care. Don Berwick, global inspiration for quality improvement; David Fillingham, pioneering local exponent of Lean approaches; Helen Bevan and Alwen Williams, executive and non executives respectively of the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement; and me, on behalf of The Health Foundation whose mission is to improve the quality of care for the people of the UK and beyond.
 
‘We are just the tip of an ever-growing iceberg. Now with strong policy backing in the form of the Darzi Review, more and more managers and clinical leaders are rediscovering their passion for high quality patient care; and are acting and learning in ways that deliver it safely, consistently and reliably. There is a movement under way. By the time of next year’s Top 50 publication, this could have turned into a flood.’