Webinar: Implementing innovation – how we make real the promise of new technologies

As Chief Executive Officer of UCLPartners, Chris leads their work as a partnership to improve the health of our population through the implementation of research and innovation into practice. He joined UCLPartners in October 2021, initially as Director of the Academic Health Science Network and National Director of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, before being appointed as UCLPartners Chief Executive Officer in February 2022.

Chris undertook specialist training in nephrology, critical care and internal medicine, and continues to practise as a consultant nephrologist at University College London and Royal Free Hospitals, where he is also Honorary Associate Professor of Nephrology at the UCL Centre for Nephrology.

He undertook research training in renal disease, genetics and physiology at UCLH and INSERM Paris. He has remained active in research through clinical trials, health services research and the use of artificial intelligence in predicting acute renal disease. He has a strong interest in digital health, technology and data science and was previously a senior clinical advisor to DeepMind Health and Google Health.

Chris was speciality training director and clinical lead for nephrology at the Royal Free. From 2013-2017 he was Royal Free associate medical director for patient safety, clinically leading a large patient safety improvement programme and quality governance and integration across the Royal Free hospitals. From 2017-2021 Chris was Divisional Clinical Director of Emergency Services at UCLH and was responsible for the emergency department (ED), urgent treatment centre, acute mental health pathway, children and young people’s ED, same day emergency care acute medicine and the medical enhanced care unit. In this role he oversaw a programme of service transformation, workforce development, full-digitisation, estates redevelopment and clinically led the UCLH COVID-19 emergency care response.

Chris co-founded and chaired London Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) Network. From 2014-2016 Chris clinically led the UCLPartners Patient Safety Programme AKI Improvement Collaborative. This programme extended across nine acute trusts and led to significant improvements in AKI recognition, recovery and mortality. Chris was secondary care lead for urgent and emergency care for the North Central London STP from 2017-2020. He has advised NICE and HQUIP and was member of the AKI National programme board. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

Dr Jean-Frédéric Levesque joined the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation as Chief Executive in June 2017. He was previously Chief Executive of the Bureau of Health Information between 2013 and 2017.

Jean-Frédéric brings to the ACI leadership in healthcare system analysis and improvement, combining experience in clinical practice in refugee health and tropical medicine, in clinical governance and in academic research. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity at the University of New South Wales.

Jean-Frédéric has a Medical Degree, a Masters in Community Health and a Doctorate in Public Health from the Université de Montréal, Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

Prior to joining NSW Health, Jean-Frédéric held senior positions responsible for publicly reporting information about the Canadian health system at the Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec and the Commissaire a la santé et au bien-etre du Québec.

Sultan is the newly appointed Director of Healthcare for BT Enterprise and is the leader of the company’s healthcare business. He is an experienced executive with a passion for innovation and has had a distinguished career in the NHS spanning two decades and is a respected figure in Health technology circles in the UK and internationally.

Prior to this role Sultan was Chief of Innovation, Integration and Research at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT). He led pioneering work in integration across the care spectrum in primary, community and acute care and developed some of the most impactful live clinical datasets at a placed based level. Sultan is enthusiastic about care providers working collaboratively and using technology enabled methods to manage patient care in an anticipatory way. To this end he has worked closely to develop partnerships with the commercial sector, patient groups and clinical teams to enable evidence-based innovation.

In addition to his day job, he supports clinical teams to lead authentically and break down cultural barriers to enable anticipatory care and digital transformation.  Sultan has a high energy, high commitment approach to the NHS and regularly invests time in supporting emerging leaders and in health care achieve their career and service goals.

In 2018 he was chosen as one of the 100 vibrant faces of the UK economy by Grant Thornton and in 2019 Sultan joined the Advisory Board of the Centre for Health and Social Care Leadership at the HSMC, University of Birmingham. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Keele and is a visiting Professor at Birmingham City University. In 2021 Sultan was joined the Innovation Board at the Centre for the New Midlands think tank.

Katherine is Chief Commercial Officer and MD, UK and Europe for Healthy.io a digital healthcare startup leveraging smartphone and cloud technology.

Katherine has worked in healthcare for 30 years: 15 years in the UK National Health Service in both provider and payer roles and 11 years with UnitedHealth Group.

Malte Gerhold joined the Health Foundation in May 2022 as Director of Innovation and Improvement.

Malte leads the Foundation’s work to encourage faster improvement and innovation in care, building on its grant programmes and improvement networks to provide insights and enable change across health and social care. He also leads its work to explore how new technologies can provide the opportunities for better care quality, access and experience. And he oversees the Foundation’s improvement partnerships including the Q Community and THIS Institute.

He was previously Chief Integrated Care Officer at Birdie, a digital startup helping to reinvent the way we age, where he led its collaboration across social care and the NHS. Before that he was Executive Director of Strategy and Intelligence at the Care Quality Commission, leading on its methodology, analytics and communications, including its regulatory approach to new innovations and improvement. He has also lived and worked in Sierra Leone, and in the UK he worked at the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit, the Department of Health, and Accenture.  

He is a member of the Sciana Health Leaders Network, and a Fellow of the RSA. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the London School of Economics and a Masters and PhD from the University of Oxford.