Webinar: What can we learn about NHS productivity from health systems in other countries?

Mark has dedicated all his 36 years of professional experience to the development of healthcare around the world, having worked in 81 countries on 450+ occasions. He is a professor at the Global Business School for Health at University College London and at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, where he teaches the next generation of healthcare leaders on the comparative performance of health systems globally. 

Mark is also Chairman of Health Innovation Manchester, one of the leading innovation clusters in the NHS. Mark started his career on the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme and became one of the youngest ever teaching hospital chief executives at 34, leading University Hospitals Birmingham where he masterminded the largest new hospital development in NHS history. He went onto run NHS South Central, leading the NHS from Oxford to the Isle of Wight before taking a position as a Director General at the Department of Health where he sat on the NHS Management Board.

He joined KPMG in 2009 as Global Head of Health and later became Global Head of Health, Government & Infrastructure, responsible for nearly one-quarter of KPMG global revenues. He was made Vice Chair of KPMG UK in 2020 and has written two books which have sold in 106 countries and been translated into Mandarin, Korean and Portuguese. ‘In Search of the Perfect Health System’ won first prize awards in China and the UK and his second book, ‘Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare’ anticipated the world-wide shortage of healthcare staff. From 2023, Mark established his own enterprise and has a portfolio of positions in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia. He speaks internationally and travels often. He sits on the Board of the King’s Fund and has held several charity positions, including Prostate Cancer UK. Mark survived prostate cancer at the age of 42 and donated all his book royalties to cancer research and care. 

Francesca Colombo heads OECD work on health, which aims at providing internationally comparable data on health systems and applying economic analysis to health policies, advising policy makers, stakeholders and citizens on how to respond to demands for more and better health care and make health systems more resilient and people centred.

Ellen Nolte is Professor of Health Services and Systems Research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), UK. She holds a Master's degree (MPH) from Bielefeld University and a PhD in Public Health from LSHTM. Over the last twenty years she has developed an internationally recognised portfolio of research around international health care comparisons, performance measurement, and innovative models of care to better meet the needs of people with complex and long-term health conditions, with a particular focus on the coordination and integration of care within and between sectors. She is Director of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Policy Innovation and Evaluation (PIRU), which aims to improve UK health and social care policymaking by evaluating new policies in their early stages, or before they are implemented. Previously, she coordinated the two London offices of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies at LSHTM and LSE, and before that she was Head of the Health Care and Policy Programme at RAND Europe in Cambridge, where she also co-directed the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research.

Anita Charlesworth is a health economist based at the Health Foundation, where she is co-chair of the NHS Productivity Commission. At the Health Foundation, Anita founded the REAL Centre and was director of research for 8 years. Alongside her work at the Health Foundation she is a non-executive director in the NHS, member of the ESRC council and honorary professor at the Universities of Birmingham and York.

Anita is acting chair of North-West London NHS Integrated Care Board and a council member of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). She is a member of DWP’s Labour Market Advisory Board and the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) Advisory Panel.

Anita is a member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society and University of Bath, Institute for Policy Research Advisory Board.  She is Honorary Professor in the College of Social Sciences at the Health Services Management Centre (HSMC) at the University of Birmingham. 

Anita has a background in government and public policy. She had roles as Chief Analyst at DCMS, Director of Public Spending at the Treasury and worked as an Economic Advisor at the Department of Health.  Anita was specialist advisor to the House of Lords' Select Committee on the long-term sustainability of the NHS in 2016/17 and a member of the Health and Social Care Select Committee expert panel between 2020 and 2024. 

Anita has an MSc in Health Economics from the University of York. She is a Trustee for Tommy’s, the baby charity, and chair of the Office of Health Economics. She was awarded a CBE in the Queen's 2017 Birthday Honours List for Services to Economics and Health Policy. In 2024 Anita was made a fellow of the Academy of Social Science.