Lord Crisp leads Global Health Centre

Lord Nigel Crisp, former NHS Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary to the Department of Health is to lead a Centre at King’s College London, part of King’s Health Partners, that aims to improve the health of people in lower and middle income countries around the world.

The King’s Centre for Global Health will today hold its first Advisory Board Meeting, Chaired by Lord Crisp. The Centre coordinates Global Health activities across all schools within King’s College London and its partner NHS organisations. Work involves establishing close partnerships with countries to offer a range of support to their health institutions and improve standards of care.

These partnerships place particular emphasis on sustainability and mutual respect. Support includes: on the job training for healthcare staff (or through distance learning in isolated areas); providing academic support for medical schools; and assistance to develop health policy and regulation. Countries being supported in this way already include Somaliland, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

Global Health has been a key focus for King’s Health Partners since its creation as an Academic Health Sciences Centre in 2009. Establishing a dedicated Centre with an Advisory Board confirms the partner organisations’ ongoing commitment for continuing and expanding these country partnerships and progressing teaching and academic research into global health.

Lord Crisp is highly regarded for his work in global health and was commissioned by the Prime Minister to write a key report on the UK’s contribution to health in developing countries in 2007. He is Chair of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health and Chair of the emerging UK Global Health Network.

Professor Robert Lechler, Executive Director, King’s Health Partners said: ’There are many pockets of excellence in global health education, research and service delivery across all the organisations that make up King’s Health Partners. The challenge for us as an Academic Health Sciences Centre is to facilitate connections and collaborations between these areas of expertise so as to develop critical mass in this discipline.

’I have no doubt that the Centre, led by Lord Crisp and Andy Leather, can achieve this and have a real impact on the future of Global Health.’

The number of social care workers being paid less than the minimum wage is five times higher than previously believed, according to research from King’s College London.

The Environmental Research Group (ERG) at King’s has launched two new free applications to help people to know their air: a new Android version of the popular LondonAir iPhone app; and LondonAir for Chrome, a neat browser extension, which condenses the entire air quality information for London into a few easy to navigate tabs.

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