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Chris has worked in the NHS for over 40 years. He qualified in Medicine from Manchester and subsequently trained in primary care and public health before holding a range of senior public director health posts in Lancashire. He has had a varied executive career working to address health inequalities in some of England's most complex and challenging healthcare systems. This includes being Executive Medical Director at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust from 2013 until 2016, when he was also the vice chairman of the London Clinical Senate. He was National Clinical Director for Cancer from 2016 until 2019.
He has been actively involved in numerous national and international committees focusing on the quality of care and standards of clinical practice. His leadership was pivotal in establishing the first Northwest region-wide cancer peer review programme and developing the networked radiotherapy model, leading to new cancer centres in Oldham, Salford, and Macclesfield. He later chaired the accreditation committee of the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes, overseeing the peer review programme for cancer centres in Europe. He has delivered many invited lectures on healthcare policy in the UK and abroad.
In addition to his role at The Christie, Chris is a non-executive director and chair of the Quality Assurance Committee at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHSFT. He is also a non-executive director at The Northern Care Alliance NHSFT and is an honorary professor at the Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre.
Chris is a trustee of NHS Charities Together, the national charity supporting the NHS, and a trustee and honorary secretary of The Orwell Society, a charity dedicated to promoting global public understanding of the writer Eric Blair’s (George Orwell) life and work.