I am delighted to be taking the helm at Healthcare UK, after 3 years of achievement under the leadership of my predecessor Howard Lyons.
I’m taking over an organisation which is highly successful in it's mission to support UK organisations to win overseas contracts. With the year-end figures not yet finalised as I write, already the value of contracts signed since last April is almost £3.6bn, far exceeding the targets set when Healthcare UK was established back in 2013.
I’m joining at a vital time, when our goals and objectives for the next 5 years are being developed in the context of the government’s 2020 target to support an additional 100,000 organisations to export and the aspiration to hit £1 trillion in exports.
I’m excited by the prospects for the coming years. Healthcare UK is ideally placed to contribute to the government’s goals, bringing together as it does the commercial healthcare know-how and the specialist, often unique expertise which resides within our NHS organisations, public sector bodies and academic institutions. Healthcare UK’s experience so far has proven that this mix is a very powerful proposition; governments and healthcare providers around the world are working with our organisations to deliver the high-quality healthcare they need.
I’m eager to bring my experiences in healthcare to my new role. I’ll be drawing on my understanding of working globally, in particularly in SE Asia, China and Brazil, as well as my experience of understanding, shaping and responding to client requirements, and the insight gained from contributing as a non-executive director of an NHS hospital trust.
We know that UK healthcare expertise is in demand around the world, and our success over the last 3 years shows that the UK has the opportunity to not only respond to tenders and proposals but, such is the reputation of the UK’s capability in the development and operation of health systems, also to offer solutions to situations where the desired outcomes are clear, but the route to achieving these is far from clear.
I am keen to work with the UK’s healthcare sector to position us even more strongly as a strategic partner at the early stage of project development, so that UK organisations are even better placed to offer the skills and expertise required to deliver our partners’ local healthcare requirements. To build on the momentum of the first 3 years and continue the growth in exports, we will be working with UKTI’s extensive overseas network to identify an even wider range of opportunities which play well to diverse expertise and capabilities of the UK’s healthcare sector.
I’m looking forward to working with our Governance Board, all our colleagues in Post and the team in the UK to shape the next phase of Healthcare UK’s development to support more and more UK organisations – public and private – to win business overseas.
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