Prevention and primary care for diabetes

Chris, a former NHS CEO has worked as a senior consultant healthcare specialist with Healthcare UK based at the UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT) for the last twelve years. He is an experienced executive coach and mentor and has a passion for improving health and care worldwide.

Chris has worked with hundreds of NHS and commercial health and care organisations in the UK to take their export offer to operators, developers, investors, governments and health services in the target markets of India, China, SE Asia, the Middle East and other countries.  He has been responsible for the development of a detailed set of international UK offers, including digital health, NHS Innovation, clinical services (most recently diabetes, oncology, cardiac services and mental health), training and education and healthcare infrastructure.

Chris worked for 25 years as a senior leader in the NHS both in a NHS Trust and as a NHS commissioner. Chris also worked in a predecessor of NHS England (the NHS Executive) and in 2012 was seconded to the then Department of Health to develop NHS Global (which led to the creation of Healthcare UK).

He is an International Medical Graduate (Kolkata, India) who works as a Consultant in Diabetes & Endocrinology at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, UK since 2008 – and won multiple awards at the BMJ, HSJ & Guardian Care Awards.

He has helped to expand use of technology in Type 1 Diabetes- namely use of Flash Glucose/CGM and implementation of use of CGM in T1D pregnancy along with use of online digital self-management platforms – while recently leading on wider access to Closed Loops working with NICE.

His other work has involved championing “Language Matters”; principles of Peer support for Type 1 Diabetes as well as Co-creator of Type 1 Diabetes comic (Volume 1 to 5).

He is one of the leading users of social media in diabetes care- and writes a monthly blog for the British Medical Journal. He has also been recognized as one of the most influential figures from the ethnic minority population across healthcare in the UK by the Healthcare Service Journal in 2020,2021,2022 and 2023. He received an OBE for services to Diabetes care in 2021.

Matt has over 25 years’ experience in management in the healthcare sector. His health service career began at the Department of Health and he has worked in NHS England since it was established in 2013, initially as Director for Reducing Premature Mortality. Matt held the post of Programme Director for the Diabetes Programme between 2016 and 2020, as part of which he delivered the world’s first nationwide prevention programme, the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme. He took on the role of Director for Prevention in 2020.

After working alongside the NHS and seeing first-hand the opportunities to make healthcare more efficient, Chris created Spirit Health and is now proud to work alongside an amazing group of people, with a mission to make health easy for both citizens and healthcare services.

As one of the fastest-growing UK companies and voted one of the Best Companies to work for in 2021, 2022 and 2023, Chris supports the team in doing things differently, seeking alternative perspectives and implementing effective solutions. Chris is passionate about positive digital transformation and proud of the work Spirit is delivering to integrate digital health solutions that improve patient outcomes and increase the capacity of healthcare systems globally.

Whether Spirit is delivering medicines optimisation programmes on behalf of the NHS, delivering EMPOWER diabetes education, or using its Clinitouch remote monitoring platform to effectively monitor patients across multiple conditions, Chris’ role is to find brilliant people and support (and challenge) teams to excel. Wherever Chris and his staff see an opportunity to make things better, they grab it, delivering on promises to keep customers and patients happy while having a good deal of fun on the journey!