Pilot testing and implementation of innovations in the NHS

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 eleven 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).

Rebecca Fitzgerald OBE MACantab. MD FMedSci EMBO MAE is Professor of Cancer Prevention and Director of the Early Detection Institute at the University of Cambridge, and practices medicine as Hon. Consultant in Gastroenterology and Cancer Medicine at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Rebecca also leads the Cambridge component of the CRUK International Alliance in Early Detection (ACED).  

The focus of her research is to investigate the steps in malignant transformation in the oesophagus and stomach and to use this information to improve clinical early detection strategies. Her work to develop and implement the Cytosponge and related biomarker assays for detection of Barrett’s oesophagus and associated dysplasia has been awarded a number of prizes including the Westminster Medal, an NHS Innovation prize and the Don Listwin Early Detection Prize.  

In 2022 Rebecca was awarded an OBE for services to cancer research. Rebecca has contributed to evidence reviews and policy work around screening including for the Department of Health in the UK and recently led a review of cancer screening for the European Commission that led to new screening policy for EU member states. Rebecca enjoys teaching and is a Fellow of Medical Sciences at Trinity College Cambridge. 

Marcel Gehrung holds a PhD in Machine Learning in Healthcare from the University of Cambridge. Marcel was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list, won the Alexander Fleming Prize from the Gates Foundation for his contribution to global public health and the Prix Galien Award for the best medical technology with Cyted’s core product, a novel test for the early detection of cancer in the oesophagus. 

Prof Hirsch is Professor of Cognitive Clinical Psychology and Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist. She also leads the Generalised Anxiety Disorder Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) service at the Center for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Prof Hirsch is known for her theoretical, experimental and clinical work on cognitive processes that maintain emotional disorders, and she has used this to develop new psychological interventions. Her programmatic approach initially focused on social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and depression. She is currently conducting a clinical trial of a digital therapeutic to prevent escalating anxiety in at risk pregnant women and new mothers. Her other research examines cognitive processes that maintain distress in people with physical health problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, and Parkinson’s. Her more recent work has looked at resilience, which is a protective factor against anxiety and depression. This work has focused on understanding and modifying key mechanisms that promote resilience in less resilient individuals, including those living beyond breast Cancer, unpaid caregivers and people in highly stressful occupations. This programme of prevention and intervention development work is focused on designing and testing evidence based digital therapeutics that can be delivered at scale.