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Update on AHSN from Sir Jonathan Michael

Nigel Keen appointed Chairman of AHSN Board:

I am delighted to announce that Nigel Keen has agreed to become Chairman of the Oxford AHSN Board. Nigel has a long and distinguished career as an engineer and in investment banking and corporate finance. He is Chairman of a number of listed companies including Oxford Instruments Plc.; Laird Group Plc.; Deltex Medical Group Plc. and Bioquel Plc. many of whom supply equipment and services to the healthcare sector. Nigel is also a Non-Executive Director of Isis Innovation and has recently been appointed Chairman of Syncona, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wellcome Trust.

Nigel has agreed to join the AHSN as Chairman for an initial period of 3 years.

Meeting with the national AHSN assessment panel:

On Monday 18th February a team from the Oxford AHSN met the national panel to discuss our application. The AHSN team consisted of Nigel Keen, myself, Nick Edwards our Wealth Creation lead, David Sines from Buckingham New University, Alastair Buchan, Head of the Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University,  Stuart Bell Chief Executive of Oxford Health and Chandi Ratnatunga.

The national panel was chaired by Sir Alan Langlands, former CEO of the NHS and now Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council. Other members were Sir Ian Carruthers, CEO of NHS South of England, Russell Hamilton, Director of R&D at the DH, Peter Ellingworth, CEO of the Association of British Healthcare Industries, Carol Blount, the NHS liaison lead for the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries and Richard Gleave who has been running the AHSN programme.

We reviewed the AHSN’s structure and governance, our plans and approach to the development and diffusion of innovation and to the support of research. We discussed our proposals for delivering innovation and improved outcomes through a series of clinical networks and our current discussions with the Commissioning Board and local area teams as to how we best work with existing and future strategic and operational networks.

We have had no formal feedback on this meeting as yet but informal comments have been positive. I expect some national communication within the next week or two as I believe that the Commissioning Board wishes to have AHSNs launched by the beginning of the next financial year. The amount of available funding to support the 15 AHSNs is, as you can imagine, a matter of on-going discussion at the centre.

Recruitment of Chief Executive for the AHSN

In anticipation of authorisation, we are starting the process of recruiting a Chief Executive for the AHSN.  A draft job description and personal specification has been prepared and we will be seeking external support in the recruitment.

Jonathan Michael, Vice Chairman, OAHSN and Chief Executive, Oxford University Hospitals