Global majority leaders are now part of the NHS establishment

There can be little doubt that people like Navina Evans, Kamila Hawthorne, Bola Owolabi, Kamran Abbasi, Ming Tang and Lord Victor Adebowale are among the leading players in English healthcare – and that many of them have been so for several years.

There is also a healthy following pack of people who are very likely to rise to even greater prominence, and/or who already exercise significant power in a niche area. What is more, our Bubbling Under list shows the main ranking has a very healthy pool from which to draw.

This feeling of familiarity is, HSJ should hasten to add, a good thing.

In the 10 years HSJ has produced this annual powerlist, a cohort of global majority figures has established themselves at the top of the NHS and related organisations. No longer is our list dominated by campaigners and activists – essential though their roles remain. Instead, many of them command budgets of hundreds of millions, and workforces in their thousands.

The list’s maturity should be seen as a clear advance which can be set against the service’s continued struggles with racial discrimination.

The power and influence contained within the list are underlined by a new innovation for 2024 – the Alumni list. This features those figures whose contributions lie mainly – though in some cases, not entirely – in the past.

With the list so chock full of big figures, the new entrants are even more interesting and significant. Five stand out.

Jason Wong has arguably just taken on the toughest job in the NHS – that of the country’s chief dental officer. The sector’s access challenges would try the most experienced of leaders, and Dr Wong has wicked funding and workforce issues to face as well.

Almost as difficult, though in a very different way, is the task ahead of NHS England director of communications Sam Haq. When the government’s official line is that the NHS is “broken”, painting a positive picture of NHSE’s efforts is both difficult and sometimes unwelcomed by the service’s new political masters.

Two local leaders included in the list find themselves in very interesting positions. North West Ambulance Service Trust deputy chief executive Salman Desai has recently been appointed interim CEO, having just seen his boss declare he is off to seek his fortune overseas. Meanwhile, University Hospitals of Birmingham Foundation Trust medical director Kiran Patel is being championed as the man who will transform the toxic clinical culture left behind by the former CEO (and medical director) at one of the service’s bellwether providers.

The fifth new entrant is better described as a re-entrant. Last year’s judges felt Lord Ara Darzi’s star was waning. A change of government has made that call look poor. The former Labour minister has just delivered a significant review of the NHS, as he did in the first decade of this century.