The 100 Clinical Leaders for 2014 have been announced tonight at an event in London. Now in its second year, this power list showcases those individuals making the greatest impact on health policy, service transformation, and innovation
The judges of HSJ’s Clinical Leaders are asked to make a complicated and nuanced estimation of those nominated for the honour.
On one hand they must judge a person’s influence on healthcare policy, NHS performance or clinical innovation; on the other they must make a much more subjective judgment on how well that person’s clinical background informs the exercising of that influence.
The 100 people we have therefore chosen - from across the spectrum - are all leaders, both in their practice and their day to day example.
But, importantly, for all of them their clinical backgrounds are vital to the decisions they make, the face they show to the world, even if, at a day to day level, the job they are doing is far removed from clinical practice. They still rely on evidence when weighing difficult choices and they keep the patient front and centre as a wide range of financial, political and professional pressures pile in on them.
‘Their clinical backgrounds are vital to the decisions they make, even if the job they are doing is removed from clinical practice’
Some of our individuals are well known, others much less so; for some their inclusion barely warranted debate, for others the discussion was intense.
The list, you will also be able to see, is partially ranked. The fact that we have ranked 21 rather than a more rounded 20 is deliberate.
Our original intention was, indeed, 20 but the consensus was that the 21 chosen (after much wrangling) were all more than worthy contenders, and therefore to excise one purely for arithmetical reasons would have been artificial. So 21 it stayed. The other 79 names are simply listed alphabetically.
HSJ fully expects the choices we have made to be controversial. We also hope they will spark debate about the changing nature of clinical leadership and influence within healthcare.
Alastair McLellan is editor of HSJ
The judges
- Kamran Abbasi International and digital editor, The BMJ
- Professor Elizabeth Anionwu Emeritus professor of nursing, University of West London
- Professor Viv Bennett Director of nursing, Public Health England
- Farah Bhatti Consultant cardiothoracic surgeon, NHS Wales and honorary associate professor, Swansea University
- David Evans Medical director, Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust
- Pam Garside Fellow in health management, Judge Business School, Cambridge University
- Alastair Henderson Chief executive, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
- Alastair McLellan Editor, HSJ (chair)
- Katherine Murphy Chief executive, Patients Association
- Simon Potts Director, healthcare, Veredus
- Sir Mike Rawlins Former chair, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
- Annette Sergeant Director and head of healthcare practice, Veredus
How HSJ Clinical Leaders is judged
For this, our second HSJ Clinical Leaders supplement, we sought to identify those individuals who are having the greatest impact in terms of driving and influencing high quality, safe care for patients.
In particular we were looking for those who our judges believed were having the greatest impact and influence on health policy, service transformation and innovation. Influence in these areas is highlighted in the supplement and our online graphic using the colour-coded symbols below.
A long list was developed over the summer through a combination of public and internal nomination processes. A panel of judges with knowledge of influence in healthcare was put together, who represented a broad spectrum of opinion.
Our judges met at the HSJ offices in September to consider the long list. Judges were not prevented from being on the list, but were excluded from conversations about their potential inclusion.
