Professor Bola Owolabi
Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England
Professor Bola Owolabi (MRCGP, MFPH Hon, FRSPH) is Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England. She works as a General Practitioner in the Midlands.
Bola has particular interest in reducing healthcare inequalities through integrated care models, service transformation, and using data insights for quality improvement. She has spearheaded NHS England’s Core20PLUS5 approach to narrowing healthcare inequalities.
Internationally, Bola was a member of the Danish Ambassador’s Tour De Health – a ten nation healthcare policy leaders’ summit. Additionally, she was the UK representative on the Commonwealth Fund/Academy Health Tour 2023, exploring equity in national health policy across the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
She was previously National Speciality Advisor for Older People and Integrated Person-Centred Care at NHS England, where she led the Anticipatory Care workstream of the National Ageing Well Programme. She collaborated with teams across NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care as part of the Covid-19 pandemic response.
Bola is an alumna of Ashridge Executive Education/Hult International Business School and holds a Masters degree with distinction in Leadership (Quality Improvement). She also received an NHS Leadership Academy Award in Executive Healthcare Leadership for Clinicians.
Bola is an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Birmingham. She is also a Vice President of the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH).
David Fitzgerald
Director of Policy and Strategy for the NHS Cancer Programme, NHS England
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David became the Director of Policy and Strategy for the NHS Cancer Programme in January 2018. He joined NHS England after four years in the Cabinet Office Implementation Unit, where he led the social policy team which advised the Prime Minister on the delivery of her top priorities in areas including health, education, skills, housing and welfare. From 2008 to 2013, David worked at the Department for Education, first as bill manager for the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill and then as head of Childcare Funding Division, where he led the implementation of the coalition government’s commitment to extend free childcare to two-year-olds from lower income families. Before that, David spent 12 years at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport where he worked on arts, sport and gambling policy, and as Private Secretary to the Arts Minister.