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Prof Kiran Patel

Prof Kiran Patel

THE influence and efforts of medical leader Professor Kiran Patel have undoubtedly saved countless lives through the Covid-19 pandemic.

The doctor, currently the chief medical officer, deputy chief executive and consultant cardiologist at University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire, has been at the forefront of guiding the organisation through the most devastating global crisis of a generation.


Driven by Patel’s leadership, the trust was nominated by Downing Street to be the NHS organisation portrayed in the media to signify how the services were coping well with the pandemic. His expertise has also seen him feature in the media on several occasions.

Recently he was invited by the NHS Confederation to share his views on patients’ backlog and ways to tackle health inequalities.

Besides working full-time for the hospital, he has been working hard to voice concerns on health inequalities during the pandemic.

The charity South Asian Health Foundation (SAHF), which Patel founded in 1999, has continuously fought for the needs of its community.

He has been at the centre stage during the pandemic with more patients demanding face-to-face GP appointments amid a backlash over the news that A&E departments were increasingly busy due to Covid-19 in Coventry and Warwickshire.

With the collaborative efforts of his SAHF colleagues, Patel helped to provide guidance on how to reduce risks of Covid-19 in BAME groups by working with the health services and ethnic communities. The comprehensive report led to an array of vital recommendations for individuals, communities, health services, employers, local authorities and government.

“It was an honour to be a co-author of the SAHF guidance which came out in the midst of the pandemic and see it used not just in the UK but globally to save lives,” Patel tells the GG2 Power List. He also highlighted the pleasure of being able to observe the efforts of NHS staff during the crisis. “Being able to witness the incredibly hard work of NHS staff and the support of the public has been a privilege,” Patel, a consultant cardiologist, said.

Having worked in medicine for more than two decades, Patel has become known as one of the most influential medical professionals in his field. He has held several senior NHS leadership positions, managing significant transformational change not only in cardiac services but as clinical director at West Midlands Strategic Health authority (2009-2011); medical director for West Mercia PCT Cluster (2011-2013); Good Hope hospital (2013-2014) and more recently, as medical director for NHS England (West Midlands (2014-2019).

His ambitions to pursue a medical career began as a young boy, when he witnessed several relatives die prematurely.

Growing up in West Bromwich in the 1970s and 1980s, he saw the immense grief it caused. In turn, it awakened a need in him to help people.

Patel aspired to study medicine – but was clueless how to pursue it. “Nobody in my family had studied medicine,” the 51-year-old says.

His parents, however, were a driving force behind his eventual career path. He credits the pair, who migrated to the UK from Kenya before Patel was born, for their “support and sacrifice”. They taught him the importance of work, he says, and the importance of staying humble.

“With those ingredients and an ambition to succeed, I was so proud when I not only got to read medicine, but got to read it at Cambridge,” the medic, who graduated from the prestigious university in 1993, says. “I will never forget how proud that made my parents and I thank them immensely for their support and sacrifice.”

Following his graduation, Patel trained in cardiology in Bristol and Birmingham before being appointed to his first consultant post at Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust in 2005.

He has since held posts at the University Hospitals Birmingham and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire.

Patel is widely known for his role as the founder of the SAHF. It has become one of the leading British Asian health charities and has helped to promote improvements in the quality of, and access to, healthcare and health promotion within the community. The inspiration behind the initiative originated from Patel’s experience as a junior doctor, when he claimed to have witnessed a number of health inequalities.

Within his community, he also found some people were unable to articulate their symptoms to doctors and specialists due to language or cultural barriers.

“I saw patients with heart attacks and strokes not getting tailored information, and therefore, there was an unmet need,” the British-Indian explains. “In parallel, I saw many doctors wanting to give back to their communities.”

Patel joined forces with a number of Asian doctors, who channelled their passion into the group. Supported by a number of patrons, including British-Indian obstetrician and cross bench peer Lord Narendra Patel, the charity has addressed health inequity in a number of areas, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental health and maternal health and child health.

“(It has) become a highly successful organisation, which is an advocate for patients prone to health inequality, promotes high quality research and education for patients and staff, and which delivers community-based health promotion at a grassroots level,” Patel explains. “It is a great charity with great dedicated people, serving an unmet need.”

Looking to the future, Patel aspires to continue tackling the health inequalities highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic. Patel not only hopes to work with colleagues nationally to drive change, but also at a local level in his current base, Coventry. “We need to generate a social movement with solutions to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and its economic consequences,” he states. “For too long we have been talking about and studying inequality, and it is now time for action to protect our future generations from adverse conditions and poor health.”

It isn’t all work for Patel, however. In 2021, he also hopes to spend more quality time with his family, including his elderly mother. His favourite pastime won’t go ignored either. Football is on the agenda for Patel, a keen sportsman and a season ticket holder at West Bromwich Albion. He reveals: “I definitely want to spend more time with my wife and four daughters watching West Bromwich Albion do well in the Premier League!”

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