Wessex Health Partners appoints Professor William Rosenberg as Chair

Wessex Health Partners (WHP), a new learning partnership accelerating better health through research, education and innovation, has appointed Professor William Rosenberg as its inaugural Chair.

Professor Rosenberg, who holds the Peter Scheuer Chair in Liver Diseases at University College London, is a clinical academic physician working at the interface between universities and the NHS with strong links to government, the third sector and industry. While working with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, he pioneered multi-stakeholder work uniting national Higher Education Institutions (HEI), NHS, third sector, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry partners and overseeing collaborative working to further the life sciences ‘health and wealth’ agenda.  He also has extensive experience of leading cross-agency working between local councils, public health, primary and secondary care with public and patient representation to develop new pathways of care for patients with long-term conditions.

Speaking about his appointment, Professor Rosenberg said: “I am delighted to be joining Wessex Health Partners as the organisation’s first Chair. Progress in science comes about through partnerships; equally, progress in translating science into improvements in health care and health comes about through strong partnerships. Having worked in the region earlier in my career and having lived in the region for past 25 years, I have first-hand experience of local health challenges and of the immense and diverse talent that the founding bodies behind Wessex Health Partners are bringing together to make a difference to health and care in Wessex, in the UK and internationally.”

Commenting on the appointment, Professor Diana Eccles, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton said: “William comes to Wessex Health Partners with a tremendous track record in research, education, working with industry, and working in partnership with communities, patients and the public to design and deliver improvements to health care. We are really looking forward to the next steps in the evolution of our partnership with William’s appointment.”

Dr Paul Johnson, Chief Medical Officer for Dorset NHS Integrated Care Board said, “Wessex Health Partners brings together diverse partners from a range of academic disciplines across our universities, and from all parts of the health and care system across Wessex – from supporting wellbeing and enhancing our work to prevent ill health, to innovation in physical and mental health services, to the latest advances in genomics.  William’s experience of and personal commitment to facilitating complex partnerships is an excellent fit with our Partners’ vision of building a learning health and care system.”

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Notes to editors: 

About Wessex Health Partners

Wessex Health Partners (WHP) is a partnership of universities and NHS organisations that learns together and accelerates improvements to health and social care through innovation, research and training for the benefit of the region’s population, patients and wider society. It aims to improve the region’s collective ability to tackle the greatest challenges facing the Wessex health and care system, generating greater collaborative and interdisciplinary research, and faster development and adoption of innovation at scale.

The founding partners comprise Dorset Integrated Care Board, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, the Universities of Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth, seven NHS trusts across the Wessex footprint (University Hospital Southampton, Portsmouth Hospitals University, Hampshire Hospitals, Southern, Solent, University Hospitals Dorset and Dorset County Hospital), and Wessex Academic Health Science Network. As the partnership develops, we hope to welcome new partners from the Wessex health and care, higher education, local authority and life science sectors.

Professor Rosenberg will begin his role as Wessex Health Partners’ Chair in April 2023.

While Wessex Health Partners will be formally established when Professor Rosenberg joins as Chair in April 2023, WHP collaboration is already bearing fruit. For example, a University Hospitals Southampton-led bid on behalf of WHP was successful in winning NHS England funding to develop the concept of a federated secure data environment for research and real-world evaluation across Wessex. The bid, one of only four funded across England, built on clinical and data science expertise and partnerships across NHS and higher education institutions within Wessex Health Partners, creating a trusted environment where researchers can access bigger health data sets with improved patient privacy, security and efficiency.

Wessex Health Partners is hosted by Wessex AHSN, formalised through a joint working agreement to provide administrative and general support together with back-office services.

For more information about Wessex Health Partners, please email enquiries@wessexhealthpartners.org.uk.