Mark Britnell

Mark is one of the foremost global experts on healthcare systems and has a pioneering and inspiring global vision for health in both the developed and developing world. Mark has dedicated his entire professional life to healthcare and has led organizations at local, regional, national and global levels – provider and payer, public and private. He has worked in 80 countries and territories on circa. 345 occasions, gaining a unique first-hand experience.

After joining the UK’s NHS fast-track Management Training Scheme in 1989 he held a number of senior operational and government posts before being appointed Chief Executive of University Hospitals Birmingham in 2000. He masterminded the largest new hospital build in NHS history, established the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and developed one of the highest performing healthcare organizations in the UK.

He went on to run the NHS region from Oxford to the Isle of Wight before joining the NHS Management Board as a Director-General at the Department of Health, where he developed High Quality Care for All with Lord Darzi. Mark was KPMG International’s Global Head of Health between 2009 and 2020 and Global Head of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare between March 2018 and September 2020. From 1 October 2020, Mark has returned to the UK partnership where he will concentrate on healthcare.

He is a member of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Health Sector for the World Economic Forum and sits on the Advisory Board of the China Center for Health Development at Peking University. He is also an Honorary Professor at Taishan Medical University School, Shandong Province and holds honorary doctorates from Birmingham City University and the University of Wolverhampton.

Mark’s first book "In Search of the Perfect Health System" published in 2015, puts 25 healthcare systems under the microscope, revealing the different ways jurisdictions respond to healthcare challenges. This book was recognized by the Chinese Medical Doctors’ Association as the best health book in China in 2017, and in the UK by the British Medical Association in 2016. His second book “Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare” published in 2019 examines how the health worker shortage issue has and will continue to impact some of the world’s leading health systems, while boldly offering 10 concrete and actionable solutions to help navigate the looming deficit. Both books have sold in many countries and territories.

Mark has been a Non-Executive Director at Dr Foster, a trustee of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and a Board member of Prostate Cancer UK. He survived prostate cancer at the age of 42 and has donated all royalties from the sale of his books to Prostate Cancer UK.