Paediatrician. Writer. Broadcaster. Founder.
Radically Reimagining Health From The Ground Up.
Health is about more than medicine.
I became a doctor because I wanted to help people.
Like many clinicians, I believed that if I listened carefully, learned enough and worked hard enough, I could make a meaningful difference to people's lives.
I still believe that. But over time, my patients taught me something medicine alone could not.
Again and again, I met children whose health problems could not be separated from the world around them.
An inhaler couldn't fix mould.
A prescription couldn't fill an empty fridge.
A referral couldn't solve poverty, discrimination, loneliness or exclusion.
The more I listened, the clearer it became that many of the problems arriving in our clinics were being created elsewhere. That realisation changed the course of my life.
Today, my work is guided by a simple question:
What creates health?
I am a paediatrician by training, but my search for answers has taken me far beyond the consulting room. It has led me into public health, philosophy, research, broadcasting, creativity, systems change and community action.
Not because I lost faith in medicine, but because I realised medicine is only one part of the story.
Health is created in homes and schools.
In neighbourhoods and relationships.
In culture and opportunity.
In whether people feel safe, valued and able to belong.
And if we want healthier people, we need to understand those things too.
How I Got Here
My perspective has been shaped by an unusually varied journey through health and public life.
I trained as a doctor at Cambridge and Harvard Universities and have worked with children and families across the UK, India, Australia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and the United States. Along the way, I studied public health, psychology, philosophy, social science and improvement science, becoming increasingly interested in the forces that shape health long before anyone enters a hospital.
My work has taken me from frontline clinical practice to policy roles at the World Health Organization and Health Education England, from academic research at King's College London to broadcasting for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Al Jazeera.
Today, I am undertaking a PhD at King's College London exploring how medicine might evolve to better respond to the structural causes of ill health. I am also a trustee of the National Centre for Creative Health, Associate Editor at BMJ Paediatrics Open, co-founder of WHAM, creator of Powering Up, and was named a Global Top 30 Improver by the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.
I have also advised and contributed to national conversations on early childhood, including with The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, whose work highlights the extraordinary importance of the earliest years in shaping lifelong health and society.
These experiences have shown me both the extraordinary potential of healthcare and its limits.
They have also convinced me that many of our biggest health challenges are not simply medical problems.
They are questions about power
relationships.
who gets heard.
who gets left behind.
And whether people have the conditions they need to flourish.
The more I saw, the harder it became to stay within the traditional boundaries of medicine.
So I began to follow the question wherever it led.
Into research.
Into writing.
Into broadcasting.
Into creativity.
Into rooms where decisions are made —
and rooms where people are still waiting to be heard.
I co-founded WHAM because health professionals need support to act on the causes of ill health, not just its consequences.
I created Powering Up because young people should help shape the systems designed to serve them.
I am building Moonshot because children deserve more than crisis management. They deserve a society organised around their flourishing.
I Think. I Communicate. I Build.
I think.
As a researcher and philosopher of medicine, I am interested in the assumptions, stories and structures that shape health and healthcare. The questions beneath the headlines. The things we have come to accept as inevitable. The possibilities we have yet to imagine.
I communicate.
Through writing, broadcasting and public speaking, I try to make complex ideas accessible without making them simplistic. I believe stories matter. I believe evidence matters. And I believe the most important conversations happen when we bring the two together.
I build.
Through WHAM, Powering Up, Dance on the Wards and Moonshot, I work with others to turn ideas into action. To create spaces where people can learn together, imagine differently and build something better.
And throughout it all, I remain a doctor - because the clinic keeps me honest. It reminds me that behind every policy, every statistic and every system are real people trying to live real lives.
Radically Reimagining Health From The Ground Up
Whether I am holding a microphone or a stethoscope, I am ultimately trying to understand the same thing: what helps people flourish.
All of my work is ultimately an expression of one belief:
If we want healthier people, we need healthier societies.
I don't think the future of health will be built by medicine alone.
It will be built by people willing to think differently, work across boundaries and imagine something better.
People who understand that health is not simply about living longer, but about having the conditions to flourish.
People willing to ask bigger questions about what health is, who it is for, and how we might create more of it.
That is the work that excites me. The work of radically reimagining health from the ground up.
And if you're interested in building that future too, I'd love to connect.
Let's Work Together
I collaborate with broadcasters, publishers, universities, charities, health organisations, cultural institutions, funders and leaders interested in creating healthier futures.
Whether you're looking for a speaker, writer, broadcaster, advisor, collaborator or thought partner, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaking • Broadcasting • Writing • Consultancy • Partnerships
