Professor Kamila Hawthorne has been voted the next chair of the Royal College of GPs.
She will take on the role for three years from November 2022 when current chair Professor Martin Marshall departs.
Professor Hawthorne is a salaried GP in Mountain Ash, South Wales, a Bevan commissioner and the head of graduate entry medicine at Swansea University.
She was also vice chair for professional development of the RCGP between 2015 and 2018, has been an MRCGP examiner since 1997. She will be the College’s fifth female chair.
Coming to Britain with her family for Tanzania in 1970, Professor Hawthorne qualified from Somerville College, Oxford in 1984, and completed her VTS training in Nottingham.
She has been a GP principal across Nottingham, Manchester and Cardiff.
Professor Hawthorne’s special interests are in diabetes, health inequalities and medical education.
Professor Hawthorne said: ‘I am honoured to be elected as the next Chair of the RCGP and will do everything I can to represent the views of frontline GPs across the UK at such a challenging time for general practice and the NHS.
‘Our patients deserve excellent care, and our members deserve to work in a service that is appropriately funded, that supports them to do the best job they can and that protects their own health and wellbeing.
She said she will do ‘everything possible’ to ensure RCGP’s ‘professional voice is a strong one’ and that ‘politicians, policy makers, and influencers, including the media, understand and appreciate the work that GPs do; the importance and quality of the care we deliver to our patients, and the immense contribution we make to the wider NHS’.
She added: ‘I thank my fellow candidates Sunil Gupta and Gary Howsam for running such a fair campaign, and the members of Council who have put their trust and confidence in me.
‘I would also like to pay tribute to our current Chair, Martin Marshall, who has done a magnificent job of leading our College and our profession through the turbulence of the pandemic and who leaves such a strong legacy to build on.’
In May, current chair Professor Marshall announced he would be stepping down later this year.
READERS' COMMENTS [2]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
I’ve no doubt that the current incumbent, despite being insipid, will be lining up for his gong.
I wish Prof Kamila Hawthorne well. She does seem like a ‘sensible sort’. A virtue that frequently seems sadly lacking at the RCGP.