Leadership in Medicine: Insights from My Journey to ACCIA Chair
Posted on: Friday 17 January 2025
Author: Dr Vinay Patroe FFPM
An FPM member, Dr Vinay Patroe FFPM, has been appointed to the prestigious post of Chair of the Advisory Committee on Clinical Impact Awards (ACCIA).
The ACCIA advises health ministers on the presentation of clinical impact awards to consultants working in the NHS. ACCIA is an advisory non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care.
Can you tell us a bit about your journey in medicine and how it led to your appointment as Chair of the ACCIA?
I studied medicine at Liverpool Medical School and then trained in anaesthesia and intensive care on the Mersey Specialist Registrar scheme. Before joining the final year of SpR training, and having discussed the desire to widen my experiences, I joined a small medical company (The British Oxygen Company) as their first and only medic to help with their strategy and operations, initially in the UK and then more globally.
Having had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of years and realising that the path back to clinical medicine was not for me, I studied for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at London Business School. I then worked within the non-medical parent company of BOC Medical for a year – another enjoyable and worthwhile experience.
I felt I should explore more ‘mainstream’ pharmaceuticals and was lucky to secure a role as Senior Medical Advisor at Pfizer, where I worked in the UK and EU teams in their rheumatology and pain portfolio. I could see myself staying with Pfizer for quite some time, but when GSK asked whether I’d like to join their clinical development team in R&D, I jumped at the chance, and this was the start of 10 wonderful years with the company. The size and diversity of GSK provided me with opportunities to take on various roles, including positions in R&D, UK Medical Affairs, above country therapy area experience, international consumer healthcare, clinical operations leadership and lastly, as Vice President, International Medical in Global Pharma, which included EU and global strategy and operations leadership within Medical Affairs.
As you can see, I like change and diversity in my life, so when the next role at GSK did not quite fit with what I would have loved to have done, I took that chance to scratch an itch caused by wondering if I could build a portfolio of projects by working for myself. As well as three great years as an employee with J&J Innovative Medicine (Janssen) as their UK Medical Director, I have spent the last nine years working with a number of companies with a wide range of challenges and opportunities, helping them and the patients they serve. During much of this time, I have tried to build a portfolio of different challenges and responsibilities. More recently, I have also looked for even greater diversity of experience through, for example, non-executive roles and working with charitable organisations. The ACCIA Chair role was advertised late in 2023, and I was appointed and started in April and June 2024 respectively. This provided a unique opportunity to widen the diversity of my experiences and also my contribution. Furthermore, because the role requires up to two days per week, I can combine it with other roles and responsibilities.
What drew you to the role?
I have always been driven to provide value to the teams and companies I have worked with and the patients they serve, together with a desire to have new challenges and experiences on a regular basis. This has led me to amazing experiences with companies such as GSK, Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi, Janssen (J&J Innovative Medicines) and many wonderful people and teams. Wanting to continue to build my portfolio of responsibilities attracted me to the role of Chair of ACCIA as it brought me back towards my clinical medicine origins, provided incredible diversity to my work and allowed the opportunity to contribute more directly to the DHSC and the NHS. The Chair role also draws upon and develops more intangible skills related to organisational leadership and governance, which I am finding very interesting, given the size and complexity of the DHSC and NHS.
Could you explain what the Clinical Impact Awards represent and why they are important to consultants in the NHS?
National clinical impact awards (NCIA) recognise and reward NHS consultant doctors and dentists for the national clinical impact they make to patients and the NHS that is over and above their contractual obligations in five domains: service delivery and development; leadership; education, training, and people development; innovation and research; and wider national clinical priorities. The awards are awarded annually and are competitive in nature.
For successful individuals, the awards provide recognition of their hard work and excellence, and also a financial reward for five years. More widely, the award scheme aims to help retain staff within the NHS and reflect the amazing diversity of the NHS workforce.
“I feel privileged to be the Chair of ACCIA. This is also true of the roles I’ve had in the past and the other projects and responsibilities I have alongside my role within the DHSC at the moment.“
Most pharmaceutical physicians work outside the NHS but the result of their work often affects delivery of care, so is there a role for Clinical Impact Awards in improving the practice of pharmaceutical physicians?
The NCIA scheme is primarily aimed at those consultants working within the NHS, in the same way that pharmaceutical companies have reward and retention schemes for their staff. However, given the very close and collaborative ways in which the pharmaceutical industry works with the NHS and its staff, many of the great examples we see within the applications might have involved staff and teams from the industry too. Also, the awards serve to set examples of what good and great can look like, and this is true for physicians everywhere, including those working within the pharmaceutical industry.
What changes or developments do you hope to implement during your tenure as Chair?
The prior National Clinical Excellence Awards scheme underwent significant change under the previous Chair to become the National Clinical Impact Awards. As well as aiming to make the awards more sustainable, one of the main aims was to improve the diversity of those applying for and receiving the awards.
During my time as Chair, I do not foresee any major change, although we are subject to the same prevailing influences as other publicly funded programs, and I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future. However, the aim to better reflect the wonderful diversity of the UK consultant workforce and the generally underrecognised work that is done is one that requires continued energy and effort, and this will be top of our plans for the coming years. As all such schemes, we need to ensure equity and good governance, and at the same time, we need to ensure that we make access as easy as possible, minimising the bureaucracy and complexity wherever possible. My focus will be these things and other ‘fine tuning’ that will allow us to better achieve our core objectives to reward over and above contribution, retain great people within the NHS and reflect the diversity of our workforce.
In your view, what are the biggest challenges facing the NHS today, and how can initiatives like the Clinical Impact Awards help address them?
This is not an easy question. However, as in the pharmaceutical industry, the major asset of any organisation is its people and the morale of the people is a key driver of how the organisation operates and succeeds. It has been many years since I worked within the NHS but, even then, morale was not great. All we need to do is watch the news to know that this has gone in the wrong direction, while simultaneously the demands on and expectations of the NHS have continuously increased. The award scheme helps build morale through rewarding examples of great contribution and helps retention by providing a reason to stay within the NHS.
How do you balance your professional responsibilities with personal life and other commitments?
I feel privileged to be the Chair of ACCIA. This is also true of the roles I’ve had in the past and the other projects and responsibilities I have alongside my role within the DHSC at the moment. I feel that being challenged and inspired by what I’m working on is an important driver of maintaining balance. This has to be combined with an ability to ‘switch off’ so that I can also enjoy (and be challenged by) the wonderful collection of family, friends and pastimes I have in my wider life. One of the main challenges in creating and maintaining balance is coordinating multiple calendars, which each have firewalls and data sharing restrictions. I am getting better at this, allowing better prioritization and time keeping.