Mark Britnell

Having studied history at the University of Warwick, he joined the fast-track NHS Management Training Scheme in 1989, receiving his post-graduate education at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick.[2]

His early career included various management posts in the NHS, a spell with the Australian health service, a year in the civil service fast stream during which he was sponsored by the Australian College of Health Service Executives to work in Melbourne and Sydney before being seconded to the NHS Executive in 1992. Britnell joined St Mary's Hospital in London as a General Manager before being appointed as a Director at Central Middlesex Hospital (now part of North West London Hospitals NHS Trust) in 1995, when he was named Project Director for an Ambulatory Care and Diagnostic (ACAD) Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme - the first of its kind in the UK.[3]

At 34 years of age, he became chief executive at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, one of the youngest people to be appointed to a chief executive role in the NHS.[4] Britnell had previously been chief operating officer there. He led the organization from 1998 to 2006. As one of the highest performing trusts he took it to NHS Foundation Trust status as part of the so-called 'first wave' of organisations to be approved. He also secured the largest PFI single hospital build in England and established the first Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in partnership with the Ministry of Defence.[5]

In 2006 he was appointed as chief executive of the NHS South Central strategic health authority (which covered an area from Oxford to the Isle of Wight). He was Director-General for Commissioning and System Management for the National Health Service (NHS) of England (July 2007-September 2009).[6] During this time he oversaw the development of the World Class Commissioning policy, the creation of the Cooperation and Competition Panel and reforms to primary care, patient and public engagement, integrated care and community services.[7] Later his major focus was working with Lord Ara Darzi to develop High Quality Care for All, the final report of the Next Steps Review on the future of the NHS.[8]

He has twice been tipped as a likely contender for the post of NHS Chief Executive (in 2006 and 2013) but in both instances declined to apply.[9] [10]

In 2009 he joined KPMG as Head of Health for the UK and Europe,[11] becoming Global Chairman for Health in 2010 and Global Chairman and Senior Partner for Healthcare, Government and Infrastructure in 2018, responsible for 40,000 staff across 157 countries.[12] He reports that in these roles he has worked in 80 countries[13] on more than 345 occasions. He finishes his global role in 2020, and will remain as a UK health partner for KPMG.

In October 2015 Britnell published 'In Search of the Perfect Health System',[14] an analysis of 25 national health systems around the world and seven key trends facing healthcare globally. It won the health and social care category in the British Medical Association's Medical Book Awards 2016 and Best Health Book in China in 2017 from the Chinese Medical Doctors Association.[15][16] The book is published in Mandarin, Portuguese and Korean, and the publisher has reported that it has been sold in 109 countries.[17]

In March 2019 he published 'Human: solving the global workforce crisis in healthcare'.[18] It is a response to the warning from the World Health Organization that by 2030 there will be a global shortage of around 18 million healthcare workers – about a fifth of the required workforce.[19] Britnell argues that no country, no matter how wealthy, can buy its way out of this crisis. Instead it requires concerted international action on 10 major aspects of healthcare including productivity, the role of women in the professions, integrating artificial intelligence with human systems, the quality and style of leadership and breaking down institutional barriers which prevent clinicians from performing at the top of their game. He has subsequently argued that major reforms are even more urgent in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.[20][21] In 2020 'Human' was published in Mandarin.

As a survivor of prostate cancer, Britnell gives the charity Prostate Cancer UK all the royalties from both books.[22]

Common subjects he speaks and writes on include health service integration, workforce redesign, patient empowerment and achieving large-scale change in healthcare organizations and systems. He has described his consulting style as "more brown mud, less blue sky".[23]

In October 2014 Britnell was appointed a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Health Sector, a post he held for four years.[24]

He is a Trustee of the King's Fund.[25] He holds honorary degrees from Birmingham City University and University of Wolverhampton, and an honorary professorship at Taishan Medical University School in China.[26] He also sits on the Advisory Board of the China Center for Health Development at Peking University.

He was a Trustee of the cancer charity Prostate Cancer UK, having been diagnosed and successfully treated for the disease in 2008. He has often praised the NHS for saving his life.[27]

In 2010, while discussing British health reforms at a healthcare industry conference in the US, Britnell was quoted as stating: "In future, The NHS will be a state insurance provider not a state deliverer", and that "The NHS will be shown no mercy and the best time to take advantage of this will be in the next couple of years."[28]

Britnell refuted this. KPMG issued a press statement on his behalf on 16 May 2011 stating "The article in The Observer [15 May] attributes quotes to me that do not properly reflect discussions held at a private conference last October. Nor was I given the opportunity to respond ahead of publication. I worked in the NHS for twenty years and now work alongside it. I have always been a passionate advocate of the NHS and believe that it has a great future. Like many other countries throughout the world, the pressure facing healthcare funding and provision are enormous. If the NHS is to change and modernize the public, private and voluntary sectors will all need to play their part."

The Health Service Journal website published a longer statement from Britnell on 17 May, prompted by the article in The Observer. In it Britnell explained his perspective on the reform of the NHS. Among wide-ranging remarks he stated that "[o]f course, the vast majority of care - quite rightly in the UK context - will always be provided by public sector organisations (currently, about 95% of it) and will be paid out of taxation" and "[t]he issue of competition, which now seems to be conflated with privatisation, is unhelpful and misleading and, at best, only a small part of reform. Competition can exist without privatisation and the NHS can maintain its historic role in funding care while dealing with a richer variety of providers - public sector, social enterprise and private organisations".[29] Commenting on the UK health service in an article for the Guardian Health Network, Britnell said "I'm proud to have worked for the NHS, with its great people, and now feel privileged to be able to work on health systems internationally."[30]

• In Search of the Perfect Health System, Palgrave 2015 ISBN 978-1-137-49661-4
• Human: Solving the global workforce crisis in healthcare, Oxford University Press 2019 ISBN 978-0-198-83652-0

• Profile: Dr Mark Britnell, Global Head of Health, KPMG
• Mark Britnell at the Department of Health, 11 March 2008 (archived)
• Column archive at NHS/CPC Creative
• Mark Britnell collected news and commentary at Health Service Journal