Professor Dame Carol Black
Principal, Newnham College Cambridge and Expert Adviser on Health & Work to NHS England and Public Health England
Professor Dame Carol Black DBE, FRCP, FMedSci is Principal of Newnham College Cambridge and Expert Adviser on Health and Work to NHS England and Public Health England. She chairs the Board of Think Ahead, the Government’s new fast-stream training programme for Mental Health Social Workers, and the RSSB’s Health and Wellbeing Policy Group. She is a member of the Welsh Government’s Parliamentary Review of Health and Social Care in Wales and Bevan Commission on health in Wales, the board of UK Active, Rand Europe’s Council of Advisers, PwC’s Health Industries Oversight Board, and the Advisory Board of Step up to Serve. As Principal of Newnham she is on several committees in Cambridge University, for example the Advisory Board of the Centre for Science and Public Policy, and is one of the Deputy Vice-Chancellors.
In November 2011 when National Director for Health and Work she completed as Co-Chair an independent review for the UK Government of sickness absence in Britain. The recommendations of this report are now being put in place, with for example a national Fit for Work Service. She is now finishing a further independent review for the Government, of employment outcomes of addiction to drugs or alcohol, or obesity, and the benefits system.
Professor Black is a past-President of the Royal College of Physicians, of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and of the British Lung Foundation, and past-Chair of the Nuffield Trust for health policy. The Centre she established at the Royal Free Hospital in London is internationally renowned for research and treatment of connective tissue diseases such as scleroderma. She is a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, of the Work Foundation, and of Uppingham School.
In February 2016 Dame Carol enjoyed the experience of being interviewed on BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs.