Professor Stephen Peckham, Director of the Centre for Health Services Studies at Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research and Director of NIHR Applied Research Collaboration in Kent Surrey and Sussex, has been appointed to a new Expert Panel as a policy advisor by the House of Commons cross-party Health and Social Care Select Committee.
The Expert Panel, chaired by Professor Dame Jane Dacre, will support Parliament in holding the UK Government to account against its pledges on health and social care. Professor Peckham is one of six core members selected by the Committee for their knowledge of the key issues affecting patients.
The Panel is piloting a new evaluation system that will give Care Quality Commission-style ratings on the government’s performance in meeting policy commitments, grading them from “inadequate” to “outstanding”. Its first area of evaluation will be maternity services in England.
Professor Peckham is Director of the Centre for Health Services Studies at Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research and has over 20 years of policy analysis and health services research experience.
He said: ‘Being part of the Panel is an opportunity to support independent scrutiny of policy by holding government to account and helping to improve future health and social care policy.’
Professor Peckham has particular interests in the way services are organised and delivered as well as in the development and implementation of health policy. He also looks at the use of evidence in policy and public health and ethical implications of public health policies.
He is Professor of Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, a Senior Investigator with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and Director of NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex. He is also Director of the Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Systems and Commissioning (PRUComm). PRUComm is a collaborative research unit with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Manchester.
