Carol M. Black

Dame Carol Mary Black DBE FRCP (born 26 December 1939) is Principal of Newnham College Cambridge, Adviser on Work and Health at the Department of Health, England, Chair of the Nuffield Trust, and Chair of the Governance Board, Centre for Workforce Intelligence.

Biography

As Expert Adviser to the Department of Health, Black plays a major ambassadorial role, building and promoting the public and policy position on the positive relationship between work and health. She is Chair of the Health at Work network, part of the UK Government's Public Health Responsibility Deal, set up to engage commercial, public and third sector organisations in improving public health.

Previously she was the first National Director for Health and Work (2006–2011), a role created to provide independent leadership to a cross-Government health, work and well-being agenda.

As National Director she led an independent review of the health of Britain’s working age population, Working for a healthier tomorrow (2008), which was accepted by Government with broad cross-party support.

Subsequently, with David Frost CBE (then Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce) she co-chaired Health at Work - an independent Review of Sickness Absence (2011)^[1] for the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Before taking on these roles she had been

• President of the Royal College of Physicians (2002–06, the second female president since the College was founded in 1518);
• Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (2006–09);
• Medical Director at the Royal Free Hospital, London (2000–02).

Black was a consultant rheumatologist at West Middlesex University Hospital (1981–89) and at the Royal Free Hospital (1989-1994) before appointment as Professor of Rheumatology at the Royal Free and University College Medical School. The Centre she established at the Royal Free Hospital, London is internationally renowned in the field of connective tissue disease.

Since the early 1990s, she has worked at board level in a number of organisations, including the Royal Free Hospital Hampstead NHS Trust, the Health Foundation, the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, and the Imperial College Healthcare Charity. From 2006–09 she chaired the U.K. Health Honours Committee.

In February 2015, the Prime Minister asked her to advise him on whether withdrawing out-of-work sickness benefits from obese people and those struggling with drug and alcohol addiction would encourage them to seek further medical help for their problems.^[2]

Other appointments

Alongside her current appointments she continues to serves as:

• President of the British Lung Foundation
• Trustee at the National Portrait Gallery (2010– )

Black is an alumna of the University of Bristol. In February 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.^[3]

References

External links

• Newnham College, Cambridge
• Nuffield Trust