51 Facts About Bruce Keogh

Professor Sir Bruce Edward Keogh, KBE, FMedSci, FRCS, FRCP is a Rhodesian-born British surgeon who specialises in cardiac surgery.

Bruce Keogh was medical director of the National Health Service in England from 2007 and national medical director of the NHS Commissioning Board from 2013 until his retirement early in 2018.

Bruce Keogh is chair of Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust and chairman of The Scar Free Foundation.

Bruce Keogh's father held a senior position in the Civil service, having been Chief Inspector of Public Services for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland while his mother was a Hansard reporter in parliament.

Bruce Keogh attended the private Catholic boys school St George's College, Harare.

Bruce Keogh earned a Bachelor of Science degree and MB BS degree from Charing Cross Hospital Medical School part of the University of London in 1977 and 1980 respectively.

Bruce Keogh was a demonstrator in anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School before training in general surgery in London and Sheffield and gaining his FRCS in 1985.

Bruce Keogh then opted for a career in cardiac surgery, returning to the Hammersmith Hospital as a registrar.

Bruce Keogh was appointed as senior registrar on the West London training rotation where he spent time at St George's Hospital and the Harefield Hospital training in cardiac, pulmonary and oesophageal surgery.

Bruce Keogh was appointed a university Senior Lecturer in cardiothoracic surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and honorary consultant surgeon at the Hammersmith Hospital between 1991 and 1995.

Bruce Keogh then took an NHS consultant position in Birmingham where he became the clinical service lead for cardiothoracic surgery and Associate Medical Director for Clinical Governance at University Hospital Birmingham before being appointed Professor of cardiac surgery at University College London and director of surgery at The Heart Hospital in 2004.

Bruce Keogh has co-authored a book on the Evidence for Cardiothoracic Surgery and another on Normal Surface Anatomy.

Bruce Keogh performed the first successful transabdominal, off pump gastroepiploic artery bypass graft to the heart in the UK and was among the first to adopt minimally invasive, direct coronary artery bypass surgery, thoracoscopic mitral valve surgery and warm blood cardioplegia for myocardial protection.

Bruce Keogh has been active on many medical and professional committees.

Bruce Keogh has been secretary and president of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland, Secretary General of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and president of the Cardiothoracic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and served on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the board of directors of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in the US.

Bruce Keogh is an elected member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology.

Bruce Keogh has sat on the editorial boards of Heart and the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Bruce Keogh has served as Commissioner on the Commission for Health Improvement and the Healthcare Commission, where he chaired the Clinical Strategy Group.

Bruce Keogh chaired the clinical advisory group and subsequently went on to chair the NHS Choices Board.

Bruce Keogh established the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership a joint venture between the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the Royal College of Nursing to develop and run the national clinical audits.

Bruce Keogh's role included oversight of the medicines supply chain into the UK, policy relating to the pharmaceutical industry, drug pricing, prescriptions and the role of pharmacy in England and sponsorship of the work programmes of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the NHS regulator the Healthcare Commission and the National Patient Safety Agency, including the National Confidential Enquiries and the National Research Ethics Service.

In 2008, Bruce Keogh succeeded Matthew Swindells as Interim Director General for Informatics in the Department of Health.

On handing over to his successor, Christine Connelly, Bruce Keogh emphasised 3 priorities for NHS IT.

Bruce Keogh believes the NHS should be evidence based, patient focussed and outcomes driven.

Bruce Keogh was responsible for drawing together NICE, cancer charities and the pharmaceutical industry to lay the groundwork for a revised evidence driven CDF which went live under NICE in 2017.

Bruce Keogh's team was responsible for implementing the majority of the recommendations from Lord Darzi's review of the NHS "High Quality Care for All" published in 2008.

Bruce Keogh's team developed the Quality Framework for the NHS and included in Darzi's review.

Bruce Keogh subsequently asked the Faculty to administer the National Medical Director's Clinical Fellows Scheme which had grown out of the Clinical Advisor Scheme in the Department of Health, thereby ensuring a long-term home for the programme.

Bruce Keogh has argued that the role of NHS England is to "turn taxpayers money into good clinical outcomes".

Bruce Keogh put clinicians at the heart of NHS England through the Chief Pharmaceutical, Dental, Scientific and Allied Health Professions officers, a primary care deputy, a medical director for specialised commissioning, regional medical directors and pharmacists, area medical directors, over 20 expert national clinical directors and junior doctors, pharmacists and dentists through the National Medical Director's Clinical Fellowship Scheme.

In November 2014 Bruce Keogh oversaw the publication of around 5,000 consultant surgeons' mortality and procedure related-complication rates.

Bruce Keogh warned that a further 2,500 who did not share this information would face penalties.

In 2008, while interim Director General for Informatics in the Department of Health, Bruce Keogh undertook a National Health Informatics review.

Bruce Keogh argued for a Chief Information Officer for Health and the development of associated career structures in the NHS.

In 2009 Bruce Keogh led a national taskforce to improve neonatal services.

In 2012 Bruce Keogh ordered a review of the national quality assurance frameworks and governance for pathology services with the aim of making the process more robust and transparent.

In 2012 Bruce Keogh was asked by Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, to reassure him that there had been adequate clinical consultation on proposals to reconfigure services in south London.

In 2013 Bruce Keogh provoked the suspension of children's heart surgery in Leeds just before the Easter weekend, based on evidence from Professor Roger Boyle, the former national heart czar and director of the National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research, that the mortality rate was 2.75 times higher than might be expected for their practice.

Bruce Keogh was concerned that one consultant surgeon was suspended from operating, that the senior consultant was on holiday and that the remaining surgeons were locums.

Bruce Keogh's intervention was widely regarded as sensible and preemptory given the evidence, but some thought it precipitous.

Bruce Keogh remained unrepentant, arguing he would rather be remembered for preventing an avoidable disaster and embedding the "precautionary principle" in NHS safety culture, than responsible for not acting on reasonable doubt.

Bruce Keogh cited examples of "prevarication" at Bristol in the 1990s and Mid Stafforshire in the 2000s when some people argued over data while other people were harmed.

Bruce Keogh expressed concern that it would "be used for filling in potholes" as local councils grappled with their priorities and funding cuts.

Bruce Keogh chairs Sensyne Health an AIM listed clinical AI biotechnology company and is a director of LumiraDx, a point-of-care diagnostic company.

Bruce Keogh is a non executive director of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the UK Government sponsored Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult promoting advanced medicinal therapy development in the UK.

Bruce Keogh was appointed as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003.

Bruce Keogh subsequently became a British citizen, and as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours on 11 June 2005, his knighthood became substantive.

Bruce Keogh is an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the American College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association, the British Society of Interventional Radiology and the British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons.

Bruce Keogh has been a visiting professor at universities in Japan, China and North America.

Bruce Keogh holds honorary medical doctorates from the universities of Birmingham and Sheffield and Doctorates of Science from the University of Toledo, Coventry University and Aston University.

Bruce Keogh is consistently ranked as one of the most powerful people in the NHS and in 2014 he was included in the Sunday Times and Debretts list of Britain's 500 most influential people.