Richard Priestley

Richard has a background of working in management in the NHS in the UK for some 36 years, 25 of which were as Chief Executive / Chief Officer in various Health Authorities, most recently as CEO of North Staffordshire Health Authority. In 2003 he established his own consultancy in health and social care management and came to International Medical Group / International Hospital Kampala on a voluntary basis for a month in July 2006. He worked on a number of organisational issues including;

• An overview of the IMG group
• Restructuring the management organisation
• Developing the work of the UHMI
• Establishing the post of Chief Operations Officer and reviewing the work of the Human Relations Department
• Establishing the Clinical Directorate
• Producing an action plan to implement the above.

Richard greatly enjoyed his time at IMG / IHK and found it a very rewarding experience both in terms of the colleagues he worked with and the freedom to develop and expand the services available. He comments that “I found Ian’s leadership as CEO to be inspiring and the enthusiasm of the staff to be very high so that there was a really good “feel” to the organisation and a tremendous and very real belief in the key elements of ;

• Training and education as the way forward
• Quality of service as the gold standard

I would recommend to any healthcare professional the opportunity to consider working at IMG / IHK as a means of contributing both to healthcare in a high quality environment and working in an area of great need in a developing country.

I would guarantee that anyone will return home enriched having contributed skills and experience in a really meaningful way.”

He hopes to return for another visit in 2007 and to develop a continuing relationship with IMG / IHK.