Dr Riaz Agha awarded NICE scholarship

Dr Riaz Agha

Dr Riaz Agha, a second year Foundation House Officer at the Trust, has been awarded one of the first ever National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) scholarships. A fantastic achievement in itself but even more so when you consider that Riaz is not only the youngest and most junior scholar, he is also the only one that represents surgery.

Professor Peter Littlejohns, Director of Clinical and Public Health at NICE said: "We are very honoured to have such high calibre health professionals on board for the first year of our NICE Fellows and Scholars Programme. Our appointees have been chosen for their dedication, foresight and experience in promoting clinically- and cost-effective practice in the NHS."

The NICE scholarships have been created in response to Lord Darzi's 2009 report - High Quality Care for All - which he stated: "I would like to see NICE reach out even more proactively to local clinical communities as well as national ones. A key enabler of this will be the establishment of a fellowship programme".

Riaz sees the role as not only an opportunity to develop his own career through research, but also to act as an ambassador for NICE and improve the quality of healthcare in the local area. (See link above for more general details on what the scholarship involves.)

Over the next 12 months Riaz will be carrying out research on "Towards National Surgical Surveillance", which will encompass public health, public policy and surgery. Such research will allow us to quantify disease burden, track mortality rates and benchmark outcomes, allow us to analyse the effects of new interventions, act as an early warning system for poor outcomes, guide health system programming, policy and assessment.

We wish Dr Agha the best of luck with his scholarship, and will provide updates with his progress later on in the year.

NICE Press Release

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