Jonty heaversedge biography of william hill

Since then I have been involved in a number of other shows raising awareness of various health issues. Media medicine was never an ambition of mine at medical school but I really enjoy the challenges it brings and, perhaps most importantly, it is fun. The practice and my patients are at the heart of everything I do. They keep my feet on the ground and offer me encouragement, support and some honest criticism.

My day job gives me the credibility and confidence to appear on TV and, at one level, they both involve the same thing — talking to people. I put as much effort into helping one patient in my consulting room understand their condition as I do when I am talking to millions of people on the TV. I think each aspect of my career brings its own rewards and both enhance my medical practice in different ways.

My practice offers security and stability as well as the rewards of real relationships with my patients and their families. The media work I do challenges me to be more creative and to step out of the safety of my consulting room. This brings with it great rewards but also significant risk — not everyone is going to like me or agree with me and, as well as many compliments, I have had to deal with criticism from both other doctors and the public.

I attended a Buddhist meditation centre for a number of years and found the teachings and practices really helpful. Fundamentally, meditation allowed me to develop a much gentler, more compassionate relationship with my mind and body and it gave me the confidence and courage to take on new challenges. I started talking to a journalist friend from the centre, Ed Halliwell, about meditation or mindfulness and together we wrote The Mindful Manifesto where we attempt to raise awareness of its potential benefits to individuals and wider society.

I feel truly proud to have contributed to the book — it has had a great reception and we are very excited because it is coming out in the States this year. This is a tricky question. I have always been quite clear in the TV work I have done that it should never cause additional discomfort or embarrassment, and that it should be informative and attempt to engage with patients who might not otherwise go to their GP.

The BBC were equally rigorous in ensuring these principles were met and we had very few complaints about Street Doctor. But I would absolutely acknowledge that it has been easier for someone in my position as a clinician.

Jonty heaversedge biography of william hill

But I think what I have probably noticed most is the fundamental shift from being a service focused on illness to a service focused on health. This includes how we think about prevention and helping people to stay healthy and thinking about how we involve our local communities more in the work we do, including addressing the wider social and economic determinants of health that drive inequalities of outcome in our population.

A: Change is not going to come about through the heroic leadership of individuals. What we then need to do is furnish them with the opportunity to be able to make a difference. Thinking about building system leadership and ensuring we make this accessible to people from across our communities and our care professions feels fundamental to addressing the challenges we face.

Q: You frequently mention innovation when you speak. Are we on the right track, or do we need a more radical approach to change? In reality, we already possess the ideas needed to transform the way we deliver healthcare. The challenge lies in scaling these innovations within our system. My focus has shifted towards identifying fantastic ideas and providing the individuals and teams behind them with the skills to scale their work across south east London.

For me, innovation is more about unleashing what already exists within the health and care system than going in search of new ideas. Q: How do we bring it all together and stop silo working? How do we overcome the fragmentation and disconnection within the system to make integration and partnership approaches more effective? Building trust across organisational and administrative boundaries takes time — we have spend many years emphasising differences in our system, we cannot suddenly turn this around overnight.

We could all benefit from learning from each other and then building on the strong foundations of trust and connection that we are creating. I really think it will be the strength of relationships between our system partners that will determine our success as an integrated care system. Inspiration, my dad; motivation, my mum. Their generosity ….

Skip to main content. Jonty Heaversedge: Conscientious and a little narcissistic. He has a particular interest in mental health and wellbeing and has contributed to a number of TV series in the past aimed at raising public awareness and informing and empowering individuals, enabling them to take more responsibility for their own health. This is a newly created post, and Dr Heaversedge will provide clinical leadership for primary care transformation and the digital agenda in the NHS in London.

It is essential that vibrant primary care services are at the heart of the new models of care currently emerging across the capital.