Nicola Blackwood

Baroness Blackwood has served as a Health Minister under two British Prime Ministers.

Until early 2020 as Minister for Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care Nicola Blackwood’s responsibilities included life sciences research, medicines regulation, global health security, vaccines, and trade. Other major policy areas included the Genomics Healthcare Strategy, the National Rare Diseases Conversation, the Innovative Medicines Fund, NICE Methods Review and, of course, sector preparedness for Brexit.

Such challenging management always demands extraordinary levels of engagement and partnership. It requires working with stakeholders ranging from NHSE to industry, with medical research charities, and above all, with patient groups. And as one would expect this all involves complex cross-Whitehall negotiations. Nicola Blackwood’s breadth of experience in healthcare policy and partnership delivery is unmatched in recent times.

Today Nicola Blackwood is Chair of Genomics England. In 2013 GEL was established to sequence the genomes of patients suffering from rare diseases and cancers. The 100,000 Genomes Project is running the largest national sequencing project in a healthcare setting anywhere in the world. It’s already making a real difference for patients with early results showing that one in four rare disease patients previously without a diagnosis now receiving one.

GEL is currently in the process of transforming from a medical research project into a company that works with the NHS, with patients, with researchers and with industry to enable faster, deeper research, bringing genomic healthcare to everyone who may need it.

Baroness Blackwood has served as Chair of the House of Lords Science & Technology Select Committee and is she is a sitting member of it today. The committee has a very broad remit and science meets public policy in every department. Most recently amongst other topics the Committee has been considering ‘Healthy Ageing’ and ‘the Science of Covid19’.

Nicola Blackwood is a Board Trustee at The Alan Turing Institute, the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, and is an Honorary Professor, Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, at UCL.

Nicola Blackwood is a highly informed speaker, a senior leader with exceptionally strong strategic and analytical skills. She’s a skilled communicator on the future of healthcare on any platform: an outstanding public speaker in face to face and virtual settings, and a media performer with a wealth of experience in delivering successful digital campaigns.

However Nicola Blackwood’s interests are not all technological and scientific. She has played the flute since the age of six and is a highly accomplished musician too!

Video: Baroness Blackwood speaks at CogX Festival AI and Emerging Technology ‘The Future of the NHS’

Video: Baroness Blackwood speaks virtually at CogX Has Covid-19 fundamentally shifted the next decade of health innovation?

Specialist Speakers is delighted to support the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Conference 2021 and to present Nicola Blackwood speaking amongst other issues on the communication challenges around the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines.