Professor Kamila Hawthorne elected the next RCGP chair

Professor Kamila Hawthorne will succeed Professor Martin Marshall and become the next chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGPs) from November 2022

The two other candidates in the election, independently conducted by Civica electoral services, were Dr Sunil Gupta and Dr Gary Howsam.

Professor Hawthorne is a salaried GP in Mountain Ash, South Wales, a Bevan Commissioner, and the head of Graduate Entry Medicine at Swansea University. She is currently provost of the SE Wales Faculty of the RCGP, and sits on the College’s Trustee Board and Ethics Committee.

She was vice chair (Professional Development) of the College between 2015 – 2018 and will be the College’s fifth woman chair.

She came to Britain with her family from Tanzania in 1970, qualified from the University of Oxford in 1984, and did her VTS training in Nottingham. She has been a GP Principal in Nottingham, Manchester and Cardiff. She is married to a gastroenterologist and has two children, one of whom is also a GP. Her special interests are in diabetes, health inequalities and medical education.

She was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours in 2017 for services to general practice and her work on culturally appropriate diabetes health education with BAME communities and their GP practices in Cardiff.

Professor Hawthorne said: “I am honoured to be elected as the next chair of the RCGP and will do everything I can to represent the views of frontline GPs across the UK at such a challenging time for general practice and the NHS. Our patients deserve excellent care, and our members deserve to work in a service that is appropriately funded, that supports them to do the best job they can and that protects their own health and wellbeing.

“I will do everything possible over the next three years to make sure our professional voice is a strong one and to ensure that politicians, policy makers, and influencers, including the media, understand and appreciate the work that GPs do; the importance and quality of the care we deliver to our patients, and the immense contribution we make to the wider NHS. 

“I would also like to pay tribute to our current chair, Martin Marshall, who has done a magnificent job of leading our College and our profession through the turbulence of the pandemic and who leaves such a strong legacy to build on.”