Edmund Nigel Ramsay Crisp, Baron Crisp (born 14 January 1952) is a crossbench member of the House of Lords where he co chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health. He works and publishes extensively in global health and international development. He was a British senior civil servant in the

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their ow ...

, public policy analyst, and Senior Manager in the

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

. He was awarded a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

age upon retirement.

Background and personal life

Crisp was educated at

Uppingham School Uppingham School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils 13-18) in Uppingham, Rutland, England, founded in 1584 by Robert Johnson (rector), Robert Johnson, the Archdeacon of Leicester, who also established Oa ...

and then studied philosophy at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

.''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 22 November 2000
"The CV that got Nigel Crisp the top job in the NHS"
/ref> Crisp is married with two children, and lives in the countryside near Newbury. His interests include the countryside, gardening and painting.

Career

Crisp joined the NHS in 1986 from a background in community work, where he worked in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, and industry and (from 1981 to 1986) was Secretary and Director of

Age Concern Age Concern is the banner title used by a number of Charitable organization, charitable organizations (NGOs) specifically concerned with the needs and interests of all older people (defined as those over the age of 50) based chiefly in the four cou ...

Cambridge. He then became the General Manager for Learning Disabilities in East Berkshire and moved in 1988 to become General Manager (and later Chief Executive) of Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals which provided a wide range of general hospital and mental health services in East Berkshire. He moved to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1993 to become Chief Executive of the

Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

NHS Trust which at the time incorporated the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals and is one of the largest academic medical centres in the country. Crisp became South Thames Regional Director of the NHS Executive in 1997 and London Regional Director in 1999. Crisp was appointed as the fifth chief executive of the NHS and

Permanent Secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day ...

at the

on 1 November 2000. He is unlike his predecessors or successor in combining these posts. On 8 March 2006 Crisp announced his intention to retire at the end of March, acknowledging the current financial problems of parts of the NHS as a disappointment. He was praised by the

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

, for his contribution to British healthcare and was created Baron Crisp, of

Eaglescliffe Eaglescliffe is a village in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. It is in the civil parish of Egglescliffe. The village was formerly known as Eaglescliffe Junction, being formed around . In 2011, the Office for National S ...

in the

County of Durham The County Palatine of Durham and Sadberge, commonly referred to as County Durham or simply Durham, is a historic county in Northern England. Until 1889, it was controlled by powers granted under the Bishopric of Durham. The county and Northum ...

, on 28 April 2006. He was replaced by Sir Ian Carruthers, as acting NHS Chief Executive, and Hugh Taylor, the Director of Strategy and Business Development, as acting Permanent Secretary. . In 2016, a biography of

– ''Broken Vows: Tony Blair, The Tragedy of Power'' by British author

Tom Bower Thomas Michael Bower (born 28 September 1946) is a British writer and former BBC journalist and television producer. He is known for his investigative journalism and for his unauthorised biographies, often of business tycoons and newspaper pr ...

, reported Ken Anderson's comment "Crisp had no control over costs and didn’t have a clue what to do", following the former's investigation into why the NHS accounts were six months late. Bowers describes that after an assessment by management consultants

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

, Tony Blair and Secretary of State for Health

Patricia Hewitt Patricia Hope Hewitt (born 2 December 1948) is an Australian-born British government adviser and former politician who served as Secretary of State for Health from 2005 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as Secretar ...

decided Crisp should be replaced, and part of the method used to induce Crisp to resign at age 54 was to award him a life peerage.

Global health and international development

Nigel Crisp has been very active in global health and international development since 2006; most notably publishing in 2007 ''Global Health Partnerships'' - a report for the

on what more the UK can do to support health improvement in developing countries; co-chairing, with Commissioner

Bience Gawanas Bience Philomina Gawanas (born 1956) is a Namibian lawyer. She was appointed in January 2018 as Special Adviser on Africa for the United Nations after having served as Commissioner for Social Affairs at the African Union Assembly of Heads of St ...

of the African Union, a Task Force on scaling up the education and training of health workers on behalf of the Global Health Workforce Alliance which resulted in the publication of ''Scaling up, Saving lives'' in 2008; and founding, with the Zambian Ministry of Health, The Zambia UK Health Workforce Alliance in 2009. He writes and speaks widely on global health and his book ''Turning the world upside down - the search for global health'' was published in 2010. In 2018 he founded and subsequently co-chaired with Sheila Tlou, the former health minister of Botswana, Nursing Now. Nursing Now was designed to raise the profile and status of nurses globally and was very successful with 126 countries joining the campaign with more than 750 national, regional and local groups active when it concluded in May 2021. It was succeeded by the Nursing Now Challenge which aims to provide leadership development opportunities for 100,000 young nurses and midwives globally. See https://www.nursingnow.org/ He chaired

Sightsavers International Sightsavers is an international non-governmental organisation that works with partners in developing countries to treat and prevent avoidable blindness, and promote equality for people with visual impairments and other disabilities. It is based in ...

from 2007 to 2013 co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health,http://www.appg-globalhealth.org.uk APPG on Global Health website: http://www.appg-globalhealth.org.uk is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the

Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the public health school of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. The school grew out of the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, the nation's first ...

and an Honorary Professor at the

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. The inst ...

.NigelCrisp.com
Nigel Crisp: Lord Crisp KCB
/ref>

Honours

He was appointed

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved Bathing#Medieval ...

(KCB) in the New Years Honours 2003.''

'', 21 November 2003
Sir Nigel Crisp
/ref>

Books

* Crisp N: turning the World Upside Down Again - global health in a time of pandemics, climate change and political turmoil.To be published by CRC Press in March 2022. *Crisp N. Health is Made at Home, Hospitals are for Repairs; Salus, 2020 *Crisp, N. ''Turning the world upside down - the search for global health in the 21st Century'', CRC Press, 2010 * Crisp, N. ''24 hours to save the NHS: The Chief Executive's account of reform 2000 - 2006'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2011 * Crisp, N. & Omaswa, F (ed.) ''African health leaders: Making change and claiming the future'',

, 2014

Arms

References

External links

''Nigelcrisp.com'', Personal website
*Nigel Crisp
Reforming the Global Health System: Lessons from Asia
(''Asia Policy'', July 2010) {{DEFAULTSORT:Crisp, Nigel 1952 births Living people Permanent Under-Secretaries of State for Health Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Crossbench life peers Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge People educated at Uppingham School Chief Executives of the National Health Service People from Ascot, Berkshire Members of the National Academy of Medicine Life peers created by Elizabeth II