The architect of the polyclinic-in-every-PCT plan for England has been appointed a UK business ambassador.
In his new unpaid role, Lord Darzi will promote the cause of British life-science businesses abroad.
Appointed in July 2007 to the position of health minister he said he was ‘gobsmacked' to be offered, Darzi led the NHS Next Stage Review but resigned two years later. He stepped down just weeks after publishing the 12-months-on report on High Quality Care for All that boasted that patient access to a GP had never been so easy and 50 new 8am-to-8pm GP-led health centres were already open.
Darzi said he was going ‘to return to care for my patients, lead my academic department, and continue my research full time'.
But he stayed on as the government's health and life sciences ambassador. Last month he led a delegation of British businesses at the Medica medical trade fair in Germany.
Knighted in 2002, Ara Darzi, an Iraqi of Armenian extraction, became a British citizen in 2003. In 2007 he was ennobled to the title of Lord Darzi of Denham to allow him to become health minister.
