End-of-life care expert to lead Bradford’s £7M Health and Wellbeing centre

The University of Bradford has announced the appointment of a Director and Deputy Director to oversee its new Health and Wellbeing Centre.

Professor Allan Kellehear (pictured) has been appointed as Director of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone Health and Wellbeing Centre, and Dr Samar Betmouni as Deputy Director.

Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Brian Cantor, said: “I am delighted to announce these appointments. The Digital Health Enterprise Zone Health and Wellbeing Centre is an exemplar of the University’s ambition to be a great technology University leading research and learning in the field of advanced healthcare. 

“Allan and Samar will bring great experience, scholarship and energy to the development of the Centre working with colleagues across all Faculties.”

The new £7M Health and Wellbeing Centre will be built on the University of Bradford campus as part of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone.

Increasingly, as the population ages, people have to live with multiple long-term conditions such as dementia, diabetes and cancer. These conditions limit people’s enjoyment of life, and they account for around 70% of NHS expenditure. The Health and Wellbeing Centre will integrate research, teaching and innovation activities focused on delaying and preventing onset of these conditions and on improving the lived experience of patients.

The centre will be used both as a community amenity – housing practising health professionals such as doctors, optometrists and dispensing pharmacists – and for tenant organisations to test out healthcare delivery innovations. Teams of researchers and students will work with patients, healthcare professionals and companies to trial and monitor new devices, services and ways of working to see which are the most effective and affordable.

Both Allan and Samar currently work at the University, Allan is a 50th Anniversary Chair in End of Life Care and Samar is the Director of Clinical Pathology.

Allan Kellehear is a 50th Anniversary Professor (end of life care) at the University of Bradford and was formerly Professor of Community Health at Middlesex University, Professor of Palliative Care at La Trobe University in Australia, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bath and Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

The Digital Health Enterprise Zone (DHEZ) is one of four UK University Enterprise Zones funded by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills in 2014. The programme will consist of a digital innovation centre to support small and young companies in an open innovation environment and the new Health and Wellbeing Centre housing service providers evaluating the safety and quality of healthcare delivery innovations.  The DHEZ will catalyse the creation of scores of new businesses and 100s of new jobs.