Dr. Chaand Nagpaul CBE

In 2017, Dr Chaand Nagpaul CBE was the first chair of colour for the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association (BMA. Even though he stood down in 2022, he remains a vocal and prominent campaigner for patients’ rights, especially when it comes to racial disparities in the health sector.

Nagpaul continues to campaign for better health by being a board member of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, an independent body which identifies and tackles health inequalities among patients, communities, and workforces of colour.

For decades this family doctor has been taking on governments to recognise and reward the work of GPs. But his impact has never been in doubt. As early as 2013, the influential Health Service Journal listed him as the 25th most powerful person in the English NHS and included him in its list of 100 top clinical leaders in 2014. The following year the north London doctor was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to primary care.

Nagpaul’s tenure marked the global pandemic, and he led the way in holding the government to account. It was he who highlighted that people of colour were disproportionately contracting and dying from Covid.  From the very beginning of the first lockdown, he urged ministers and NHS leaders to protect health workers on the frontline.  Nagpaul also criticised them for “not having the backs” of black Asian minority ethnic (BAME) staff.