Chris Carrigan

Chris is an experienced and nationally recognised senior leader, with a background in health data, informatics, cancer and patient advocacy, with a focus on involving a patient voice. He has significant experience in influencing national policy in medical informatics and research and has a respected national profile in leading patient and public engagement exercises.

Chris has significant experience in influencing national policy in medical informatics and research and has a respected national profile in leading patient and public engagement exercises.   

He was appointed in February 2018 as a Rutherford Fellow to work in the area of patients and data for HDR-UK, based at the University of Leeds MRC Bioinformatics Centre.

Chris is also the Expert Data Adviser to use MY data – the only independent patient movement in the UK focussed on patient data.

Until August 2018 Chris was the inaugural Chair of an advisory group for NHS Digital, IGARD – the Independent Group Advising on the Release of Data. The independent Group, commissioned by NHS Digital, reviews applications for sensitive NHS Digital data with expert members and an enhanced transparency remit. 

In 2014 Chris was named as one of the Health Service Journal’s Top 50 Innovators in the NHS for his work with cancer patients and the use of their data, one of the major achievements of the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN), which he launched and led for eight years.

As Director of the NCIN, Chris drove the development of a data linkage function, which linked traditional cancer registration data with routine hospital data. This provided a unique resource which produced new insights and intelligence into cancer inequalities, diagnosis, care, outcomes and experience.