S4 Episode 3 - Health Education England

Navina Evans joins James Ashton to discuss life leading a key division of the NHS, the challenge of attracting and retaining a giant workforce, why she kept treating patients after becoming chief executive - and overcoming workplace sexism even after rising to the top.

Navina Evans is chief executive of Health Education England, a unit of the NHS that plans, recruits, educates and trains the health workforce of the future.

Currently there are more than 160,000 NHS students including doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics and physiotherapists but Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic has made the staffing challenge more acute.

Before joining HEE in 2020, Evans spent 25 years at the NHS’s East London Foundation Trust, starting her career as a psychiatrist, working her way up to clinical director and becoming chief executive in August 2016.

James Ashton’s book The Nine Type of Leader (bit.ly/NINEbook) is available to order now.

Find out more about this series @leadingpod or at leadingpod.com