Recommendation F170: Health Education England
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
Health Education England should have a medically qualified director of medical education and a lay patient representative on its board.
In brief (written by this site)
In commentary from September 2024, published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that Health Education England merged into the latter in April 2023, and that the combined body has a Chief Workforce, Training and Education Officer supported by a Director of Education and Training (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). In May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that there was "no mention in the Government’s response of a lay patient representative" (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
Accepted.
Health Education England employs a medically qualified Director of Education and Quality who is responsible for all professional education and training. Professor Chris Welsh currently occupies this post and is supported by a Director of Nursing and a Director of Medical Education. He took up this post in April 2013. Health Education England also has a clinically qualified Director of Nursing and Medical Director.
Mary Elford has been appointed as a Non-Executive Director for the board of Health Education England and will have a specific focus on the interests of patients and service users. She began in this role on 1 September 2013. Mary will chair Health Education England’s new national patient forum, to incorporate the views of patients into the education and training programme.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.
Delivery
DHSC and NHS England state no delivery position (27 February 2026)
On 1 April 2023, Health Education England merged with NHS England. NHS England has a Chief Workforce, Training and Education Officer, supported by a Director of Education and Training.
Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Superseded.”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 170, PDF page 506-507.
Department of Health and Social Care says partially delivered (11 February 2015)
Health Education England employs a medically qualified Director of Education & Quality who is accountable for all professional education and training. Professor Wendy Reid currently occupies the post of Director of Education & Quality and Medical Director; this role is supported by the Director of Nursing, Professor Lisa Bayliss-Pratt. Wendy assumed the responsibilities of Director of Education & Quality in April 2014 following the retirement of Professor Chris Welsh.
Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.
Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to Health Education England, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.
What other bodies have found
In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.
Thirlwall Inquiry legal team (15 May 2024)
This recommendation was accepted by the Government.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government said that Health Education England employed a medically qualified Director of Education and Quality, who took up the post in April 2013. The Government also said that Health Education England had Non-Executive Director whose role had specific focus on the interests of patients and service users and chaired the national patient forum, taking up the post on 1 September 2013.
There was no mention in the Government’s response of a lay patient representative.
Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 170, PDF page 474.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response, delivery statement - DHSC and NHS England
Delivery statement - Thirlwall Inquiry legal team
Finding