Rukshana Kapasi, Director of Health, Barnardo’s

Rukshana Kapasi has been working in the NHS and charitable sector for the last thirty years as a consultant, commissioner, senior leader and Board member. She has stimulated some key directional changes in the public sector such doing research which led to the introduction of PALs into hospitals in England, Patient Choice in primary care and health advocacy which simulated major investment from the King’s Fund to develop accredited models and standards. Whilst working for Macmillan, Rukshana redesigned cancer service pathways and developed a ROI model for transforming care in the community as well as introducing a model of Macmillan GP Associates.  
Rukshana has most recently been a Director at Crohn’s and Colitis UK where she has set up a new Directorate for health services. In this role, she was Chair of IBDUK, a collaborative of 17 professional bodies from the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, GPs, Nurses, and Physicians to patient-led organisations which coproduced holistic standards and a digital benchmarking tool, achieving self-assessments from 73% of all IBD services across the UK and 10,224 patients.  
 
Rukshana is now Barnardo’s first Director of Health, appointed to transform the organisation to a health & social care provider. As a carer for a young person, excellence in services is something she feels passionately about. In this role, she looks forward to contributing her expertise to build a better and brighter future for children that is more joined up with healthcare. 
Rukshana is a keen advocate of inclusive organisational cultures and promoting the benefits of diversity has been pivotal to all her work. She has published widely in the field of health inequalities.