Dr. Sir Sam Everington has been a GP in Tower Hamlets for 20 years. He has pioneered the importance of an integrated approach to health and health care and the importance of education, the environment, arts and employment in health. Until recently Sam was also the deputy chair of the British Medical Association. He received the OBE in 1999 for services to primary care, and has received an award for excellence in healthcare by the World Family Doctors Europe (2006).
Sam knows that the development of primary care means integrated services working together, delivering all the patient’s health needs – medicine, but also jobs, education, environmental improvements and `creativity’. For Sam, GPs can play a key role in community regeneration and in particular can bring together different sections of the community.
Sam is a director of Community Health Partnerships, which delivers the NHS LIFT programme for building health premises that allow for a modern integrated approach to health (LIFT has received £1.5 billion of investment so far). Sam is one of the 31 national Social Enterprise Ambassadors and the only ambassador that is also a GP. He is on the ministerial advisory board on primary care (Access).
Sam is a qualified barrister, so you have been warned. He has also been a woodcarver and a log cabin builder in Norway. He is the proud owner of a folly in Scotland.