Greg Beales

Greg Beales (born 1977) is currently Senior Advisor for Health and Social Care issues to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a member of the Downing Street Policy Directorate [ [http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=greg+beales&aje=true&id=070627010668&ct=0 FT.com / Search ] ] .

Greg Beales took up his current post in June 2007 at the same time as Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. Beales had previously worked for former Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit.

Prior to joining Government, Greg Beales worked in the private and voluntary sectors. He is known to be a champion of Foundation Trusts and his appointment was widely seen as an indication that the Gordon Brown government intended to continue the process of NHS reform to which it had been committed since 2001.

In his previous work, Beales has been a strong advocate for the NHS system of funding but has argued that reform is necessary to give more control to patients to allow them to become experts in managing their own care. [ [http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA973.htm spiked-essays | Essay | Who wants to be an Expert Patient? ] ]

He has also been a strong advocate of a greater focus on prevention across the public services, arguing that to meet modern challenges, public services needed to co-produce outcomes with a public more responsible for its own behaviour and actions. [ [http://www.number10.gov.uk/files/pdf/pr.pdf Number10.gov.uk ] ] . Beales has been closely associated with the development of Healthy Living Centres and is widely seen to favour a bigger role for social enterprise and cooperative providers in the provision of public services.

References