The Future Won’t Wait 11:30am – 1:00pm The Millennium Suite, 2nd Floor, Millennium Grandstand Max capacity 300 people Keynote Speakers Professor Frankie Swords Professor Francesca (Frankie) Swords took up the post of National Medical Director on 1 June 2026, working across DHSC and NHS England. She was previously Executive Medical Director at NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB and has over 30 years’ experience in the NHS. Alongside this, she worked as a consultant physician and endocrinologist at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and is an honorary professor to Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia. Earlier in her career, she was Medical Director at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn, and held multiple medical leadership positions at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, after completing her training in Oxford and London. Frankie will talk about rural health and care based on both her experience of working in Norfolk and Suffolk and her new perspective as National Medical Director. Dr. Tom Pearson Tom Pearson has been running his family farm in West Cambridgeshire for the past 10 years. He is also a medical doctor with an interest in Public Health, working in hospitals, primary care and public health settings since 2001, both in the UK and abroad. His recent Nuffield farming scholarship explores the role that farmers and growers can play in producing food with ‘wider health benefits’, appreciating the role of local economies, communities, education, nutrition, climate and nature to deliver better health outcomes. Tom will describe the positive impacts our farming communities and rural landscape can have on human health and explore how the health sector could work alongside farmers, growers and land managers to embrace the health opportunities that rural and peri-urban areas can offer. Professor Dhakshana Sivayoganathan Sharna is medical director of the National Healthcare Mentor, where she leads national mentoring programmes for tens of thousands of NHS contacts across clinical, academic and policy sectors, developing leaders in compassionate leadership, digital literacy and system innovation. As founder and CEO of Mentorverse, she created Tech Mentor, a no-code innovation programme enabling healthcare professionals and students to design practical solutions to real NHS challenges. A visiting professor at the University of Greater Manchester, she bridges education, governance and technology to advance an inclusive, digitally confident and connected health system. Together with Norfolk-based industry partner Athena AI, Sharna will lead a live demonstration of the potential role of sovereign AI in digital leadership. Andy Wilkins Andy is a futurist, speaker, podcaster, and founder of Future of Health – a think tank and systems convener exploring the long-term vision for health and healthcare systems in a technology-enabled 21st century. He has undertaken numerous innovation and digital transformation projects and authored several high-profile reports for the NHS and policymakers on the future of healthcare. Andy developed Imperial College’s Executive Education course on Leading Systemic Innovation in Healthcare and he is a visiting lecturer to UCL. Andy will set out his vision for a new future based on wrapping holistic, person-centered health and care around the needs of individuals and communities and the transformation from silos to health ecosystems that will make this possible. Professor Will Pope, Chair NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB Richard Anscombe, Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies Rural Health 10:00am – 11:15am Professor Ed Garratt OBE DL, CEO NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB 6 https://norfolkandsuffolkexpo.org.uk/expo/ Norfolk and Suffolk Health and Care
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