Marion Lynch BEM

Trustee

Marion is a global health consultant, nurse, researcher and educator with 40 years’ experience in the NHS and international health. She is an expert in health system strengthening to improve equity and quality and works with governments and organisations to develop national policies, health professional education and patient service pathways. She is currently the Technical Advisor on Workforce for GAVI worldwide immunisation programme. She is also designing and delivering Masters’ level learning in global health leadership, is a coach and a gender mentor with the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda.

As an independent evaluator she examines the impact of global healthcare innovations, often including the evolution of nursing and the work of nurses. Her global work has been rewarded by the Gates Foundation and she is one of their nominated Global Goalkeepers, invited to New York in 2022 and 2023 to disrupt traditional thinking, and contribute to the work to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals.

She is also an expert in how the arts help build systems for health, at country and community level, how the arts help health professionals develop the skills they need, and how the arts help individuals sustain their own health. She works with the World Health Organisation on Social Prescribing approaches and with nurse colleagues across the world on how nurses are involved in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals. She is Trustee of Paintings in Hospitals, is a Visiting Professor with the University of West London and an Honorary Adviser to Tropical Health Education Trust (THET).

This magical combination of nursing, global health and the arts and social prescribing has led her to explore how the arts are harnessed by nurses and other health professionals to deliver the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This academic and practical exploration builds on her health and arts passion, and her Doctorate which challenged the epistemological basis of medical education, exploring the use poetry and prose to teach medicine. She is therefore an expert in integrating the arts and humanities into health systems, and health education, and enabling others to do the same.

Her work makes visible the structural violence already built into health systems, makes visible the work of nurses and the world of nursing, and so enables us all to imagine and co – re – create socially just systems for health.