David RowlandThink tank

Biography

David Rowland was appointed as the first Director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest (CHPI) in 2019. He previously worked for over a decade as Head of Policy for three national healthcare regulatory bodies and before that as a research fellow at the School of Public Policy at University College London. CHPI is a London-based registered charity and independent think tank, founded in 2012, that subjects health and social care policy to evidence-based scrutiny with a focus on the public interest. Rowland is an expert on the financing of the care home sector, conflicts of interest in health, patient safety, the private finance initiative, and pandemic preparedness. He has argued publicly that for-profit healthcare creates tensions between financial interests and patient safety, and that around £1.5bn is taken out of the care home sector each year in returns to shareholders and investors. He appeared on BBC Panorama in April 2024 and on ITV News to discuss patient safety risks in private hospitals following the Paterson Inquiry report.

References

1. 1.Our People — Centre for Health and the Public Interest — Confirms Rowland as first Director of CHPI (appointed 2019), prior roles as Head of Policy at three national healthcare regulatory bodies, and research fellowship at UCL School of Public Policy; lists his areas of expertise.
2. 2.CHPI Director David Rowland responds to the Paterson Inquiry report — CHPI — Confirms Rowland joined CHPI in 2019 after over a decade in senior policy positions in the healthcare regulatory sector; evidences his media appearances on ITV News and written commentary in BMJ Opinion and The Independent on private hospital patient safety.
3. 3.Patient Safety in Private Hospitals — Centre for Health and the Public Interest — Evidences Rowland's appearance on BBC Panorama in April 2024 to discuss patient safety risks in private hospitals.
4. 4.CENTRE FOR HEALTH AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST (CHPI) — Charity Commission Register — Confirms CHPI's registered address (Pelican House, 148 Cambridge Heath Road, London E1 5QJ), phone number, and email.

Expertise

Cited on

• Hospital discharge / bed-blocking

Stated areas of expertise

• NHS privatisation and independent sector
• Patient safety in private hospitals
• Care home sector financing
• Conflicts of interest in healthcare
• Private Finance Initiative (PFI)
• Healthcare regulation policy

Notable achievements

• Led CHPI research estimating that around £1.5bn is extracted from the care home sector annually in returns to shareholders and investors, featured on BBC Newsnight. Source ↗
• Authored CHPI report (July 2024) examining the impact of outsourcing NHS-funded cataract care to the private sector on patients facing irreversible sight loss, staff training, and NHS eye care department finances. Source ↗
• Appeared on BBC Panorama (April 2024) and ITV News to discuss patient safety risks in private hospitals in the wake of the Paterson Inquiry report, and published commentary in BMJ Opinion and The Independent. Source ↗
• Co-authored CHPI analysis (March 2023) of NHS England's £2bn+ deal with the private hospital sector during COVID-19, using newly obtained activity data and the contracts themselves. Source ↗

What they’ve said

• “That part of gathering data took months, because obviously with freedom of information requests you have to go back and forth.”

  director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · Wednesday briefing: Over-budget and under-regulated – the NHS’s ADHD crisis ↗

• “The fact Palantir staff working on the contract have been granted NHS email addresses may not in itself amount to any rule breach and is likely to occur in other instances where private contractors run NHS services. But the strong reaction of NHS staff to the involvement of Palantir in the health service shows that there are deep ethical concerns that its values and way of making money run counter to the founding values of the NHS.”

  director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · Alarm in health service over Palantir staff being given NHS email accounts ↗

• “He said the fact that the government already capped profits that drug and defence firms that won public sector contracts could make showed that a similar system for NHS contracts was viable.”

  Director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest · Hospital discharge / bed-blocking · 27 Aug 2026 · Private firms providing services to NHS made £1.6bn profit in two years, research finds ↗

• “The use of private teleradiology companies to read NHS scans is growing rapidly. History shows that once the government hands these roles over to the private sector, they remain in private hands, taking income and revenue away from NHS hospitals and removing the opportunity to train the next generation of NHS staff.”

Source references

1. Wednesday briefing: Over-budget and under-regulated – the NHS’s ADHD crisistheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
2. Alarm in health service over Palantir staff being given NHS email accountstheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
3. Private firms providing services to NHS made £1.6bn profit in two years, research findstheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
4. NHS spends record £241m outsourcing scan analysis to private firmstheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Contact & links

• Staff pagehttps://www.chpi.org.uk/our-people
• LinkedInhttps://uk.linkedin.com/in/david-rowland-a3790217b
• Press office emailinfo@chpi.org.ukpublished here ↗
• Press office phone020 7324 4624published here ↗

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.