Hilary Cass: Planning to learn the saxophone

Biography

Hilary Cass, 55, has been president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health since 2012 and is a champion of better health services for children. The NHS is not getting it right, she argues, with standards slipping below those in similar countries and children dying or suffering unnecessarily because their illnesses are not properly diagnosed and treated. At Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, where she is a consultant in paediatric disability, she is involved in a scheme to move more care into the community, with a children’s health centre that draws on the skills of GPs and paediatricians.