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We are delighted to announce that Liam O’Toole, Chief Executive of Versus Arthritis, will become the new Chair of the Richmond Group of Charities from September. Liam is taking over from Chris Askew, who’s two-year term in the post has come to an end.

Over those two years we have entered into new partnerships with the Royal College of General Practitioners, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity via our ‘Taskforce on Multiple Conditions’. This has enabled us to collectively highlight the lived experience of people who have multiple conditions and the changes needed by health and care systems. And we have begun the conversation among Richmond Group members about how we deploy our own information offers to meet the complexity of needs of people living with many conditions.

We have reinforced and grown existing collaborations through our work on physical activity with Sport England and are hugely excited about the current ‘We are Undefeatable’ campaign to promote the benefits of exercise for people with long term conditions.

We thank Chris for his leadership over the last two years and look forward to continuing to collaborate both across the Richmond Group and beyond.

Liam said of his appointment, ‘I’m delighted to become Chair of the Richmond Group. Our 14 organisations have been working collaboratively for a number of years to improve the health and wellbeing of people with long term and many long term conditions, including making sure that health and care services provide the support that is needed. We will continue to make the case for ensuring that our beneficiaries are able to access support and care. But we will also hold up a mirror to ourselves, and think about how we, too, as a collection of 14 national organisations with many local connections, can also work together differently. Collaboration will remain at the heart of our activities. I believe there remain many opportunities – not least through the NHS Long Term Plan – for us to work together to improve people with long term and many long term conditions’ health and wellbeing.’

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