Dr Rajesh Patel is registered with the HPCSA as a Specialist Family Physician with 37 years’ experience in the health sector.

Dr Patel is the Head of the Health System Strengthening Department at the BHF. He advises the body on health policy, medical scheme benefits, healthcare quality and affordability. His career includes working as a GP/family physician for seven years, from 1988 to 1995. After leaving private practice he joined the medical aid industry.

His roles in the medical scheme sector include having served as a medical advisor, scheme manager, and in clinical risk management. Prior to joining the BHF in 2005 Dr Patel spent two and a half years in the pharmaceutical industry. His special interests are quality assurance, value-based medicine, and application of public health principles in health risk management in the private sector.

He was a member of the ministerial Health Data Advisory and Co-ordinating Committee (HDACC), and was appointed as a Commissioner to the Lancet National Commission (SA). He was a nonexecutive director of the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA) and Health Quality Assessment (HQA), as well as a former Chairperson of the Clinical Review Committee of HQA.