Professor Sir Ian Kennedy LLD

* Professor Sir Ian Kennedy LLD is an academic lawyer who, for the past few decades, has lectured and written on the law and the ethics of healthcare. He is currently Chairman of the new Healthcare Commission.

* A member of the GMC for nine years, he was Professor of Health Law, Ethics and Policy at the School of Public Policy, University College of London. He is a former President of the Centre of Medical Laws and Ethics at King’s College London, which he founded in 1978.

* He has been a member of the Medicines Commission and the Department of Health’s advisory group on AIDS, Chairman of the public inquiry into paediatric cardiac surgery at Bristol, a government inquiry (1997), into xenotransplantation (the use of animal-to-human transplants), and an inquiry (1998) that recommended changing the law relating to quarantine for animals being brought into the UK from abroad.

* He is an Honorary Fellow of the RCGP (2002) and RCP (2003) and was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Glasgow in July 2003. In April 2004 he received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal College of Anaesthetists in May 2004.