Professor Andrew Rowland

Current positions

Honorary Professor of Children's Rights, Law, and Advocacy

Biography

 Andrew has a portfolio career as a Lead Employer Medical Director, Consultant in Children's Emergency Medicine, Honorary Professor (Children’s Rights, Law, and Advocacy), Non-Executive Director of an international non-governmental organisation (M'Lop Tapang) and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of a registered charity in England and Wales (SicKids). He has over 17 years of national, and over ten years of international, clinical and leadership experience and expertise. This includes eight years in non-executive board level director roles in multi-million Euro and multi-million Dollar organisations. Andrew's Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree was in children’s rights, law, and advocacy and explored "building child safe communities with children and young people at their hearts". Andrew has clinical and research interests in the development of early warning systems in emergency medicine and safeguarding vulnerable people.

In 2014 Andrew was awarded a prestigious Fellowship for life by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and in 2016 he won the Pol Roger Prize for his Fellowship: Living on a Railway Line. In 2017 Andrew was awarded the Association Medal by the British Medical Association in recognition of his distinguished service to the Association and his contribution to medicine. In 2019 Andrew was awarded the Gold Decoration of Honour by the European Union of Medical Specialists to recognise his dedicated work for European Medical Specialists.

Andrew has provided advice to two governments in South East Asia about establishing a countrywide child protection training strategy and launching improved multi-agency partnerships and investigations of potential cases of child abuse. He has devised internationally-orientated training on the recognition of, and response to, potential cases of child abuse, which he has delivered to representatives of the UNHCR, UNICEF, overseas Diplomatic Missions, overseas High Commissions, and the UK National Crime Agency. Further, as part of a small, invited group of senior professionals Andrew contributed to advice given to a government in Central America about the potential evaluation of new proposals designed to improve childhood morbidity and mortality in the country. Andrew has contributed to the development of recommendations at the International Federation for Emergency Medicine to introduce safeguarding (child protection) standards into emergency departments around the world. He has been a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Pro-bono Medical Panel since 2013.

From 2013-2019 Andrew was the appointed Head of the UK delegation to the Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes (UEMS). In 2018 he led a team to secure the continued full membership of the UK within UEMS, regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations between the UK government and the remaining EU27 States.

Andrew is the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the SicKids charity he founded in 2015. SicKids (registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales: 1164131) operates internationally between the North West of England and Cambodia. SicKids has worked to improve outcomes for disabled children and those living with asthma in South West Cambodia; and it has launched a unique collaboration between the UK and Cambodia to install state-of-the-art children’s Sensory Spaces in both countries. From 2013 to 2020 Andrew was a member of the British Medical Association International Committee and was Deputy Chair of the committee from 2016 to 2019.

Areas of research

Children's Advocacy, Children's Emergency Medicine Early Warning Scores, Children's Rights, Safeguarding Vulnerable Children, Building ChildSafe Communities