Professor Kamlesh Khunti amongst the top 20 most influential GPs in Britain
(23 March 2010)

Professor Kamlesh Khunti, Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester, has been selected amongst the top 20 most influential GPs in Britain. Health journal 'Pulse' published a list of the country’s most influential GPs past, present and future after consulting with leaders of the profession.Kamlesh Khunti has been a full time general practitioner in inner city Leicester since 1990. He was appointed to the University of Leicester as a part-time Lecturer in the Department of General Practice & Primary Health Care in 1992 and was appointed as a full time Senior Clinical Lecturer in 2004.

Professor Khunti, who originates from Gujarat, India, said: "It is always pleasing to see that the work that we have been conducting in Leicester is being recognised nationally and internationally. I feel the main reason for making this list is that the research group that Professor Melanie Davies and I lead has produced some national and international research which has influenced health care policy including the Department of Health's Vascular Health Checks Programme and the Patient Self Management Education Programmes."

He completed a programme of work on the primary care epidemiology and management of diabetes which led to his MD thesis and then a programme of work on heart failure for which he was awarded his PhD. From this beginning he has focused on the interplay between diabetes and ethnicity, an interest which is leading to investigation of the aetiology of type 2 diabetes as well as studies of screening and management. He leads a research group in the Department of Health Sciences that works in close collaboration with Department of Cardiovascular Sciences. This cross-department collaborative group is undertaking important research into the early identification and intervention in people with diabetes and pre-diabetes.

Professor Khunti chairs the Department of Health-RCGP Classification of Diabetes Working Group and is a member of the NICE – Quality and Outcome Framework Panel. He sits on the Diabetes UK Research Committee. He has been a member of DoH/MRC Research Advisory Committee and is currently an advisor to the National Screening Committee on Vascular Risk. He was founding member of the Primary Care Diabetes Society and is secretary of the Primary Care Study Group of the European Society of Diabetes (EASD).

He was on the expert reference group of the National Service Framework for diabetes and is the RCGP Representative for the Quality and Outcomes Framework Review Panel for Cardiovascular disease. He was awarded the RCGP’s John Fry Award for Research for 2001. This award is awarded to a young member or fellow of the RCGP who has promoted the discipline of general practice through research. He was also awarded the Mary McKinnon Lecture at the 2006 Diabetes UK Annual Professional Conference.

The list is published to mark the 50th anniversary of the magazine and appears here.