Dr Josep Maria Argimon, a member of teaching staff for the University Master’s Degree in Healthcare Management at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, has recently been named as the new Minister for Health for the Government of Catalonia. This means that the soon-to-be former Public Health Secretary will be taking over from Alba Vergés.

Josep Maria Argimon holds a PhD in medicine from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and specialised in preventative medicine and public health at the Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge. Dr Argimon also holds a diploma in epidemiology and statistics from the Pierre & Marie Curie University (France) and two master's degrees, one in evidence-based healthcare and epidemiology from the University of Oxford, and one in health and public service management from the University of South Wales (United Kingdom). He is the author of several books and articles related to epidemiology, healthcare planning and public health.

As an expert in healthcare management, Argimon has also been managing director of the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS) as well as holding several managerial positions as part of the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut). Since 2018 he has been manager of the Catalan Healthcare Institute (ICS) and since 2020, he has also been Public Health Secretary for the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya. He dovetails this work with lecturing on the Master's Degree in Health Management for the subjects of Healthcare Planning and Public Health.

Image: ©Pere Tordera