This is the second appointment to an NHS Trust from the School of Medicine at Swansea University. Last week, Professor Julian Hopkin, Head of the School of Medicine and the Institute of Life Science, was appointed Non-Executive Director of the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University NHS Trust.

The Hywel Dda NHS Trust will be established and operational from April 01, 2008 and will provide health care services to the people previously covered by the Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion & Mid Wales and Pembrokeshire & Derwen NHS Trusts.

Professor Morgan previously specialized in Immunodeficiency in Children at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. He then became a Wellcome Trust Lecturer in Tropical Diseases for two years at the Medical Research Council (MRC) unit in The Gambia, West Africa. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Pathologists and Paediatrics and Child Health. He is a member of the European Society for Immunodeficiency (ESID), the Allergy, Infectious Diseases and Immunology Group of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the British Society of Immunology, the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and the Association of Clinical Pathologists. Professor Morgan is academic lead for the Welsh Children's Research Network and Board member of the UK Medicines for Children Research Network. He lives in Swansea.

The establishment of the Hywel Dda NHS Trust will allow more effective delivery of high quality health services to South-West Wales. Links with the new School of Medicine at Swansea University and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University NHS Trust will help foster research that will generate the medical and health care of tomorrow. Staff will be responsible for training health professionals including medical students from the innovative Graduate Entry Medical Degree Programme for Wales. This promises to enhance recruitment and retention of high quality healthcare staff for South-West Wales.