An employee from each of Groundwork UK, British Red Cross and Action for Children have been selected to take part in a joint UK/India healthcare challenge supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Common Purpose.

Katherine Bryant, support manager (governance) at Groundwork UK; Alison Dixey, operations director at the British Red Cross and Louise Warde Hunter, strategic director for children’s services in Scotland and Northern Ireland at Action for Children are among 40 emerging leaders from the UK and India that have been chosen to be part of Dishaa, a four-day challenge to solve a particular healthcare problem in India and the UK.

The challenge, set by Dr Devi Shetty, (pictured) a member of the Dishaa Advisory Group, is to determine what systemic change would be required to make heart surgery at US$1,000 a possibility in both India and the UK.

Dishaa, which means ‘direction’ in Hindi, will take place every year for five years with a different group of emerging leaders each year. Launched by Prime Minister and Dishaa patron David Cameron on 28 July 2010, Dishaa is an initiative that aims to expand, enrich and energise relations between India and the UK.

Yesterday, the first 40 leaders from the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK and India gathered in Pune, India to start the challenge.  According to Common Purpose, the backdrop is heart surgery and public health, but the objective is to explore how social, economic, design and technological innovation, with leaders working across sectors and borders, can facilitate positive change.

The scheme is sponsored by Barclays, Kingfisher Airlines, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tilda, United Business Media and Tata.  UK participants must pay a £3,000 fee to cover their food, travel, accommodation and materials though flights to India will be donated by Kingfisher Airlines.  Some bursaries are available.

The group will present their solutions in a report to be published at the end of February.