Swearing in of new high offices at the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare

• The ceremony was presided over by the Minister of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare, Carmen Montón.
• Pilar Aparicio Azcárraga joins as Director General of Public Health, Quality and Innovation
• José Luis Sanchís Oliver is appointed as Technical Secretary General
• Rodrigo Gutiérrez Fernández assumes the Directorate General of Professional Planning
• Jesús Celada Pérez takes responsibility for the Directorate General of Policies for Support for people with Disabilities
• Marta Natividad García Pérez, heads the Directorate of the AECOSAN
• Ruth Carrasco Ruiz takes over the management of INJUVE
• Azucena Martí Palacios assumes the Government Office for the National Drugs Plan  
• María Jesús Lamas Díez has been appointed as the Director of the Agency of Medicines and Health Products

The Minister of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare, Carmen Montón, today presided over the swearing in ceremony of the new high offices of the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare. Specifically, Pilar Aparicio Azcárraga has been appointed Director General for Public Health, Quality and Innovation; José Luis Sanchís Oliver, Technical Secretary General; Rodrigo Gutiérrez Fernández, Director General of Professional Planning; Jesús Celada Pérez, Director General of Policies for Support for People with Disabilities; Marta Natividad García Pérez, Director of the AECOSAN; Ruth Carrasco Ruiz, director of INJUVE, Azucena Martí Palacios, Delegate of the Government Office for the National Drugs Plan and María Jesús Lamas Díez, Director of the Agency of Medicines and Health Products.

DIRECTOR GENERAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, QUALITY AND INNOVATION 

Pilar Aparicio Azcárraga is a Doctor of Medicine from the University Complutense of Madrid, specialist in Internal Medicine and has a Degree in Tropical Medicine (CNMT). Since September 2015 she has been the director of the National School of Health (ENS) of the Carlos III Institute for Health (ISCIII) and Director of the Combined Research Institute IMIENS formed from an agreement between the ISCIII and the UNED. Throughout her professional career she has assumed various tasks in clinical-care roles (University Hospital of Móstoles; Hospital T. Álvarez de Buenos Aires), research applied to the epidemiology in infectious diseases (National Centre of Microbiology of the ISCIII, Central Laboratory for Public Health in England), teaching and activities related to international public health and technical scientific cooperation, aimed at the strengthening of the public health systems and the control of communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases, from multilateral organisations including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and from the ISCIII in different countries in Latin America and Africa.

TECHNICAL GENERAL SECRETARY

José Luis Sanchís Oliver is a graduate in Economic Sciences from the University of Valencia. A career civil servant for the Regional Government of Valencia from the General Administration Manager corps Group A1. A civil servant from the Technical Corps of the Tax Office since 1979 (on leave of absence since 1984). 

With an established career in national, autonomous and local Administration, he held different posts at the Regional Government of Valencia, of varying levels of responsibility, including that of General Administration Manager since 1984. 

Since July 2015 to date, he has occupied the post of deputy Director- General of Economic Resources for the Regional Ministry of Universal Healthcare and Public Health of the Regional Government of Valencia.

DIRECTOR GENERAL OF PROFESSIONAL PLANNING  

Rodrigo Gutiérrez Fernández is a graduate in medicine and Surgery from the University Complutense in Madrid. He holds diplomas in Health (National School of Health ), hospital management (National School of Health -UCLM) and a Masters in Public Top Management (Ortega y Gasset University Institute-UCM). He also has a diploma in Bioethics (National School of Health ) and is an expert in Policy Evaluation and the Quality of Public Services (AEVAL-UCM). Between 2013 and 2015 he was the Head of service of the Directorate-General of Public Health for the Regional Ministry of Health and Social Affairs of the Regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha. Prior to this, he was the head of service of primary care resources, the Directorate-General of Quality of Care and Customer Service and the Secretary General of the Castilla-La Mancha Health Service (SESCAM).

DIRECTOR GENERAL OF POLICIES FOR SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Jesús Celada Pérez is a Surveying, Geodesy and Cartography Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and holds a Diploma in Advanced Studies from the same university. He studied as a telecommunications engineer at the Carlos III University of Madrid. He has completed the University Masters in Leadership and Public Management from the Ministry of Public Administrations and the International Menéndez Pelayo University. He has also worked as an associate lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and at the European University of Madrid.

In 2005, after passing the national entrance exams to the Geographical Engineering Corps with the top mark, he joined the National Geographical Institute as section head of Computer Systems. In 2011 he joined the Royal Disability Trust where he worked as technical advisor responsible for relations between the organisation and civil society organised around disabilities. In 2015, he was appointed deputy Director-general of Civil Dialogue of the Directorate-General of Policies for Support for People with Disabilities where he directed the Secretaries of the Foundation of the National Centre for Accessibility Technologies, of the Board of Trustees of the ONCE and of the Board of Trustees of the Spanish Red Cross.

DIRECTOR OF THE SPANISH AGENCY FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD SAFETY AND NUTRITION (AECOSAN)

Marta Natividad García Pérez is a Graduate in Veterinary Sciences from the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences in Leon, and has been a civil servant with the Corps of Veterinarians since 1986,. She has held several posts of responsibility in different departments of the General State Administration in Health and Agriculture. Until now, she was Deputy director-general for Biodiversity of the Directorate.General of the Environment and Forest Policy of the Ministry of the Environment, and Rural and Marine Affairs. Ms Garcia has experience in the management and organisation of food safety controls at the Border Inspection Posts and in the coordination of the national food chain official control programmes.

DIRECTOR OF INJUVE

Ruth Carrasco Ruiz is a Vocational Training teacher. With a diploma in Business Science, a Latin American Masters in International Cooperation and Development; and Masters in the Training of Teaching Staff specialising in Economics and Training and Occupational Guidance from the University of Cantabria.

She was a member of the Standing Commission of the Youth Council for Cantabria and member of the National Executive of the Federation of Young Women in Spain. She was also a Member of Parliament for Cantabria (2005-2011) and representative of the NGO Cooperation Assembly for Peace in Brussels.

DELEGATE OF THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE FOR THE NATIONAL DRUGS PLAN

Azucena Martí Palacios is a graduate in Psychology from the University of Valencia (1982) and a specialist in Clinical Psychology (2007). Since 2003 she has worked as a clinical psychologist at the Addictive Behaviour Unit in Vall d'Uixa. Department of Health, Hospital de la Plana, as a member of the permanent statutory staff. Since 2015 she has held the post of regional director of Health in the province of Castellón.

She was also the president of Socidrogalcohol, in the Community of Valencia, from 2008 to 2012, and from 2011 to 2015 she worked as a councillor for the city council of Vall d`Uixa.

DIRECTOR OF THE AGENCY OF MEDICINES AND HEALTH PRODUCTS

María Jesús Lamas Díez is a Doctor of Pharmacy (Extraordinary Award) from the University of Santiago de Compostela, she is a specialist in hospital pharmacy and is accredited as a clinical pharmacist in Oncology by the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialities (BPS) and the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA).

To date, she has directed the Pharmaceutical Service of the University Hospital Complex of Santiago (CHUS), while also coordinating the Area of Platforms and Methodology of the Institute of Health Research in Santiago (IDIS – ISCIII). She was also director of Research for the Spanish Association of Hospital Pharmacy (SEFH) from 2012 to 2016.

As a researcher, she led the Clinical Pharmacological Research Group of the IDIS – ISCIII and worked as the leading researcher on 12 projects, highlighting the project, Biology of systems in the characterisation of the response to biological drugs in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. Coordinator and Lecturer for the Masters of Pharmaceutical Oncology at the University of Valencia, she was a lecturer for the Masters of Hereditary Metabolic Diseases at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

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