Biography

London born Tony Kelly was raised in Jamaica and returned to England in 1979, living in Birmingham with his family ever since. As a Mico Teacher’s College graduate he taught English and Religious Education in Kingston high schools. He was voted by his peers as the 1976 final year batch president. Tony worked in local and central government for 30 years before early retirement as a middle manager of equity, equality, diversity and inclusion. Among his many qualifications is a socio-legal studies master’s degree from the University of Birmingham.

For nearly 8 years from June 2012 Tony was a Diabetes UK Community Champion devoting his time raising awareness in communities in Britain and further afield about health and well-being in relation to diabetes, in his case a hereditary medical condition. He is proud to have controlled his type 2 diabetes with physical activity and diet since diagnosis 21 years ago and has never taken medication, thus proving in some cases it can be done with the right mind-set, discipline and motivation.

In 2016 Dr Richard Mendelsohn, then the medical director – NHS Birmingham & Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group, now Integrated Care System (ICS) witnessed Tony asking probing questions at a South Asian Health Foundation diabetes conference and during the break invited him to join the National Diabetes Prevention Programme steering group which he chaired. Tony accepted and eventually his role as the organisation’s Diabetes Strategic Patient Partner was changed to that of Diabetes Ambassador/Activist.

Since 1^st October 2025 Tony has moved to a more strategic community focused role with Birmingham and Community Healthcare – NHS Foundation Trust.

Tony is in demand for radio/television interviews about type 2 diabetes and runs free workshops. He is featured in healthy lifestyle videos with some on the internet, emphasising his positive approach in managing/controlling his diabetes. In June 2018 Tony was interviewed live on BBC 2 TV to an audience of millions at Birmingham Queen Elizabeth Hospital as part of the National Health Service 70^th anniversary celebrations.

July 2018 Tony delivered diabetes sessions in Dominica with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Trust, raising awareness in particular of preventable sight loss from diabetes which is rampant there as well as in Belize, St. Lucia and Jamaica. He not only spoke on two occasions at the three-day Caribbean regional diabetes symposium to the healthcare professionals but was interviewed on three radio stations and visited many communities to engage with residents on healthy lifestyle initiatives. In June 2019 he visited Canada to raise awareness of this medical condition.

Tony was filmed in London in 2022 for a prostate cancer/enlargement awareness video aimed at engaging men who often struggle to discuss their medical issues/conditions: https://youtu.be/icSiLugHGZo 

The Birmingham University Sports and Leisure Centre where Tony has been an active member for the past 11 years featured him in 2022 on billboards across the city as well as a promotional podcast on their website highlighting his healthy approach in order to encourage and enable others to do likewise. This involved filming him doing physical activity in both the gym and swimming pool.

In 2023 the Lions Club of St. Elizabeth, South, Jamaica reached out to Tony seeking donations for their White Cane Campaign for visually impaired residents in that area. Friends and relatives of Tony raised £1707.00 and he purchased a vast range of equipment from Birmingham’s Queen Alexandra College for the Blind which he shipped to the island. An official thank-you letter from the Chair of the Lions Club was received along with photos.

At least 7 NHS Trusts have filmed Tony at various locations in Birmingham for their internal websites and Diabetes UK has done so at the London studio where BBC 1 Dragon’s Den is filmed.

Tony is currently a patient expert with two universities as a Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) representative.

1. Muscle health group; University of Birmingham.

2. Healthy Eating And Active Lifestyles For Diabetes (HEAL-D) – Leicester University.

Tony was one of two public members of the Scientific Advisory Board, UK – Coronavirus Immunology Consortium (UK-CIC) led by Birmingham University’s Professor Paul Moss, OBE during the pandemic and was on another Professor Moss led health group National Core Studies Immunity (NCSi).  He was a member of a COVID-19 research project led by Professor Ian Maidment, Aston University on community pharmacy literature review.  He is a co-author of The impact of patient and public involvement on COVID-19 immunology research experiences from the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium published online in the journal Research Involvement and Engagement.

The Panoramic Trial – A UK wide clinical study sponsored by the University of Oxford on Covid 19 medication aimed at avoiding hospitalization and funded by the National Institute of Health Research also had Tony as a public patient representative.

Since the start of 2024 Tony is a public patient involvement representative on a Professor Ian Maidment, Aston University led research project: independent prescribing in community pharmacy: what works for whom, why and in what circumstances (INTEGRATE).

Tony is the mentor for Eleanor Hoverd of Warwick University, Eleanor.Hoverd@warwick.ac.uk  a NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow focusing on Why Black African/Caribbean Diaspora communities are not involved in health and care research.

He averages 140 diabetes community engagements per year in Britain and in 2019 did a staggering 195. 

Tony wrote a monthly article for the free Phoenix Black newspaper for three years. He also wrote bi-monthly from January 2022 to December 2024 covering a range of topics for an online publication www.CaribDirect.com. He was the secretary of the West Midlands Jamaican Diaspora UK for four years to March 2022. For the past five years Tony has been one of the judges for the annual Patient Experience Network National Awards (PENNA) held yearly in October at Birmingham University after being headhunted in order to make the judging panel more diverse and representative of the wider community.

Tony is acknowledged for his contribution in the 2022 ground-breaking Birmingham and Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (BLACHIR) as well as in The African Cultural Group, Our Voices on Our Health, A Report on Women’s Focus Group Discussions, April 2023. He is one of 500 people featured in The Windrush Legacy Publication: Jamaicans in Britain – A Legacy of Leadership launched in 2022, the brainchild of the then Jamaica High Commissioner His Excellency Seth George Ramocan.

Pro-social modelling is Tony’s modus operandi as without fail he has the winter flu vaccination yearly since his diabetes diagnosis twenty-one years ago and had all the COVID-19 vaccinations and booster. He has presented on New Style radio during the pandemic to encourage its Black listenership to take the vaccination.

In November 2024 Tony was granted a certificate of honorary membership of Diabetes Clinicians of the Caribbean (DCC) after engaging with this group whilst on a self-sponsored diabetes tour of Jamaica.

Tony Is the editor of a video The Domino Effect, Play Domino, Talk Prostate, Save Lives by Joan Blaney, CBE, Hon.DEd, Pamela Campbell- Morris, project initiator & Leicester University targeting the Black community. The podcast has over 3000 You Tube hits since its July 2020 launch. He hosted Birmingham’s Break Tru TV ‘Our Health Is Our Wealth’ show interviewing several Black healthcare professionals & community activists on health-related topics following an initial podcast in June 2020 with over 2500 hits.     

Awards and Accolades

1. 2015 Diabetes UK Regional Campaigning & Raising Awareness Award.  

2. 2017 Diabetes UK Regional Reaching Out and Connecting Award.

3. 2017 Association of Jamaican Nationals Seven Heroes Award – contribution to the development of the Jamaican community & other nationals in Britain. 

4. 2017 Bexlive Award Community Champion: Celebrating People of Colour. 

5. 2017 Community Foundation: Community Inspiration Award, Health and Well-Being Award. Top 3 finalist.  

6. 2019 Award – Nation of Islam’s Sisters of Empowerment, Honouring, Remembering &Valuing Our Brothers with love as a diabetes ambassador.  

7. 2019 Vision2Reality Elders Award Health & Wellbeing Community Champion.  

8. 2020 NHS Parliamentary Award:  regional winner in a new category Health Equalities Award nominated by Steve McCabe MP.   

9. 2021 British Citizen Award for health – BCAh 

10. 2021 Mico Teachers’ College 185^th commemorative medal for services to the Jamaican Diaspora.

11. 2022 Black Honours Award – Lifetime Achievement for raising awareness of diabetes.

12. 2023 Duty to the community award – Birmingham Community Foundation: First runner-up.

13. 2023 UK Honour Award – Health and Well-being – Jamaica Weekly Gleaner/Radio Jamaica.

14. 2024 British Empire Medal (BEM) King’s birthday honours for ‘raising awareness of diabetes in the UK and abroad.’

15. 2024 one of 8 shortlisted finalists at the annual National Diversity Awards, lifetime achievement category held at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.

16. 2024 Diversity Power List of 2024 – 2025 one of fifty persons to make that all-important list.

17. 2025 Honorary doctor of science degree bestowed by Warwick University for his contribution in raising awareness of diabetes in Britain and globally as well as prostate cancer.

18. 2025 Potential Unlocked Award – Winner of the Inspirational Person of the Year.

19. 2025 Health Equity Campaign Champion Award – Black History Month Gala Awards – Manchester, Caribbean and African Health Network (CAHN).