LONDON — Hanover has made structural and leadership changes within its healthcare division, Hanover Health, in London, bringing the specialist public affairs and communications practices together into one team.

Until now, the public affairs and communications practices have been run separately. The move comes as senior director James Woodhouse, who has led the London health public affairs practice since January last year, completes his fixed-term contract with the agency. Woodhouse will continue to provide senior counsel to clients before setting up his own consulting business.

Senior directors Alex Davies and Emma Gorton (pictured) will lead the 35-strong London Health Team, reporting to managing director Andrew Harrison, who set up the health practice at Hanover nearly 20 years ago.

Davies joined the agency in 2017 and has also worked at specialist agency Tonic Life Communications and in-house at AstraZeneca and the Royal College of Nursing. Gorton also joined Hanover three years ago and previously spent nearly six years at Ogilvy Healthworld.

Harrison said: “Today’s environment of pioneering science and cost containment pressures means that clients are increasingly asking for a combination of health policy, access, and communications expertise to succeed. Many clients are organising internally in this way. Clients want experts, not generalists, and so we are retaining our award-winning specialist teams but bringing them closer together under a single leadership structure to help us go even further and faster in the future.”

As well as the new combined London team, Hanover Health includes the international policy and access team in Brussels led by senior director Emma Eatwell, and the agency’s healthcare practices in Dublin and the Middle East. The division has grown by more than 20% every year for the past four years, and worked for around 15 of the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies.