She was elected to the position at the family safety charity’s annual general meeting in Birmingham today (November 15) and succeeds Lord McKenzie of Luton, who held the post for six years.

Baroness Judith Jolly is a Liberal Democrat life peer and a champion of the health agenda. Baroness Jolly made her maiden speech on health within a week of being introduced to the House of Lords in 2011.

Since then, she acted as co-chairman of the Health and Social Care Team in the coalition government, became a government whip with responsibilities for Health, Defence, Equalities, and Culture, Media and Sport, and became health and social care spokesperson after the general election in 2017. At present, Baroness Jolly serves as a health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.

Baroness Jolly was also appointed non-executive director for an NHS trust for mental health and learning disability, and then an NHS primary care trust, finally chairing the North and East Cornwall NHS Primary Care Trust board prior to the last NHS reorganisation in 2006. She was additionally a lay inspector for the Commission for Health Improvement.

In 2016 she took the role of chairman of Hft, a charity providing services to more than 2,500 adults with learning disabilities, and is a trustee of Orthopaedic Research UK.

Baroness Jolly was invited to the RoSPA Presidential team as Deputy President in February after The Lord Brougham and Vaux CBE stood down, joining Lord McKenzie and Lord Jordan of Bourneville CBE.

She said: “I’m extremely pleased to be elected as President of RoSPA. It has a long and distinguished history, and has been at the forefront of injury prevention for the past 103 years. I’m thrilled to be able to help the society and its talented team continue this tradition, as it seeks to achieve its vision of life, free from serious accidental injury.”

RoSPA chief executive Errol Taylor said: “We’re delighted to welcome Baroness Jolly as our President, and we know that she will do a great job of helping us to raise the profile of injury prevention as a vitally-important public health issue.

“Every year around 14,000 people die due to an accident, and unintentional injury places huge burdens on our health and social care services and has a major impact on our economy through lost working time, not to mention causing extreme heartache for the individuals, families and the wider networks affected.

“I also want to thank Lord McKenzie for his six years’ exceptional service as RoSPA President.”

RoSPA’s annual review and financial statements for 2018/19 are now available on www.rospa.com/annualreview