[citation needed] Darzi's main clinical and academic interest is in minimally invasive surgery and allied technologies in which he and his team are internationally recognised.
[26] Largely implemented, it recommended the development of academic health science centres and the introduction of more primary services in one place: polyclinics.
Nick Clegg called it "the central imposition of a polyclinic on every primary care trust, regardless of the geography, demographics and clinical needs of the area".
However, his call for trauma, acute stroke and heart attack services to be centralised in specialist units succeeded and has been widely copied.
[30] Darzi was tasked with leading a national review to plan the course of the NHS over a decade, reporting to the Prime Minister, Chancellor, and Secretary of State for Health in June 2008.
The final report of the Review, High Quality Care for All, was published in June 2008 to considerable public and academic acclaim.
The Financial Times stated that it was "the world's most ambitious attempt to raise the quality and effectiveness of an entire nation's healthcare".
The plan for moving care from hospitals to GP-led polyclinics was quietly reversed when the costs became apparent, but his call for trauma, acute stroke and heart attack services to be centralised in specialist units was seen as successful and was widely copied.
The Prime Minister praised his "outstanding contribution"[34] while The Guardian said that:[35] Instead of waging war on the medics, as his Blairite predecessors had done, Darzi invited them to take a hand in designing their own targets and bound them into reform.
The NHS's morale improved, as did its public standing.Since 2018, Darzi has been leading the National Health Service’s Accelerated Access Collaborative.
[36] Darzi resigned as a Labour peer on 9 July 2019 to sit as an independent, citing alleged tolerance of antisemitism by the party leadership.
He added that it is "a source of intense pain and regret to me and my compatriots that our own government persists in denying the genocide out of fear of offending Turkey.
"[42] After July 2009, Lord Darzi returned to his clinical and academic work and has expanded his involvement in global health issues.
In November 2010, under David Cameron, Darzi became a United Kingdom Global Ambassador for Health and Life Sciences; a role he continued until 2012.
The London Health Commission which reported in October 2014 proposed the toughest measures seen in the UK to tackle the "obesity emergency" that leaves one in three 10-year-olds overweight or obese, including Ofsted-style ratings highlighting the best and worst schools at promoting healthy eating, and requiring chain restaurants to include "traffic light" calorie warnings on menus.
He called for the Mayor to rewrite the London Plan to give borough councils greater protection in banning takeaways from within 400m of the school gates.
[20] Darzi, along with Amal Clooney, was involved in the release of two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, from Myanmar on 7 May 2019.
[55] In January 2014, Darzi was awarded the Qatari sash of Independence by the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in recognition of his contribution to the development of Qatar's health sector.
[citation needed] Darzi was named by the Health Service Journal as the 38th most influential person in the English NHS in 2015.