Richard is chair of the Point of Care Foundation, which promotes compassionate, dignified care, and Patients Know Best (a company that brings all medical and social care records together in one place under the control of patients), and a cochair of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death. From 1979 to 2004 he worked at the BMJ and was the editor of the journal and chief executive of the BMJ Publishing Group from 1991 until he left. From 2012 to 2018 he was the chair of icddr,b, which was formerly known as the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh.