Dr Lia Ali
Clinical Advisor, Transformation Directorate, NHS England
Dr Lia Ali is a doctor and digital health strategist with extensive experience across the spectrum of digital healthcare. She is passionate about ethics and safety by design, patient centred care and long term conditions including mental health and have particular interests in integrated care and medical education. She believes that delivery of exemplary healthcare requires a holistic, biopsychosocial, service design approach. Lia has done this via transformation roles in the NHS, charities & for-profit sector.
Sarah Amani
Chief Nursing Information Officer, Dorset HealthCare University NHS FT
Sarah Amani is a mental health nurse and clinical manager with 18 years’ experience of leading transformation programmes across teams and organisations, with a focus on working collaboratively with people who use services and staff to improve their experience and outcomes. Sarah is currently working as Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust and has previously worked as Senior Programme Manager for NHS England (South). Her programmes of work have previously been highly commended by the HSJ for ‘Innovation in Mental Health’, E-Health Insider for ‘Excellence in Mobile Health Technology’ and NHS Leadership Academy for ‘Digital Health Champion of The Year’. When she is not working, Sarah enjoys travelling and aerial photography using recreational drones.
Liz Ashall-Payne
CEO and Co-Founder, ORCHA
Liz founded ORCHA in 2015, determined to offer necessary guidance to app developers to help raise app quality, and help the public and professionals to confidently find and apply apps to improve health outcomes. Initially a Speech and Language Therapist, Liz has almost 20 years’ NHS experience. She has led innovative change in complex health economies. Through working collaboratively within the Public Sector, Industry and Academia, she has led regional, national and European change programmes and networks to deliver transformational shift.
Anna Awoliyi
CNIO Nursing and AHP, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust
Anna Awoliyi currently works in Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals as a CNIO Nursing and Allied Health, currently working on the EPR, Digital champions with a keen focus on staff digital literacy and development. She began her digital journey at Kettering General Hospital (KGH) in 2017 as a Transformation Programme Manager where her team was presented with an innovation award from NHS Improvement. Anna was the Finalist for the CNIO of the year 2021. Anna has also featured in The Nursing Times on current technology and healthcare topics.
In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, she implemented virtual visiting, which is an electronic system for patients to speak with their loved ones via video using a computer or tablet.
The Digital Director at Kettering General Hospital stated, “We are very proud and inspired by all the work that Anna has done on the virtual visiting project. She has been fundamental in virtual visiting being delivered and developed and it was her passion and enthusiasm that helped get this embedded on the wards at the height of the Covid Pandemic. This is a great example of a how a digital solution can help to aid and support our patients and their families during these difficult times”.
Anna claimed top spot in the “digital champion” section of the BAME Health and Care Awards 2021, which recognises the contribution.
Finally, Anna has a keen interest in digital inequalities and hopes to continue to advocate for patients and staff voices.
Neil Bacon
Principle and Lead: EMEA Health and Public Sector; Adobe Digital Strategy Group
During his time working with Health and Public Sector, he has been a key player in the expansion of G Cloud, led user sessions to redesign CCS frameworks, the alignment of security classifications across Public Sector to assist sharing of information and commonality of language, a member of the Government’s PSN Board, co-writer of the paper that led to the current design of HSCN, part of the HR and Finance Global Principles project including Metis.
In his spare time, Neil has run Charities and Health organisations focussed on delivering help and care running services like Healthwatch and Signposting services on behalf of the NHS. Neil has seen first-hand the value that data can bring to the elderly and vulnerable, especially when it’s symbiotically joining human and digital services for example AI or experience driven technology. When not working Neil can often be found Sailing with his family.
Neil’s background includes a blend of Leadership and Consulting. Neil is proud to work in Adobe’s Digital Strategy Group (DSG), which is the Adobe in house strategy group and leads much of the DSG work in Public Sector and Health around Data Driven Operating Models and value-based execution. He has also held senior roles in PwC and Accenture.
Dr Minal Bakhai
Director of Primary Care Transformation, NHS England
Dr Minal Bakhai is the Director of Primary Care Transformation at NHS England. She is a practicing GP, working at an inner-city London practice for over 12 years.
Minal has a unique portfolio with experience stretching across policy, national programme strategy, research and implementation. Additionally, she is an expert advisor at NICE appraising the effectiveness and safety of digital tools used in primary care to reduce preventable ill health and empower patients.
She is passionate about harnessing the power of technology to support the delivery of a vibrant, high quality, sustainable general practice and developing a shared learning system to ensure the use of digital tools meet the challenges of our population.
Helen Balsdon
Acting CNIO, NHS England
Helen’s work seeks to ensure that nursing practice is supported by digital technology and data science and that nurses are equipped to work and lead in an digitally enabled environment. Helen is also responsible for the digital clinical safety strategy and interoperable medicines programme.
Prior to joining the team, Helen was CNIO/Head of Nursing at Cambridge University Hospitals. This was a strategic role working across the organisation providing clinical leadership for all aspects of informatics including adoption and use of new ways of working using technology.
Helen is passionate about using technology to support the delivery of high quality, evidence-based care and empowering patients in managing their own health record.
Fran Beadle
Chief Nursing Information Officer, Digital Health and Care Wales, NHS Wales
Fran is employed by Digital Health and Care Wales advising on the standardisation and digitalisation of nursing documentation across Wales supporting the delivery of a “Once for Wales” electronic health record collaborating with government and national nursing leaders. Leading to NHS Wales winning the Nursing Times award for Technology and Data in Nursing, 2020 and Winners of BCS Leading Health Care project 2021.
Fran holds a MSc in Health Informatics alongside her Registered Nurse qualification, chairs the British Computer Society specialist nursing committee, in addition to representing Wales on the Five Nations Digital Nursing and Midwifery Leadership Group.
Claire Bevan
Claire retired as the Executive Director of Nursing & Quality in the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust in December 2019. A Registered General Nurse with 41 years` of experience working across Health Boards and Trusts in NHS Wales in senior professional leadership and management roles. Extensive experience with a wide range of services, clinical specialities and corporate functions (resource management, workforce and strategic planning): education, audit, research & development, patient experience, patient safety, safeguarding, infection prevention & control, quality assurance and improvement.
She specialised in Cardiac Nursing (WNB); with a Diploma in Nursing, Bachelor of Nursing Degree and Msc in Leadership for Health Services Improvement (Birmingham University). Claire is an active Executive Coach and Mentor (level 7) and NLP Practitioner.
Claire is the Senior Responsible Owner for the digitalisation of nursing documentation project in NHS Wales – The Welsh Nursing Care Record (adult). This important programme of work is informing the development of the electronic patient record. She has continued to support and represent the NHS Wales Directors of Nursing & Midwifery leading and engaging with the digital priorities within their work plan. Claire works collaboratively, focusing on applying quality and standards to improve patient, carer and staff experiences, using information and data to drive improvements, learning and outcomes to realise the benefits of working digitally.
In addition, her personal journey involved caring for a member of her family living with her, with Alzheimer’s disease, and this led her to advocate for older people and carers. She is passionate about making the difference for older people and applying her experience as the Chair of the Audit & Risk Assurance Committee for the Older Peoples Commissioner (Wales).
In the 2022 New Year’s Honours, Claire was awarded as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) being recognised for her services to Nursing and Patient Care.
Dr Sarah Blake
Cardiology Registrar, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital
Dr Sarah Blake is a cardiology registrar at St Thomas’ Hospital, specialising in congenital heart disease and cardiac imaging. She completed her medical training in Bristol in 2012 and obtained a PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2016. She is the Women in Cardiology Representative for the BJCA and is one of the first cohort of AI clinical fellows, where she is deploying AI software to aid the interpretation of medical imaging.
Markus Bolton
Executive Director, Graphnet Health
Markus co-founded System C in 1983 and has almost 40 years’ experience as a director of IT companies. He took System C into the healthcare market in 1993, and has specialised in health and social care software ever since.
As joint CEO of System C, Markus has had overall responsibility for all areas of the business over the years. He currently leads on business strategy, sales, customer and partner relationships and finance.
Markus is also a director and major shareholder of Graphnet Health – the market leader in integrated care record and population health solutions for ICSs.
Lucy Boot
Digital Midwife, UHNM
Madhukar Bose
Deputy Head of Healthcare: Digital Health, Department for International Trade
Madhukar is responsible for growing exports and investment for the UK in digital health, worldwide. He has led ground-breaking initiatives such as the Digital Health demonstrator in China, the Healthcare AI Catalyst in India and trade missions to Brazil, the USA, UAE, China and India. His management consulting experience includes working with clients such as the DHSC, the NHS, Roche, Novartis and Pfizer. He has set up a Telehealth venture in India and is an MBA alumnus of the Cranfield School of Management.
Tim Brazier
Managing Director, Thrive by Design (Part of Leeds and York NHS Trust)
In his previous role as Head of Service Design at digital and social inclusion charity Good Things Foundation, Tim led on the re-design of community spaces through the NHS Widening Digital Participation programme.
Antonia Brown
Deputy Chief Nursing Information Officer, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust
Antonia is a District Nurse, currently working as Digital Transformation Clinical Lead at Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust. She has recently implemented an innovative visit allocation system for community nursing Sussex-wide. She chairs a national user network for the EPR in use at her Trust. She has recently been awarded a Florence Nightingale Foundation Digital Scholarship, through which she plans to produce a blueprint for visit allocation automation. She is a Queens Nurse, committed to the delivery of outstanding patient care in the community.
Lucy Brown
Director of Nursing and Midwifery Leadership Development, Florence Nightingale Foundation
Lucy started her nursing career at Guys and St Thomas’ specialising in Paediatric Intensive Care before moving to Australia where she worked in the Royal Childrens Hospital in Brisbane. While in post Lucy joined the paediatric retrieval service working alongside the Royal Flying Doctors service and also completed her MSc winning an award for her thesis on reducing the risks of barotrauma in the PICU patient. This also gained her a place with the Golden Key International Honour Society where only the top 15% of global academic students are invited to join.
Lucy joined Bupa on returning to the UK working in a numerous clinical leadership roles. Lucy designed and developed the Leading Clinical Excellence programme for Bupa receiving a global award for her work.
Lucy then went on to work for Circle Health group as a Director of Nursing supporting the NHS resilience work on the frontline.
Lucy joined the FNF in June 2021 and has overall responsibility for the delivery of the educational workstreams including the Nightingale Frontline service, Academy membership and alumni offering. Lucy’s vision for the FNF is to continue to deliver visionary and transformational leadership opportunities to continually raise the nurses and midwifery voice. This is critical to ensure we as a nursing and midwifery community have impact on patient health outcomes and population health.
Beverley Bryant
Chief Digital Information Officer, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS FT & Kings College Hospital NHS FT
Beverley is Chief Digital Information Officer at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts, a dual board-level role.
Previously, she has held various roles in the NHS and in industry including as Director of Digital Technology at NHS England, leading national initiatives including Tech Funds and Patient Online post the NPfIT era. She led the creation of NHS Choices in 2007, whilst Chief Information Officer at DH.
Beverley is also Founding Ambassador of One HealthTech, a network that promotes diversity in health technology skills in the UK.
Dr Nicola Byrne
National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care
Dr Nicola Byrne is the National Data Guardian for health and adult social care in England, having been appointed to the role in March 2021 by Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Dr Byrne has a 20 year background working in mental health, and retains her clinical role as a consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to becoming National Data Guardian, she held positions as the trust’s Deputy Medical Director, Caldicott Guardian and Chief Clinical Information Officer.
Robin Carpenter
Senior Research Data Governance Manager (AI ethics and governance lead), London Medical Imaging & Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value Based Healthcare
After witnessing how poor standards can impact patients the hardest, Robin has worked with clinicians, researchers, and patients to develop frameworks that elevate the standards of medical AI. Robin leads the governance and ethics for the AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare, lectures at King’s College London on AI Law and Ethics, and is a member of the Charted Institute of IT.
Paul Charnley
Digital Lead, Healthy Wirral Partners
Prior to that, Paul transitioned from CIO at Wirral Hospital to the Digital Lead role in the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership (now ICS) to direct a set of shared programmes. These included a Longitudinal Care Record, Population Health Management, Personal Health Records, Digital Maturity in organisations and Infrastructure and Cyber Security. These were in response to national and regional strategic objectives funded by initiatives such as the Health Service Led Investment (HSLI) which Paul helped shape as a CIO at one of the Global Digital Exemplars. During the Pandemic, Paul took on the added roles of coordinating the digital response which included the shift to remote consultation and the testing and outbreak management using a population health management system and then vaccination.
He was very pleased to be voted CIO of the year for 2021 by DigitalHealth.com and was awarded the Cyber Leaders award by NHS Digital’s Cyber Associate Network in 2022.
Jacqui Cooper
CNIO, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
I am a registered nurse with a clinical background in neonatal nursing. My positions have been staff nurse, ward manager and matron through to the role of Chief Nursing Informatics Officer. I have been a CNIO in 3 organisations over the last 8 years, working with varied providers and supporting 3 go lives. I am involved in regional and national groups supporting the digital nursing profile. I am passionate about ensuring nurses have an equal voice in the digital arena to ensure that information systems support nursing and allow more time for patient care, thereby reducing risk and improving quality and safety.
In currently work at Manchester Foundation Trust as Group Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, leading the digital programme for nurses locally, regionally and at national level. I am responsible for strategic and operational nursing leadership in the development, deployment, re-engineering, optimisation and integration of clinical information systems to support nursing and patient care.
Rich Corbridge
CIO, Boots
Rich Corbridge is globally recognised in healthcare and digital technology. Rich joined Boots in 2019 as the Director of Innovation to transform the customer experience of visiting Boots stores. In 2020, Rich took on a new role as Chief Information Officer at Boots and is now the driving force behind the IT team. In October 2020 Rich was recognised #27 in the CIO 100 Awards which celebrate the most transformational CIOs in the UK.
Saffron Cordery
Interim Chief Executive, NHS Providers
Saffron is NHS Providers deputy chief executive, and part of the senior management team. She has experience in policy development, influencing and communications and has worked in the healthcare sector since 2007. Before moving into healthcare, Saffron was head of public affairs at the Local Government Association, the voice of local councils in England. Her early career focused on influencing EU legislation and policy development, and she started working life in adult and community education.
Dom Cushnan
Director of AI, Imaging and Deployment, NHS England
Dominic Cushnan joined the NHS in 2014 and is currently Head of AI Imaging for the NHS AI Lab.
Dominic previously founded a technology company specialising in computer vision and human interface technologies.
Since his appointment in the NHS AI Lab, January 2020, he has developed an AI Buyers’ Guide for healthcare and developed the National Covid-19 Chest Imaging Database for the training and testing of AI models. Dom is a keen advocate of the safe and ethical adoption of AI.
Pav Deagon
Lead Pharmacist – Pharmacy Informatics & Digtial Medicines, NELFT
Dr Alex Deng
Programme Lead for Fellowships in Clinical Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value Based Healthcare
Alexander is the Programme Lead for the Fellowships in Clinical Artificial Intelligence, and author of the accompanying Clinical Artificial Intelligence Curriculum. This programme equips NHS frontline clinicians with the expertise to deploy AI in clinical workflows. It is the first of its kind in the UK.
Alexander has developed auditable standards for AI in healthcare with the British Standards Institution as an editorial panel chair, and also evaluates clinical AI technology at Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust.
Prof Vin Diwakar
Medical Director National Transformation and Medical Directorates, NHS England
Vin Diwakar is the Medical Director for Transformation in the National Transformation Directorate and leads on the secondary care portfolio in the National Improvement Directorate. He provides clinical leadership to improvement and transformation programmes including those which use improvement science, technology, digital, and data. He leads teams which are supporting improvement and transformation of a number of different clinical areas including diagnostics, urgent and emergency and planned care and is responsible for improving clinical effectiveness.
In his previous role, he provided clinical leadership to London’s health and care system and was a key member of the multiprofessional regional team which led the capital through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Konrad Dobschuetz
National Director & Chief Enterprise Officer, NHS Innovation Accelerator & UCLP
Since September 2022, Konrad is national director of the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) program which support exceptional individuals to scale best in class innovations across England’s NHS for patient and staff benefit. He is also the Chief Enterprise Officer for UCL Partners, an NHS England ASHN. There he is tasked to drive the majority of the innovation pipeline, adoption readiness of mainly digital health solutions and industry engagement. He is working with key NHS leaders in both roles.
Prior, Konrad worked for Novartis, where he was Head of Customer Solutions, Digital & Health Innovation and BIOME UK. During this time, Konrad supported multiple innovations and real-world evaluations and created a network of support from VCs, cross industry, and NHS bodies. He has a track record of successfully on-boarding start-ups as well as creating strategic frameworks for innovation enablement.
Konrad has also driven large scale digital transformation projects for international companies such as Pfizer, MasterCard, Canon and GE Healthcare across Europe and International Markets, including Asia. He has long-term experience in e-commerce, omni-channel marketing, commercialization of assets and strategy development. For several years he worked on AI, Blockchain and Internet of Things innovation projects, applying Six Sigma principles.
Christopher El-Badaoui
CEO & Co-Founder, LVNDR
Chris is responsible for driving LVNDR’s vision, and business strategy as well as building and managing a phenomenal team to revolutionise LGBTQ+ healthcare. They are a 2x founder and have previously built accelerators and investment vehicles for Parsons School of Design, Techstars and the NFL. Prior to that, they led Growth and Strategy at Pillar Tech disrupting legacy industries with Fortune 500 companies.
Chris is a non-binary entrepreneur and the Co-Founder and CEO of LVNDR a sexual health platform that improves sexual wellbeing for LGBTQ+ individuals and modernises sexual healthcare for clinics. Having experienced inadequate care across multiple continents, they’re driven to bring about a solution that closes the gap that exists between heteronomative and queer individuals. Their goal is that everyone irrespective of their background can receive an affirmative, inclusive, and respectful environment of care.
Prof Ruth Endacott
Director of Nursing & Midwifery, National Institute for Health Research
Professor Ruth Endacott was appointed inaugural Director of Nursing and Midwifery at the National Institute for Heath and Care Research (NIHR) in May 2021.
In this newly created post, Ruth has responsibility for providing professional leadership for nurses and midwives who are supporting, delivering or leading research, promoting nursing and midwifery within the NIHR and beyond, and encouraging more professionals to become involved in research. Ruth is Emeritus Professor at Monash University, Melbourne and Trustee/Director at the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC).
Tracey Eyre
Programme Lead Nurse, Digital Readiness Education, Health Education England
Tracey is the Lead Nurse in the Digital Readiness Education team at Health Education England and is currently leading The Phillips Ives Nursing & Midwifery Review. This review will provide an in-depth, evidence based, achievable set of co-designed future recommendations with the aim of ensuring all nurses and midwives are competent to practice safely and effectively in digitally enabled health and social care now and in the future.
She brings 12 years of experience as a nurse specialist in clinical informatics from Project Nurse, at the beginning of a large acute trust’s digital journey into EPR development, to clinical lead supporting its transformation into one of the most digitally mature NHS Trusts in the U.K. In this role Tracey led a huge training exercise, training 14,000 staff over 6 weeks and achieved the highest ever percentage of staff trained for a Cerner go live (2019).
In 2020 she was a member of the senior nursing team at NHS Nightingale North East Hospital leading on regional discharge planning and digitisation.
Elise Featherstone
Graduate Digital Project Manager, West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership
Elise is a Graduate Digital Project Manager working within the Digital Programme of the West Yorkshire ICB. She currently leads a digital inclusion expansion project which aims to reduce digital exclusion and health inequalities across the area through improved access to digital devices and data.
As a type 1 Diabetic Elise has experienced first hand the impact of technological advancements within the delivery of diabetes care and supports the continued delivery of digital solutions to aid management of the condition and independence for patients.
Rochelle Featherstone
Graduate Business Change Manager, NHS Wakefield CCG
Rochelle is a Graduate Business Change Manager working for the West Yorkshire ICB as part of the Digital team on the Graduates into Health Scheme. She is currently assisting with the implementation of the Yorkshire and Humber Care Record. Rochelle’s passion for working in Digital Healthcare stems from living with Type 1 Diabetes for almost twenty years. Digital advances in healthcare have completely changed her quality of life whilst managing her condition.
Rochelle partakes in spreading awareness of Type 1 Diabetes which has included guest speaking about her condition and the Digital advances of Diabetes care on BBC Radio 4. Rochelle aligns with delivering Digital Healthcare for the future and improving patient care through technology.
Mike Fell
Executive Director of National Cyber Security Operations, NHS Digital
Mike has spent 15 years in range of security roles for the UK Government, and is currently Executive Director of National Cyber Operations for NHS Digital, with accountability for the security of NHS Digital’s data and systems, as well as supporting the resilience of the wider Health System in defending and respond to cyber attacks.
Prior to this, Mike spent six years as the Head of Cyber Security Operations and Deputy Chief Security Officer for HMRC. Previous roles have included leading HMRC’s anti-phishing efforts, work with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in Afghanistan, helping to secure the 2012 Olympic & Paralympics and voluntary work to help others protect themselves from cyber threats.
Dr Tim Ferris
Director of Transformation, NHS England
Dr Tim Ferris is the inaugural National Director of Transformation at NHS England and NHS Improvement and previously a Non-Executive Director on the Board. Tim was most recently CEO of the Mass General Physicians Organization (2017-2021) and was formerly the Senior Vice President for Population Health at Mass General Brigham overseeing performance for one of the largest accountable care organizations in the US. He founded the Center for Population Health, which reaches over one million patients annually, focusing on prevention and data to improve health, reduce inequities and save lives.
Tim trained in medicine and public health at Harvard University, and remains on the staff of Mass General. He was awarded numerous NIH and foundation grants and co-authored over 130 publications on health care quality measurement, health disparities and health IT. Tim became a professor at Harvard Medical School in 2018 and continues as an adjunct Professor.
Thomas Fish
Specialist Radiotherapy Practitioner For IM&T, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, Topol Digital Fellow
Tom is a Therapeutic Radiographer and proud AHP with a background in radiotherapy treatment delivery and research. He’s currently the radiotherapy informatics lead at the Royal Berkshire FT, where he’s delivering a digital transformation programme targetting the digitalisation of processes and the introduction of automation with a focus on improving patient safety and process efficiency. He’s also undertaken a Topol Digital Fellowship, where he spent his time developing software to automate and manage patient pathways.
Dr Peter-Marc Fortune
CCIO, Manchester University NHS FT
Peter-Marc Fortune is a Consultant Paediatric Intensivist & CCIO at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. Medicine is his second career, he originally worked as an engineer, including completing a PhD in digital mobile radio.
He holds interests in human factors and medical ethics, and is digital lead for the National Paediatric Early Warning Score, NHSE.
He is a past president of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society and Clinical Advisor to the Paediatric Critical Care GIRFT workstream.
Amy Freeman
Chief Digital Information Officer, UHNM
Amy Freeman is the Chief Digital Information Officer at University Hospitals of North Midlands. Amy has worked in the field of information technology (IT) support and digital since 1998, she joined the NHS in 2002. She has held senior IT and digital leadership roles at NHS Connecting for Health (now NHS Digital), NHS Commissioning Board (now NHS England), Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS Trust (now Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust) and Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Amy moved to work for NHS provider organisations to be closer to frontline care (Community and Acute) to help make a difference to the safety and quality of care provided to patients. This has included the delivery of a range of clinical systems most notably an electronic patient record system for 6500 staff, patient portal and a virtual clinic solution. Amy’s ambition is for “geeks to save lives”. Using technology to support the clinical decisions clinicians make with their patients about their care and treatment.
Reducing the risk of error. More recently Amy has been interested in how digital can help (or in some cases hinder) the equality and diversity agenda. Using data to drive a better understanding of our citizens, their care and their outcomes.
Dr Saira Ghafur
Lead for Digital Health, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London
Saira is the Digital Health Lead at the Institute of Global Health Innovation and Security Science Fellow at ISST, Imperial College London and a honorary consultant in respiratory medicine at St Mary’s Hospital. At Imperial College Saira has spearheaded the College’s collaboration for healthcare cybersecurity. Saira also leads work on evidence generation for digital health, the value of healthcare data and AI and machine learning for health in low and middle income countries.
Saira is also the co-founder of two start-ups: Psyma (mental health) and Prova Health (evidence generation in digital health). Saira holds a MSc in Health Policy from Imperial and was also a Harkness Fellow in Health Policy and Practice in New York (2017).
Lincoln Gombedza
Member, NHS Digital Shared Professional Decision-Making Council and Learning Disability Nurse at North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust
As a newly qualified Learning Disability Nurse, Lincoln is passionate about using digital technologies to improve patient outcomes. He is actively involved in several organizations that align with this goal, including the Florence Nightingale Clinical Supervision Subject Expert Group, the NMC Standards Development Group, and the Learning Disability Nursing National Shared Professional Decision-Making Council. Recently, Lincoln has been exploring the potential benefits of Extended Reality (XR) for individuals with learning disabilities.
His passion for utilising future technologies in nursing caught the attention of Helen Crowther, National Digital Primary Care Nurse, who invited him to join the NHS Digital Shared Professional Decision-Making Council and contribute his expertise and insights in using XR technology to improve patient outcomes. Additionally, Lincoln completed a Resilience-based Clinical Supervision program with the Foundation of Nursing Studies and had the privilege of working with the esteemed Joanne Bosanquet MBE.
In his free time, Lincoln volunteers with organizations such as NextGenNurse and the We are the NHS campaign to give back to his community and to promote the importance of digital innovation in healthcare.
Will Goodwin
Assistant Director of Programmes – Digital Maturity, NHS England
Will has a proven track record of delivering large-scale digital transformation initiatives and has led multi-disciplinary teams in the development and implementation of complex technology programs. He has extensive experience in managing the complete lifecycle of digital projects, from strategy and planning to execution and delivery.
Throughout his career, Will has demonstrated his ability to drive innovation and improve operational efficiency, resulting in significant cost savings. He has a deep understanding of digital technology and is passionate about using it as a transformational enabler to improve health and care outcomes.
Andrew Griffiths
CEO, FEDIP
Andrew is the CEO of the Federation for Informatics Professionals in health and care (FEDIP).
FEDIP was established by the professional bodies, with the dual-core purposes of Voluntary registration/regulation and Developing the Health and Care Informatics profession.
Andrew was the CIO for NHS Wales for over ten years having previously been instrumental in establishing a national organisation to develop and implement the Welsh digital strategy – Informing healthcare. He began his career in the NHS after graduating with a degree in computing unaware that the NHS needed technology people, after completing the general management scheme he returned to managing technology services in acute and mental health services along with a period working for the private sector.
Jules Gudgeon
National Digital Midwife Lead for Maternity Services, NHS England
Jules Gudgeon has been a midwife for over 30 years, championed the use of digital technology during the National Maternity Review and was subsequently appointed the Lead Midwife within the Digital Maternity Programme at NHS Digital.
She was instrumental in the development of the award-winning Digital Midwives Expert Reference Group which aims to support digital leadership across England.
She is now the National Digital Midwife Lead for Maternity Services within the Transformation Directorate at NHS England. Whilst continuing to support digital transformation within maternity Jules is also focused on digital leadership and specifically the specialist role of the digital midwife.
Jacob Haddad
Co-Founder and CEO, Accurx
Jacob is Co-founder and CEO of Accurx, a communication platform used in over 150 NHS Trusts and by 98% of GP practices. Accurx is on a mission to join up communication across healthcare, to make patients healthier, staff happier, and the system more efficient.
Joanne Hadley
Digital AND Workforce Lead Midwife, NHS England
Jo Hadley is the first Regional Digital Midwifery Lead in NHS England supporting maternity services to make best use of digital technology and develop a culture that embraces the benefits technology plays in improving patient care/experience. Jo has extensive experience and clinical background within frontline maternity services. She has a Healthcare Leadership Masters and is passionate about supporting Digital Midwives through coaching, mentoring and leadership support and improving maternity care for women and their families.
Sarah Hanbridge
CCIO Nursing & AHP, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Sarah is a Registered Adult Nurse & Practice Lecturer/Practitioner predominantly working within Acute trust with 28 years of clinical and leadership experience. Her current role is a Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) Nursing & AHP Leeds teaching hospital Sarah was previously a Regional CNIO Northwest. Sarah attained one of the first Florence Nightingale Digital Scholarships in 2020, during the pandemic Sarah set up the Northwest Regional CNIO/Mid-wife and AHP network. Sarah is the CNIO Chair of the Digital Health Network Sarah’s and CHIME UK & INTERPenAPI Board member her passion is digital transformation to improve patient care.
Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt
Chair, NHS Norfolk & Waveney Integrated Care Board
Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt has been independent chair of the NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board since July 2022 and was previously chair of the Norfolk & Waveney ICS/STP. From 2005 to 2007, Patricia was Secretary of State for Health in the Blair Government, introducing the smoke-free legislation, establishing the NHS Choices website (www.nhs.uk) and creating a ground-breaking public consultation – Our Health, Our Care, Our Say – that anticipated many of the themes of the Five Year Forward View.
Patricia has a long-standing interest in digital transformation of healthcare and until 2021 was a member of the advisory board of the digital healthcare firm, Medefer. As chair of the UK India Business Council from 2010 to 2018, she helped build partnerships between the two countries in healthcare and other sectors, and retains her interest in India as chair of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.
Australian by birth, Patricia came to Britain as a student, graduating from Newnham College, Cambridge. She lives in Norfolk; in her spare time, she is an enthusiastic gardener, active in her village community and loves walking and running (very slowly). She has a daughter in London and a son in Sydney.
Prof Louise Hicks
CNIO and Director of Development, Barts Health NHS Trust
Professor Louise Hicks is the CNIO and Director of Development at Barts Health NHS Trust, London. She leads on transformation and engagement in health informatics, is a Digital Pioneer Fellow and in 2022 was awarded the UK Digital Health CNIO of the Year. Louise is passionate about the NHS, its teams and is committed to generating new solutions, leading with care and making a positive difference in health outcomes for our communities.
Jon Hoeksma
CEO, Digital Health
Jon is the founder and CEO of Digital Health, the health IT B2B news, research and events publisher and professional networks specialist. He previously co-founded and edited eHealth Insider, and is a leading journalist, commentator and thought leader on UK health IT.
In 2014 he led the trade sale of eHealth insider to Informa PLC. Achievements of note include: founding the UK CCIO movement, from launch of CCIO campaign in 2011 to development and growth of CCIO Networks and community; the development of Digital Health Networks – centred on CCIO and CIO Networks – as the leading independent online best practice community of NHS IT professionals – 5,000+ members as of November 2020; plus growing Digital Health Summer Schools into the premier health IT leadership event in UK; and launching Digital Health Rewired in March 2019 as the most dynamic and compelling Expo in digital health space.
Lesley Holdsworth
Clinical Lead (CCIO) for Digital Health and Care, Scottish Government
Lesley is the Scottish Government’s Clinical Lead for Digital Health & Care. She has had a lifelong interest in informatics and particularly its criticality in driving improvement and is passionate about developing a digitally enabled workforce. Lesley is currently leading a number of national, UK and global digital initiatives establishing standards for digital practice and strategy and workforce development. She is also a council member and Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics.
She is also Chair of the Board of Bield, the largest Housing Association in Scotland. In 2018, she was named Scottish Digital Impact Leader and Digital Health’s UK Digital Team Leader of the year.
Ruth Holland
Deputy CIO, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Ruth joined Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust as Deputy CIO in 2011, having been a Board-level ICT Director south of the Thames. She is passionate about digital professionals being part of the multidisciplinary healthcare team and maximising the value of data to help deliver quality patient care and research. Ruth has been the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA) London branch lead since December 2020 and invests time in developing the next generation of analytics leaders.
Phil Huggins
Interim National CISO for Health and Social Care, NHS England
Phil is a proven security leader currently employed as a Senior Civil Servant with over 24 years of experience in security and technology roles. Phil has designed and operated security for critical national infrastructure and sensitive government. Phil has advised and managed global financial services organisations and advised national regulators on cyber resilience and cybersecurity.
As National CISO for Health and Social Care Phil sets system strategy and architecture for the Health & Social Care system including the NHS, as well as DHSC and it’s ALBs and more than 20,000 social care providers. He also acts as the NIS regulator for operators of essential services in Health & Social Care.
Jim Hughes
Director of Digital Programmes, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Robert Hunter
Senior Software Engineer, Scotland’s National Digital Platform for Health & Social Care
Robert Hunter is a Senior Software Engineer who has been working with NHS Education for Scotland for 3 years. He has spent most of his career working in the health sector building web and mobile applications.
Currently he is a member of a team responsible for building the core services for their National Digital Platform. As well as working on the team responsible for hosting and maintaining their OpenEHR service Robert also worked with a product team to build their first application that uses OpenEHR as its data store.
Kevin Jarrold
Joint Chief Information Officer, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust and for the NW London Integrated Care Board
Daniel Jeffery
Deputy Chief Information Officer & Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Digital Data and Technology Services NHS Blood and Transplant
Dan is a proven technology and Cyber Security leader across Health and Care and is currently the Chief Information Security Officer and Deputy CIO for NHSBT. Dan is accountable for the secure design, delivery, and operational running of the technology and infrastructure that underpins the NHS’ Blood, Organ, Tissue, and Plasma services. Prior to NHSBT, Dan ran the national cyber programme for the Health and Care system at NHS Digital.
Nicc Johnson
Founder and CEO, Music Health
Nicc Johnson is a music-loving, serial entrepreneur who’s been rockin’ and rollin’ in the music industry for 21 years. His ultimate goal has been to empower others through the power of music.
Through his experiences as a DJ and his learnings as a musicologist, Nicc became fascinated with AI and the potential to measure the psychological and physiological impact of music and apply it to recommendation systems.
Music Health is Nicc’s third company and second tech venture. In 2014, he founded his first tech company, PRSNL.AI, which focused on solving the biggest problem in music streaming and personalization – automated and accurate music metadata. He invented the AI Music Brain™ and VibeDNA® audio analysis tools, which were modelled to break down songs the way the human brain does.
Jane Johnston
Head of PHM Analytics, Surrey Heartlands ICS; Executive Director, Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA)
Ramandeep Kaur
Chief Clinical Information Officer, University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group
I am an enthusiastic individual, who is passionate about digital innovation and transformation, clinical informatics and raising the profile of Pharmacy and AHPs in the digital world. I am currently the Chief Clinical Information Officer at University Hospitals of Northamptonshire. I have completed the Digital Health.London Pioneer Fellowship and Digital Health Leadership Academy programme. I am proud to be co vice chair of the CCIO advisory panel, Faculty of Clinical Informatics and Shuri Network member.
Yinka Makinde
Director of Digital Workforce, NHS England
Yinka combines a career in Pharmacy, Digital Transformation, Entrepreneurship, and an unrelenting passion to prevent illness through the adoption of technology. She is driven by impact and legacy.
Over the course of her 27-year career, Yinka has worked for Accenture, CSC, GlaxoSmithKline, Singapore General Hospital, and multiple NHS organisations across the UK leading digital transformation and care delivery. She is currently Director of Digital Workforce Strategy for NHSx.
Yinka recently took on the role of Director of Digital Workforce at NHSEI. Previously serving as Head of Innovation at NHSx and as Programme Director at DigitalHealth.London, she grew London’s position as a global commercial destination for digital health innovation, through programmes that supported payors and digital health suppliers. Prior to that Yinka as an entrepreneur founded and led the commercialisation of a tech start-up Vitalfootprint.
Yinka has been featured in the media including the Guardian; National Health Executive; Tech City News, and is a regular speaker at industry events. Yinka sits on the Smart London Board and the London Child Obesity Taskforce, and until recently was a Trustee of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics.
Neesa Mangalaparathy
XR Programme Delivery Lead, NHS England
Neesa Mangalaparathy is the programme delivery lead for extended reality technologies for NHS England, and has worked in healthcare for over 15 years. She has spent the first 12 years working across academia, the voluntary sector and NHS Trust level before holding posts at a national level.
Neesa is passionate about using digital technologies to deliver the best health care services and improve patient outcomes.
Gary McAllister
CTO, One London – NHS London
Gary McAllister is the Chief Technology Officer for the London Region and is responsible for the OneLondon programme – an award winning Shared Care Record programme. Gary has spent over 20 years working in the healthcare industry, previously the Chief Technology Officer at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Gary has an interest in technology, health policy and system level transformation and is a graduate of the Digital Leadership Academy. You can also purchase Gary’s book, An Introduction to Digital Healthcare in the NHS on Amazon.
Catherine McClennan
Programme Director, Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s Health and Maternity Partnership
Catherine has led on service transformation as Programme Director for Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s and Children’s Services Partnership since 2018. Since June 2022 she has led on the establishment of the Women’s Health and Maternity Vision and Programme for Cheshire and Merseyside, as Director.
Her role provides leadership for the Local Maternity and Neonatal System and setting out a vision, strategy and service improvements for all areas of women’s health; including reducing health inequalities and implementing initiatives which improve clinical outcomes and the wellbeing of women, babies and families. She is an advocate of social prescribing and community engagement and a working mum of 3 children. She is a Trustee of the University of Liverpool Maths College and is a champion for young people, lifelong learning and workforce development.
Euan McComiskie
Health Informatics Lead, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
Euan qualified as a Physiotherapist in 2007. He worked in clinical roles before his journey with clinical informatics began in 2012. His role at the CSP is to improve informatics knowledge and skills in the physiotherapy profession and to drive informatics inclusion in policy and strategy. He is co-vice chair of the CNIO Advisory Panel, co-lead for AHPs and a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, and the Clinical Lead for Physiotherapy at ORCHA.
Pritesh Mistry
Policy Fellow for Digital Technologies, King’s Fund
Before joining the Fund, Pritesh led the innovation activity at the Royal College of General Practitioners encompassing system change, entrepreneurship, grassroots innovation and horizon-scanning. Before this he worked at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust helping to bring together clinicians and patients with research and technology to improve the care and outcomes of people with life-debilitating conditions such as heart failure.
Victoria Mustafa
Maternity Programme Manager & Digital Midwife, South West London Integrated Care System
I am an experienced Maternity Programme Manager, Digital Midwife, and Nurse with a passion for digital transformation. I am the co-chair for the PAN London Digital Midwives Expert Reference Group (DMERG) and members of both the national and regional Digital Shared Decision-Making Councils. I am currently on cohort 5 of the Digital Health Leadership Programme which is helping me to drive forward the digital agenda and help transform the NHS.
Sarah Newcombe
Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital & London Region
Sarah is a paediatric nurse with over 25 years working within the NHS. She has been the CNIO at GOSH for 3 years, providing clinical leadership for a Trust wide EPR implementation. Sarah is keen to support our current and future workforce to incorporate technology into the way they deliver care.
Simon Noel
CNIO, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Simon has worked with clinical informatics for the past 20 years and leads a team of informatics nurses, working collaboratively with clinical, technical and organisational services. Simon is a member of the CNIO advisory panel for Digital Health, he is also on the Faculty of Clinical Informatics working groups for Professionalism, the Office of the CCIO, the FCI Nursing and Midwifery Advisory Panel, and contributed toward the What Good Looks Like Nursing Guidance, participating in the launch at Rewired in 2022.
Dr Annabelle Painter
Honorary Fellow – Digital Health, Imperial College London
Dr Annabelle Painter is a GP registrar and honorary fellow in digital health research and education at Imperial College London. Her recent Clinical AI & workforce fellowship at HEE & the NHS AI Lab focussed on AI confidence in the healthcare workforce. Annabelle previously worked as an AI Clinician at Babylon Health developing and deploying an A+E triage chatbot within the NHS. Annabelle is an advisor to several healthtech companies and sits on the Royal Society of medicine Digital Health council.
DR Natasha Phillips
Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO), NHS England
Dr Natasha Phillips is a clinical academic; a nurse who started her career as a nursing assistant at the North London Hospice before going on to train at Middlesex University. She went on to follow a career in critical care nursing and obtained a BSc Critical Care Nursing from King’s College London. Natasha has held a number of operational and strategic leadership positions in the NHS. She has led a large number of transformational programmes of change involving the use of digital technologies and informatics; most recently the implementation of an enterprise wide electronic health record at University College London.
Leontina Postelnicu
Head of Health and Social Care, techUK
Leontina joined techUK in March 2020, where she is now heading up the organisation’s Health and Social Care programme. At the moment, she is also completing an MSc in Health Policy at Imperial College London.
A former journalist, Leontina previously worked for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) as an associate editor for its International and Media divisions. There, she covered the EMEA region for Healthcare IT News, MobiHealthNews and HIMSS TV, with a focus on policy and innovation, and contributed to the Women in Health IT newsletter and HIMSS Insights eBook.
Outside of work, she enjoys reading, dancing, travelling and visiting her family in Romania, where she hails from.
Dr Ayesha Rahim
Clinical Lead for Digital Mental Health & CMIO, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS FT Her Clinical Lead for Digital Mental Health role is for NHS England
Ayesha Rahim is a consultant psychiatrist and CCIO. She is also the Clinical Lead for Digital Mental Health in the new Transformation Directorate of NHSE/I. She leads a team of clinical informaticians in her organisation and has successfully delivered several large-scale digital transformation projects. She is a founding member of the Shuri Network which supports BAME women in digital health, and offers personal shadowing opportunities and mentoring to other professionals. Ayesha is also a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, and is a keen proponent of User Centred Design.
Dr James Reed
CCIO, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS FT
James Reed is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Chief Clinical Information Officer at Birmingham & Solihull Mental Health NHS FT. He was first appointed as CCIO in 2013 and during this time has overseen a range of digital projects including BSMHFT’s role in the Global Digital Exemplar Programme. He is also clinical lead for the West Midlands Shared Care Record programme. James has been involved in the CCIO network since its inception and has been on the advisory panel for the last 6 years and was elected chair in 2019 and re-elected in 2021.
Sally Rennison
Chief Commercial Officer, Patients Know Best
Sally has spent nearly 10 years in healthcare IT focusing on electronic patient records. As someone who passionately believed in and recognised the value and the importance of acknowledging the patient as part of the provision of healthcare, Sally joined Patients Know Best in 2016 to support the progress and expansion of access to Personal Health Records overseeing all customer contracts and company alignment with national initiatives and priorities.
Lee Rickles
Yorkshire & Humber Care Record Programme Director and CIO, Humber Teaching NHS FT
He is a member of the CIO advisory board, a CHIME Certificated Health Chief Information Officer and alumni of the Digital Academy. He has three decades transformation and programme management experience. His first decade focused on UK military aircraft project for the T-45 Goshawk, Sea Harrier, AV-8B and Nimrod. During the last two decades, he has focused on digital transformation in the NHS, Information Technology services and Business Intelligence for NHS organisations. He has also had significant experience in the development of change strategies; digital developments and procurement of Information Technology Services and systems.
He is currently is leading the development of the Yorkshire & Humber Care Record, Digital transformation of Humber Coast & Vale ICS and the CIO of Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust.
Prof Laura Serrant
Regional Head of Nursing, NE, Yorks & Humber Health Education England
Professor Laura Serrant OBE is Regional Lead Nurse for Health Education England (North East and Yorkshire) and Professor of Community and Public Health Nursing at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Professor Serrant has an extensive experience in national and international health policy development with particular specialist input on racial and ethnic inequalities and cultural safety.
It was her work in this area which led to her being awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2018 for services to Health Policy. She is listed 8th in the top 100 most influential Black people in the UK by the Powerlist UK. In 2021 she received the Nursing Times Lifetime achievement award for services to Nursing by the 4 UK countries Chief Nursing Officers.
Haris Shuaib
Consultant Physicist, Head of Clinical Scientific Computing, Guy’s & St Thomas NHS FT
Haris Shuaib is a Consultant Clinical Scientist and Head of the Clinical Scientific Computing section at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, where his team are developing people, platforms, and policy for digital health.
He is also the AI Transformation Lead at the London Medical Imaging & AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare where he oversees the development of AI prototypes across over 20 patient pathways in partnership with academia, industry and NHS Trusts. He is also the inventor and technical lead of the AI Deployment Engine, a platform which seeks to make integration of AI software into clinical pathways safe and efficient.
Finally, he also holds a NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship, where he is leading a national multi-centre trial to see whether AI can improve the treatment of glioblastoma.
Rahul Singal
Associate CCIO for Medicines, NHS England
Rahul is currently the Associate CCIO for Medicines at NHSE, where he holds SRO accountability for the Digital and Interoperable Medicines Programme. As the designated Chief Pharmaceutical Officer lead for any national digital improvement programmes, Rahul holds the responsibility for any specific medicines related work and will also provide professional leadership for the pharmacy informatics workforce and related workforce development.
Rahul has held several leadership positions across NHS organisations and ALBs, most recently he was the Chief Pharmacist at NELFT. He has been involved in digital projects that include the deployment of; hospital-based medicines automation, EPMA, EPS2, E-Job Planning and working with partners to define pharmacy and medicines related performance metrics. Rahul is also Health Foundation Generation Q Fellow.
Richard Sloggett
Founder and Programme Director, Future Health Research
Richard Sloggett is the Founder and Programme Director of Future Health, a healthcare specialist public policy research centre. He was previously a Senior Fellow at Westminster think tank Policy Exchange and from 2018-19 was Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Richard is a regular commentator in the national media on health and social care and has been named as one of the top 100 people in UK healthcare policy by the Health Service Journal.
During his time with the Secretary of State, Richard worked across Whitehall, the NHS and local government on major policy decisions including the NHS Long Term Plan, the Technology Vision and the Prevention Green Paper. Richard is undertaking his doctoral thesis in preventative healthcare systems at Liverpool University. He has a Masters Degree with Distinction from the University of Nottingham and a Bachelors Degree from the University of Durham.
Dr Gemma Stacey
Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Director of Research and Policy, Florence Nightingale Foundation
Professor Gemma Stacey is currently Deputy CEO of the Florence Nightingale Foundation. Gemma has specific expertise in digitally enabled person centred practice and has brought this expertise to the Philips Ives Review as a panel chair and through the FNF digital leadership scholarships and programmes.
Yasmin Stinchcombe
Senior Programme Manager (Maternity Cover), DigitalHealth.London
Yasmin joined the NHS five years ago, starting as a Graduate Management Trainee at Guy’s and St Thomas (GSTT) before progressing to a Service Manager role.
As a Service Manager, Yasmin specialised in the operational and strategic management of outpatient services, working with the clinical team to improve the patient journey. Yasmin has experience of writing NHS business cases, managing a large administration and implementing digital technology within a clinical setting.
Yasmin has been involved in the implementation of an electronic patient record in GSTT’s outpatient services and the development and successful management of an online digital booking system for Paediatric Allergy Challenges.
Joe Stringer
Partner, Octopus Ventures
Joe Stringer has over 24 years experience in healthtech. He is a partner at Octopus Ventures, one of the most active VC funds in the sector with a vision to improve over 1bn lives. Prior to Octopus, Joe was market leader for Google Health in EMEA and led the Ventures and Healthcare practices for EY.
Richard Stubbs
CEO,
Yorkshire & Humber AHSN
Richard Stubbs is a leading health innovation expert with an NHS career spanning 20 years. As CEO of the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network, an organisation which sits between the NHS and healthcare to promote technology and innovation which benefits both patients and the NHS, and through this and varied non-executive and voluntary roles. Richard is driving innovation and system transformation in the health sector, contributing to economic growth and improving outcomes for patients.
Natalie Sutcliffe
Delivery and Engagement Lead Digital Maturity and Capabilities, NHS England
Helen Thomas
CEO, Digital Health & Care Wales
Helen was appointed as the CEO of Digital Health & Care Wales in 2021, having spent the previous year as the Interim Director of the NHS Wales Informatics Service, leading the organisation’s impressive response to the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting the NHS in Wales to adopt data and digital advances at pace and scale, whilst at the same time leading the organisation as it transitioned to a Special Health Authority on 1st April 2021. She joined the NHS Wales Informatics Service as Director of Information in 2017 and has been instrumental in supporting the improved quality and use of data in healthcare and the development of the new National Data Resource – the NDR.
Previously, she was the Assistant Director of Information at Abertawe Bro Morgannwg Health Board, with responsibility for setting the strategic direction for data and digital and providing the information needed to evaluate service delivery and to support service improvement and transformation. Helen began her career in the NHS over 30 years ago, initially working in finance, moving into health information in 2000, gaining wide health informatics experience across a number of senior roles over the last 20 years. Helen has an MSc in Health Informatics from Swansea University and is a leading practitioner of the Federation of Informatics Professionals, a fellow of the British Computer Society and a Professor of Practice at University of Wales Trinity St David.
Helen was named DigitalHealth Digital NHS CEO of the year 2022.
Peter Thomas
CCIO, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Peter Thomas is the Chief Clinical Information Officer and Director of Digital Medicine at Moorfields Eye Hospitals. His primary interest is in digital transformation of clinical care, and creation of a hospital environment that can embed and sustain technologically enabled and automated services. To achieve this, he has recently founded the UK’s first Department of Digital Medicine. In 2022 he was named as “CCIO of the year” in the annual Digital Health Awards. By clinical training he is a paediatric ophthalmologist.
Sarah Thompson
CCIO (Pharmacy and Medicines), Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS FT
Sarah is a Pharmacist and CCIO at Wirral University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Nominated by the Pharmaceutical Journal as a ‘Woman to Watch 2022’ Sarah is proud to be one of the first Pharmacist CCIO’s nationally.
A passionate advocate for career development for non-medical CCIOs, Sarah is determined to see further representation from Pharmacy, AHP, Nursing and Midwifery colleagues nationally. Sarah’s main areas of interest include clinical engagement, clinical safety, & optimisation of digital systems.
Ben Tongue
Digital Net Zero Lead (sustainability), NHS England
Ben is Leading the NHS England Transformation Directorate’s digital sustainability, net zero and climate resilience agendas. A Chartered Environmentalist and MIEMA with a PGCert in Innovation, Enterprise and Circular Economy, working across the NHS to drive sustainability and climate resilience through digital development. He has broad experience across a wide range of award-winning sustainability and environmental projects.
Sam Vollans
Consultant Trauma & Orthopaedic Surgeon. Clinical Lead for Leeds Virtual Fracture Clinic (VFC)
Dr Simon Wallace
CCIO, Nuance
Dr Simon Wallace is the Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) of Nuance’s Healthcare division in the UK and Ireland. Simon has worked as a GP, hospital and public health doctor in Brighton and London. His interest in digital health began in the 90s when he spent a year at the King’s Fund investigating the impact of the internet on shared decision making between patients and their healthcare professional. For the past 20 years, he has worked for a range of organisations including Bupa, Dr Foster, Cerner Corporation and GSK across a range of technologies which include AI-powered speech recognition, electronic patient records, telemedicine, mobile health and lifestyle devices.
Dr Jonathan West
Digital Clinical Safety Lead, University Hospital of Northamptonshire
Jonathan qualified as a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington in 1991. He gained experience of nursing in the United States and Tanzania. Jonathan specialised in Coronary Care nursing and since 2010 has been the Clinical Safety Officer at Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (now part of University Hospitals of Northamptonshire). Whilst at Kettering his work has been recognised nationally for his development of an exemplary IT Clinical Safety System.
Prof Greta Westwood
Chief Executive Officer, Florence Nightingale Foundation
Greta joined the Florence Nightingale Foundation in 2017 as the Chief Operating Officer and has been the CEO since September 2019. Greta has been a Registered Nurse for 39 years!. She is a Florence Nightingale Foundation Alumna (2012 Leadership Scholar).
Greta qualified as a nurse in 1983 and a midwife in 1987. She completed an MSc in Health Psychology in 1996 and a PhD in Nursing in 2010. Greta was one of the first genetic counsellors for the Wessex Clinical Genetics Service from 1987-2007 and was part of the team who established the Association of Genetic Nurses and Counsellors (AGNC). She held a joint Clinical Academic post with the University of Southampton from 2000-2005. From 2008-2012, she established, and then led, the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Comprehensive Local Research Network (now NIHR Wessex CRN).
Greta held a joint post (2012-2017) with Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust (PHT) and the University of Southampton as Director of Clinical Academic Practice for the university and NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) Wessex. She led the university’s clinical academic training programme for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals and was promoted to Professor for this work. Greta joined the Florence Nightingale Foundation in 2017 as the Chief Operating Officer and has been the CEO since September 2019. Greta is a proud Registered Nurse and a Florence Nightingale Foundation Alumna (2012 Leadership Scholar).
In December 2020, Greta was awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours List 2021 for services to Nursing and Midwifery.
Peter White
Chief Nursing Information Officer, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Trust
Peter is Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust first CNIO; a senior nurse working with the clinical, iDigital and Innovation teams. Having close working relationship with clinical staff to ensure they have access to the best digital solutions, Peter is transforming the way nurses deliver care for children and young people. Peter takes an active lead on nursing informatics, utilising data to improve patient care, safety and experience.
Peter is the chair for the UK Meditech User Group as well as an active member of the North West Digital Nurse, AHP and Midwifery Network. As the first specialist hospital in Europe to achieve HIMSS Stage 7, Alder Hey is at the forefront of digital innovation and implementation.
Andy Williams
Chief Digital Information Officer, Humber & North Yorkshire ICS
Andy Williams has over 20 years’ experience leading health and social care digital delivery organisations. His experience ranges from local interim CDIO roles to national leadership roles. As Director of AHLC Solutions Ltd, Andy has grown a company to support digital transformation programmes across the country, with extensive SME partnerships.
david williams
Digital Specialist Physiotherapist, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, Regional Clinical Leadership Fellow, NHS Midlands
David Williams is Regional Clinical Leadership Fellow within NHS Midlands where he leads several projects including Reconditioning the Nation and the Midlands AHP Informatics and Digital Network. Clinically, he works as a Digital Specialist Physiotherapist at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB). He also leads the Armed Forces Network at UHDB. He is the Vice-Chair of the Professional Committee at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and was awarded the Federation for Informatics Professionals 35 under 35 bursary after being identified as a future digital leader.