Speakers 2024

Hatim is the Chief Executive Officer for Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex, part of the NHS Health Innovation Network and a GP in North West London.
Currently an Honorary Professor of Innovation and AI in the School of Medicine at the University of Surrey, Hatim sits on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Technology Appraisals Committee, the Responsible AI UK Health and Care Group and the Responsible AI Institute Sustainable AI Consortium. Hatim holds Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and Fellowship of Advance Higher Education and the British Computer Society.
As an international speaker, he has contributed to the publication of academic papers and white papers spanning workforce, education reform, innovation, primary care, digital health, and AI. Hatim is an advocate for safe, ethical, and responsible digital and AI transformation and ensuring workforce preparedness for new innovations and technologies in health and care.

She has led significant projects involving the development and deployment of large-scale innovations. Most notably, she was involved in a large-scale Electronic Patient Record (EPR) deployment, recognised as one of the largest digital transformations programmes undertaken within the NHS. Cara has also served as Divisional Director for Medicine, Outpatients, and Complex Health in the acute sector, which has expanded her understanding of the challenges faced by frontline staff.

Rowland is one of the first Chief Analytics Officers to be employed in the NHS, specialising in building and scaling data and analytics capabilities to become more “insight-driven”.

Rowland leads the delivery of data services at the University Hospital Derby and Burton, heading teams of multi-disciplinary data professionals to deliver data and analytics strategy and target operating models; the execution of data science and intelligent automation projects; and the industrialisation of data and analytics capabilities as part of a large-scale digital transformation programme.

He specialises in data and analytics driven change, working closely with senior executives to deliver against strategic business cases.

Previous experience includes being instrumental in implementing and optimising digital health solutions to improve patient outcomes as a Senior Digital Nurse Specialist. Tosin is a Shuri Network Digital Fellowship graduate, FNF Aspiring Leadership Programme Alumni and has completed the Digital Health CNIO Mentoring Programme. She is a member of the CSO Council on the Digital Health Network, Shuri Network, BCS, Midland HPCA and Midland Digital Shared Decision Making Council.

Dr Alhaq is has been a peer reviewer for the United Kingdom & Belgium Accreditation Services for medical laboratory services and a past reviewer of the Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. As an academic researcher, he was a principal investigator and senior lecturer at KCL, London from 2002-2012 and a visiting senior lecturer at Kingston University, helping to set up and teach on the MSc programme on Cancer Studies.

Dr Alhaq is a Clinical Medical Advisor to the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), leading the Bank’s strategy of developing a chain of African Medical Centres of Excellence (AMCE) focusing on delivering tertiary referral centres. He is a non-executive director of the first AMCE in Abuja, Nigeria, focusing on cancer, cardiovascular disease, and haematological medicine.

Dr Alhaq served as Chief Clinical Scientist at King’s College Hospital from 2016-2022 and was a non-executive director of Viapath Pathology from 2012-2018. At an operational role, he has held several divisional roles within KingsPath and Viapath pathology services and was an operational lead and board member of the South-East pathology Transformation Programme from 2018-2021. He was operational lead for the 100,000 Genomes project at King’s College Hospital from 2014-2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was seconded to the NHS Test & Trace programme to help expand the SARS-CoV2 PCR testing capacity both locally and nationally, and to establish a robust framework for validating new SARS-CoV2 testing.

Usman is the NPIC Programme Head for Digital Deployment, Data, and IT (Information Technology) Services and is responsible in providing strategic leadership and delivery of the NPIC Digital Pathology solution and services, including the technology products and systems, business as usual IT Services, client service functions and IT contract and supplier management. 

 Spanning a 17+ year career across the Health Care Sector and Local Government sector in Digital and IT, he’s passionate about the implementation of products and services that are built to improve services to patients. 

At NPIC Usman directed and led multi-disciplinary teams of technical professionals and expert industry Partners, to design, develop, implement a Single National centrally hosted Digital Pathology Platform, enabling the onboarding of 20 + NHS Trusts nationally, allowing Pathologists to engage, evaluate, and collaborate rapidly and remotely, with transparency and consistency, improving efficiency, productivity and improving direct care to patients. 

Usman is now looking to continue to lead and drive the deployment of the NPIC Digital Pathology Solution bringing together innovative technology with sector specific experience to help NPIC deliver against its objectives in forming a true national network for pathology. 

Andrea Astbury has been employed in the NHS for over 20 years and currently divides her time between two roles – Deputy Director of Strategy at NHS Liverpool Place, and Programme Director for Data Into Action across Cheshire & Merseyside. Throughout her time in the NHS she has worked across nearly all settings of care and enjoys working on system redesign and improvement challenges. She is a passionate advocate for the power of linked data in making a real difference to people’s lives.

Andrea has worked with a number of Graphnet products within the Data Into Action programme which has resulted in a broad range of transformational programmes and the creation of a Population Health Management Academy. She has also been part of the team developing a Complex Households methodology and approach within Cheshire & Merseyside, which is designed to improve outcomes and streamline interventions for vulnerable families.

He is passionate about ensuring the safe, effective and appropriate use of medicines and has worked in partnership with healthcare professionals and patients over 30 years to drive forward research and policy development in prescribing and patient safety.

He has led a number of major studies investigating the frequency, nature and causes of prescribing safety problems in the NHS. He has also developed effective methods for tackling hazardous prescribing, most notably the pharmacist-led, IT-based intervention called PINCER, which has now been rolled out nationally to general practices in England.

Tony’s work recognises the vital role that medicines have in treating illness and helping people live with long-term conditions, while acknowledging that prescribing of a medicine is not always the best solution. He is committed to ensuring health care professionals and patients have the information and support they need for shared decision making about whether a prescription is needed and, if so, how to balance the effectiveness and safety of medicines alongside the costs to the patient, the NHS and the environment.

Lynne is an experienced digital nurse leader and is Dorset County Hospital’s first Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO). She has worked within digital services for eight years in a variety of settings and is proficient in leading digital transformation and change management, including system implementation and optimisation to support clinical workflows and improve patient care. Lynne is an advocate for clinical expertise within digital services and the ongoing need to strengthen digital clinical risk management capabilities to support safe care. She is also the lead Clinical Safety Officer (CSO) for her organisation and the co-chair of the South West CSO special interest group.

Lynne is a registered nurse with over 30 years NHS experience covering acute, community and mental health settings, with specialist nursing qualifications in orthopaedics and Infection Prevention and Control and is an Imperial College digital health leadership alumnus currently completing her MSc dissertation.

Helen is Chief Nursing information Officer at NHS England.

Helen’s work seeks to ensure that nursing and midwifery practice is supported by digital technology and data science and that nurses and midwifes are equipped to work and lead in an digitally enabled environment.  

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.”  

Alongside nursing and midwifery, Helen’s leadership portfolio includes frontline digitisation, digital citizen and maternity and child health. 

Her previous roles included Head of Delivery for National Digital, Data and Transformation Programmes (Digital Homecare, Connected Care Records and Digital Maturity Assessment) within the Transformation Directorate, NHS England.

Zharain is a Ph.D, scientist and data analyst by background with significant experience working in life sciences, genomics and public and population health. She has a deep interest and passion in using healthcare data safely and securely to enable research, benefitting patients and the population.

Currently CNIO at Digital Health and Care Wales where Fran has been instrumental in the introduction and development of nursing and midwifery, national data/information standards, clinical informatics roles in Welsh health boards and trusts in Wales. Throughout her tenure in Wales, Fran has advised and led in the development of nursing documentation standards, policies and guidelines at local and national levels.

Fran’s unique mix of nursing knowledge and technical ability have translated into transformative improvements for patients and clinicians; resulting in Innovation and improvement awards in both the user and patient categories. Fran holds an MSc in Health Informatics alongside her Registered Nurse qualification and has presented at international and local conferences on the subject of clinical informatics.

Currently Chair of the British Computer Society (BCS) nursing committee, Member of the WNMC and Executive Nurse Directors forums and Welsh representative on the 5 Nations Nursing Informatics Group.

Ahmed’s major research projects focus on technology, data, and AI, with specific interest in innovation, adoption, and attitudes toward the use of technology and data in health care. Prior to joining the Health Foundation, Ahmed was an Economic Analyst and Senior Policy Adviser at the British Medical Association. There, he developed costed policy proposals aimed at influencing government policies and lobbying for recognition of the affordability of doctor-led health policy initiatives, such as through modelling the cost of full pay restoration for doctors. Ahmed’s research and analysis also contributed to other policy areas, including in digital infrastructure, pensions, public health, general practice, and long-COVID. 

Director of Graphnet Health, Markus Bolton has 44 years of experience in the software industry with a specialist focus on healthcare informatics since 1993. Markus was founder and CEO of System C Healthcare from 1983 to early 2022 and has been a director and major shareholder of Graphnet since 2012. During that time Markus has been involved with many aspects of the business including strategy, growth and mergers and acquisitions.  

Markus is an enthusiastic supporter of improving health and social care through data and process transformation and as part of that focus is heavily involved in Graphnet’s population health work.

Mike Bracken CBE is a global digital leader who has led wholesale transformations of large institutions in the private and public sector. He helps organisations change their way of working and solve systemic market, societal and macroeconomic challenges. He is best known for leading the global revolution in digital government, taking the UK to #1 in the UN rankings in 2016.

Mike Bracken is a founding partner at Public Digital, a digital change consultancy for institutions with a public mission. He was the founder and executive director of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) and the UK’s first Government Chief Data Officer.

Mike has led digital operations and transformations in large-scale organisations in the UK and Europe, such as Guardian News & Media and the Co-operative Group. A civic technologist who helped establish MySociety, Mike uses the power of the open Internet to drive systemic change.

He currently advises more than 30 governments and global financial institutions on digital transformation, from Canada and Australia to Argentina, and is currently one of President Macron’s Global Tech Thinkers. He is an honorary professor at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. Mike is a partner at the Lisbon Council in Brussels and a Non-Executive Director at Chetwood Bank, a fully licensed UK fintech.

Chris Buckels is the Deputy Head Of Business Intelligence for Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care Board and leads the Population Health Into Action Team.

His previous roles included Head Of Business Intelligence for Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Deputy Head Of Business Intelligence for Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group.

Chris has more that 23 years’ experience in data analysis, including 20 years’ NHS experience. In his current role, Chris is the ICB’s liaison with Graphnet, as well as leading a team of analysts which supports the ICB’s Data Into Action programme, focussing on using population health analysis to make a measurable difference to the lives of people in Cheshire & Merseyside.

Laura is the Clinical Development Lead for the Digital Health Transformation Service at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.  In this role, she guides like-minded digital nurses to successfully adopt innovative ways to reach out and engage with service users. Laura qualified as a paediatric nurse in 2007, working in an acute paediatric setting before commencing her career in school nursing in 2018, and completing the PGDip in specialist Community Public Health Nursing (SCPHN) in 2020. In her previous role, Laura led on ChatHealth for the School Nursing Team in Manchester, igniting her passion for digital nursing.

Prior to his appointment, Duncan held the post of Deputy Chief Nursing Officer for England and led the maternity and neonatal programme and the children and young people’s transformation programme, as well as nursing workforce policy and infection prevention and control. He delivered the Nursing International Recruitment Programme, which ensured we met the 50k nurse commitment 6 months early, and the Healthcare Support Worker Recruitment Programme, which resulted in the highest number of healthcare support staff employed in the NHS on record.

I am a consultant gynaecology cancer surgeon, working in NHS Greater Glasgow since 2007. I have a long held interest in quality outcomes in cancer care. This has involved work with the Scottish National Colposcopy audit system, Scottish Quality Performance Indicators for gynaecology cancers and Patient reported outcomes projects. As lead for Gynaecological cancers in the West of Scotland I was the involved with an innovative project using M365 and Power Platform technologies to provide a solution for Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) working. I am now the Clinical Lead for MDT Improvement in the West of Scotland, alongside my surgical workload, and our system is being rolled out across all West of Scotland MDT’s.

Dr Nicola Byrne has served as the National Data Guardian for health and adult social care in England since March 2021. With over 20 years of experience in mental health, she continues her clinical role as a consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Previously, she held the positions of Deputy Medical Director, Caldicott Guardian, and Chief Clinical Information Officer at the trust.

The National Data Guardian offers independent advice, guidance, and challenge to the government and others on the safe, ethical, and appropriate use of people’s confidential information in health and adult social care. The role’s mission is to uphold trust in a confidential health and care system.

In this role, she works collaboratively with partners across the NHS and wider life science ecosystem to shape the HealthTech strategy at NICE and lead development projects that solve key challenges, both internally and externally. Most recently, Sarah led the development of the new Early Value Assessment approach for health technologies that address key NHS needs, helping to build the evidence base for widespread adoption through early deployment in the NHS.

Previously, Sarah was responsible for the NICE guidance programme evaluating the value of devices, diagnostics and digital technologies to improve patient access and care, and address NHS system challenges. Prior to NICE, she completed a PhD in Biochemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

She also leads the Quality Team who complete Medical Device Regulation Clinics and lead on Compliance of Medical Devices, specifically focusing on Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) and ISO 13485. She is a nurse by background, formerly working as an Emergency Nurse in the United States. She has masters degrees in Nursing and Business Administration.

Chris is Clinical Lead and Honorary Professor of Respiratory Innovation in the West of Scotland Innovation Hub, and Clinical Lead for Respiratory Medicine, South Sector NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. His subspecialty, research and innovation work is focused on implementation and evaluation of assistive digital technologies to establish end-end pathway transformation and new service models for patients with COPD, severe respiratory failure and sleep disorders. The West of Scotland Innovation hub provides comprehensive test-bed infrastructure to host collaborations between NHS, academic and commercial partners to co-design, co-develop and co-deliver clinical innovations through from concept to procurement. The hub’s respiratory portfolio DYNAMIC, POLARIS and DYNAMIC-AI projects are Glasgow-developed exemplars which are scaling-up nationally, transforming long-term condition management.
woshealthinnovation

I am a registered nurse with a clinical background in neonatal nursing, previously working in Neonatal units across Cheshire and Mersey and for the Neonatal Regional Transport team.  Throughout my career I have held many posts ranging from staff nurse, ward manager and matron through to the role of Chief Nursing Informatics Officer.  I have been a CNIO in 4 organisations and have supported and led the process of digitising Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health professionals in pre and post Electronic Patient Record go lives and beyond, enabling nurses to 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 my role as Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, I have participated and supported digital programmes for nurses locally, regionally and at national level.  I have been 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.

Natalie is a Partner at JMAN Group. She was recently named in the Twenty in Data and Technology 2023 and has been recognized multiple times in the top 100 data professionals. She holds various leadership roles in the data community including Chairing a Women’s Health movement, leading a cross-industry Data Ethics Advisory Board, and being a member of the Mayor’s Data for London Advisory Board. Before JMAN Group, Natalie headed up data consultancy Profusion, overseeing strategic direction, the expansion of its product offering, and the growth of its blue-chip client base.

Natalie also scaled a start-up from £6 million to £30 million in just 18 months and ran above-the-line digital and email marketing campaigns for the Mayor of London to launch a new brand, ‘Team London,’ build and engage a database of 1 million Londoners who would volunteer, and secure London the title of European Volunteering Capital. She was also part of the team that delivered the London 2012 Olympic Games.

For much of her career she has been a GP trainer and a course organiser and professional GP appraiser. Her leadership and board level experience includes Calderdale CCG, (Calderdale Cares Partnership ICB), where she is the clinical lead for Community Integration and Population Health Management and Digital and is passionate about addressing inequalities.

She has strong interest in leading multi-disciplinary teams and the development of neighbourhood working. She was a PHM facilitator on the NHS England Place Based Development Programme. She also works as a consultant to a number of different digital companies. She is a keen fell runner and horse rider.

Twitter: @HelenDa21136593
Linkedin: Helen Davies

“I became involved in the digitalisation of healthcare due to increasing frustration at the obvious gap between the needs of healthcare and the provision of tech solutions, when these seem to be available and improving so many seemingly less important areas of our lives.”

Chris Day, currently serves as Clinical Lead within Cyber Operations at NHS England. He has worked in the role since August 2022 when it was highlighted that clinical input was an essential requirement within Cyber Operations. He straddles between Cyber and Digital Clinical Informatics to ensure that each area is considered within the opposite function.  

Having worked as a Physiotherapist across a range of Trusts for more than a decade, a huge amount of knowledge was gained about how digital ways of working can be done successfully, but also when things go wrong. A significant amount of project management and change management activity has been undertaken within both clinical and digital roles.  

Although still practicing as a Physiotherapist, Chris initially became involved in Clinical Informatics when taking up a role as a Clinical Change Manager in 2018, within Digital Services of an Acute Trust. This then progressed to the role of Lead Allied Health Professional for Digital Transformation, which included clinically leading the implementation of an Electronic Health Record.  

Within Cyber Operations Chris works on everything from strategy development and ongoing business development to incident management when cyber-attacks emerge within the NHS.  

Chris has keen interests in change management within health and social care. How we protect individuals through improvement of support functions that enable: and optimising services to maximise our ability to provide gold standard outputs.

I started my nursing career in Sheffield and specialised in Neonates for 23 years and then became Ward Manager of a Paediatric Surgical Ward. I was seconded to the role of Matron for Digital Technology in December 2021 to support digitisation on the acute site and have recently been appointed as the first CNIO at Sheffield Children’s Hospital which involves responsibility for the development, optimisation, implementation, and clinical safety of the digital systems used across the trust including Community and Mental health.

I have always had an interest in patient information and data, and although I am not an expert in technology, I embrace digital change and the benefits it brings and believe that clinical leadership is paramount for successful transformation.

Mark recently joined DHCW from the private sector, and has over 30 years experience in the IT and security industry. He founded network and cyber security specialists Capital Network Solutions (CNS) in 1996 and managed and developed it through to acquisition in 2021, providing complex security services to major customers in a wide variety of organisations, including NHS trusts and health boards across England and Wales.

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.

As the Assistant Chief Nurse at St George’s Hospital, Mitchell managed the infection control team and oversaw the nursing, midwifery, and AHP workforce skill mix review and staff deployment during the expansion of the hospital’s intensive care units in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mitchell has served as Deputy Chief Nurse and Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) at Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, where, together with the CIO and CCIO, he led the implementation of electronic patient records in both acute hospital and community services.

Currently, Mitchell is the Deputy Chief Nurse at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, leading on Quality, Patient Safety, and Clinical Governance. He is the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for PSIRF implementation and is developing a bespoke AI-enabled patient experience tool (QUAIL) in collaboration with AI specialists to drive quality improvement for better staff and patient experiences.

Mitchell is a founding member of the Jabali Men’s Network, a group of senior BAME male nurses in England advising the Chief Nursing Officer for England on equality, diversity, and inclusion. He is also a founding member of the Filipino Senior Nurses Alliance, which united various Filipino associations in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic and was instrumental in developing the alliance’s vision.

Before moving to the UK, Mitchell earned the rank of Fire Inspector and was appointed as regional chief for emergency and rescue services after completing the Public Safety Officer training course for commissioned officers at the Philippines Fire National Training Institute.

Monica is involved in influencing national and international policies through her activities including membership of the WHO’s Global Alliance Against Respiratory Disease (GARD), the European Respiratory Society, the American Thoracic Society, the European COPD Coalition, and the International Primary Care Respiratory Group. She is an Associate of the Center for Managing Chronic Disease, University of Michigan.

She is also Chair of the UK Inhaler Group, Knowledge Exchange Lead for the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research, and Chair of the European Respiratory Nurses Association (ERNA).

Monica is honoured with an OBE for services to nursing.

Matthew is Associate Director of Transformation at BCHC and Programme Director for Integrated Neighbourhood Teams.

Until September 2023, he was the Associate Director of Operations for BCHC, working operationally across the Trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this he was Head of Contracting for BCHC.

He first joined BCHC in 2019 from Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit where he was Senior Contract and Quality Manager.

His career has spanned both provider and commissioning organisations working on operational support, quality assurance and commissioning portfolios.

Cheryl Gowar is a researcher in the policy team at The King’s Fund. She works across a range of issues related to health and care and is particularly interested in public health and the structural response to health inequalities. Before joining The King’s Fund, Cheryl was involved in policy and campaigns work for the National AIDS Trust and Disability Rights UK. She was also a member of INVOLVE and has considerable experience in patient and public involvement, and building participation of people with lived experience into the research process. She has a PhD from Rutgers University in the USA.

With over 30 years of midwifery experience, Jules Gudgeon is a key player in advancing digital technology in maternity care, post the 2015 National Maternity Review by Baroness Cumberlege. Leading roles in the NHS Digital Maternity Programme and the creation of the award-winning Digital Midwives Expert Reference Group, now the Digital Maternity Leaders community, showcases her commitment to collaborative efforts in the digital maternity landscape.

As the National Chief Midwifery Information Officer at NHS England, she was a 2023 HSJ Clinical Leader of the Year Award finalist. In 2024, Jules persists in advocating for digital leadership and addressing the maternity digital divide with #FixTheDigitalDivide #DigitalMaternity.

Tom leads research on innovation, with a particular focus on technology, data, and AI. He also leads the Foundation’s work on environmental sustainability, including improving the organisation’s footprint and supporting the shift to NHS net zero. He joined the Foundation from NHS England where he was Clinical Policy and Strategy Team Manager, covering maternity and women’s health, and before that Communications and Engagement Lead for the National Maternity Review. He has held a range of other roles at NHS England, the Department of Health and Social care, and several national and international charities.

Ele has deep expertise in digital health with a focus on AI and regulation. She previously worked at the NHS AI Lab where she led on two key reports looking at the evaluation of AI-enabled medical devices, and ways to develop and deploy AI-enabled medical devices across jurisdictions. She is also a member of the BSI.

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.

Jane Hogg is the Executive lead and Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for one of the most successful large scale shared care record partnerships nationally.

This is a collaborative partnership is across three Integrated Care Systems, over 4 million residents and a multitude of contributing trusts, local authorities and other partners. It takes a population and person-centred approach, uses the latest thinking on population health, evidence-based change and driving improved outcomes, underpinned by the digital systems needed to support them.

Prior to that Jane supported the Frimley system to become one of the leading ICSs nationally, working to help strengthen relationships across health and care and into local communities, to build a shared strategy to take collective responsibility for the health and wellbeing of the local population, and to make best use of how the system spends its money and directs its energy.

Jan is Head of Health and Care at BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. She joined BCS from the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, where she was instrumental in the set up and early development of the organisation.  Prior to that she managed the Health Informatics Unit at the Royal College of Physicians and has worked in health and social care informatics roles for most of her career, both at a local and a national level across all health and care settings.

BCS drives professional standards in informatics and supports the development of digital skills at all career stages, with the aim of achieving an effective and ethical digital workforce.  Jan’s priorities in her BCS role are to create opportunities to develop the skills and experience needed by those working in health and social care informatics and to support professionalisation through promoting professional standards and registration.

Acting as an independent champion for patients Henrietta leads a drive to improve the safety of medicines and medical devices by ensuring that patient voices are at the heart of the design and delivery of healthcare in England.

A practising GP and a member of the Health Honours Committee and the guiding group of the Women’s Health and Care Leaders Network, Henrietta was previously the National Guardian for the NHS and a Medical Director at NHS England. Henrietta has held executive and non-executive roles in the NHS and is Chair of Childhood First, a children’s charity.

I am facilitating the development of NICE’s Early Value Assessment programme for health technologies with a focus on digital health technologies. Prior to this, I supported the deployment and implementation of digital health solutions to local and regional NHS organisations as a Clinical Safety Officer under DCB0129 and DCB0160.

I have a broad understanding of the health ecosystem having worked in various clinical roles across the front line in numerous NHS Trusts, and in local and regional commissioning roles in the NHS, Specialised Commissioning, Health and Justice, and the 3rd Sector.

Thomas currently works as an associate professor and honorary consultant in geriatric medicine in the Department of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham.  He works clinically in the acute medical unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

His research group focusses on understating the immune-inflammatory basis of clinical expressions of adverse ageing, opposed to healthy ageing.  These clinical expressions include delirium, frailty and sarcopenia. He leads a £4.4M research programme funded by Wellcome Leap Dynamic Resilience investigating underlying biological processes that drive older people’s ability to recover after stressor events such as surgery.  A recent trial has looked at the effects of food supplements that have effects on underlying biological mechanisms of ageing – so testing the so called ‘geroscience hypothesis’.   He is joint PI of the OPTIMising therapies, discovering therapeutic targets and AI assisted clinical management for patients Living with complex multimorbidity study (OPTIMAL).  This aims to provide decision support for polypharmacy, as well as insights in multimorbidity trajectories and clusters.

He is also passionate about supporting geriatricians in training to develop careers in research, a clear area in need of capacity building.

Paul is the Chief Digital Information Officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, where he leads a team of 450 digital and information staff. He has held senior, digital roles in the public and private sector over the last twenty-years including CTO for the NHS in England and Group CIO at Serco.

Matt is Senior Adviser for Cardiovascular Health at UCLPartners. The focus of the Cardiovascular Health Programme is to transform prediction, detection and management of cardiovascular risk in order to prevent heart attacks and strokes at scale. Current innovations include the award winning UCLPartners Proactive Care Frameworks to transform management of the high-risk conditions for cardiovascular disease, and CVDACTION – a smart data tool for primary care to identify, prioritise and optimise care in people with high-risk conditions. 

From 2016-2019, Matt was National Clinical Director for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and led development of the NHS Long Term Plan CVD Prevention Programme. He co-founded and led development of CVDprevent, the national audit for CVD prevention. He also practices as a GP in Shropshire. 

Previously Matt worked as advisor to the Department of Health respiratory programme, and was a member of the NICE Public Health Interventions Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2013. He has a master’s degree in public health and is a Fellow of the Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Physicians. 

Omar Khan is an Interoperability Standards Architect at NHS England. He leads on the development and appropriate use of interoperability standards across several NHS England Programmes and Services.

Most recently he has been leading development of FHIR standards for the NHS England Genomic Medicine Transformation Programme, aiming to digitise Genomic Test Ordering and Structured Reports.

Omar is also a board member of HL7 UK and sits on the HL7 Clinical Genomics Working Group.

Omar has a background in academia, formerly being a researcher in Health Informatics at the University of Warwick before joining the NHS, and has an interest in Clinical Decision Support.

Philippa is on the Board of the AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare and is a champion for the safe, ethical, and responsible implementation of AI in health and care. 

Currently serving as the Clinical Safety Officer and Digital Transformation Lead at Kent Community Health, Caroline is at the forefront of integrating technology into healthcare. She is passionate about driving the sustainable use of digital systems, with a particular focus on their impact on staff and patient well-being. Caroline’s unique blend of extensive clinical experience and digital expertise positions her as a valuable voice in the evolving landscape of healthcare technology

As Chief Executive Officer of UCLPartners, Chris leads our work as a health innovation partnership and provides executive oversight of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, working with its co-directors.

He joined UCLPartners in October 2021, initially as Director of our Health Innovation Network and National Director of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, before being appointed as UCLPartners Chief Executive Officer in February 2022.

Chris undertook specialist training in nephrology, critical care and internal medicine, and continues to practise as a consultant nephrologist at University College London and Royal Free Hospitals, where he is also Honorary Associate Professor of Nephrology at the UCL Centre for Nephrology.

He undertook research training in renal disease, genetics and physiology at UCL and INSERM Paris. He remained active in research through clinical trials, health services research and the use of artificial intelligence in predicting acute renal disease.

Previous leadership roles have included Training Director, Clinical Lead for Nephrology and Associate Medical Director of Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. He worked for four years as Divisional Director of Emergency Services in University College London Hospitals where he oversaw the acute care pathway, leading an extensive programme of transformation. In the latter role he also led the UCLH emergency care response during the COVID-19 pandemic. He founded and led London Acute Kidney Injury Network.

Chris has a strong interest in digital health, technology and data science and worked for five years as a senior clinical advisor to DeepMind and Google Health.

Jean has a background in academic research and teaching, and was previously Senior Research Fellow at UCL specialising in health service research and evaluation. Prior to joining Adora, Jean worked as Research and Evaluation Lead at NHS England within the Digital First Primary Care and Primary Care Transformation programmes. Jean brings expertise in stakeholder engagement, digital health, NHS policy, evaluation and user research. She is leading a pilot study for Adora across primary care and Adora’s co-design project in Scotland working with NHS organisations. Jean is passionate about improving women’s health by developing evidence based and user-friendly innovations.

He sits on the Royal College of Radiology Informatics committee, on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Doctoral Training for Biomedical AI in Edinburgh University and is a scientific advised to the National Covid Chest Imaging Database.

A graduate of Trinity College Medicine, along with his medical degree he also qualified with an Msc. in Health Informatics and completed his radiology training in Aberdeen. He is an honorary senior clinical lecturer in the University of Aberdeen. Dr Lip has published and spoken on topics nationally and internationally such as patient engagement, innovation in breast imaging techniques quality assurance and safety in breast AI.

He leads on range of projects including trauma for the STN (thetraumaapp.com), Dynamic COPD (support.nhscopd.scot) and OPERA(early diagnostic heart failure utilising AI). Such projects focus on developing AI/ML clinical decision support by embedding a data driven approach combined with patient co-management into clinical care pathways. David also established the EmQuire research group focusing on data, device and decisions within Emergency Medicine.

Neil has been Chief Executive of Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust since January 2019, after holding the interim position a year. Prior to this he was part of the Trust Board for 3 years as Chief Operating Officer.

Neil chairs the Buckinghamshire Executive Partnership and is vice-chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board in Buckinghamshire. Neil is also Honorary Professor of Professional Practice for the School of Business at the University of Buckingham, and Trustee of Scannappeal.

Neil started his NHS career in Yorkshire as a National General Management Trainee in 2003, before joining the Trust in 2005. After leaving for a role at the Healthcare Commission and general management positions at Imperial and Guys and St. Thomas’ Trusts, he returned to the organisation in July 2013 as Deputy Chief Operating Officer for the Surgery and Critical Care Division.

Graduating from St. Anne’s College, Oxford with a modern history degree in 2000, Neil subsequently completed an MSc in Healthcare Management from the University of Birmingham.

Dr Sonja Marjanovic is Director of RAND Europe’s portfolio of research in the field of healthcare innovation, industry and policy. Her work provides decision makers with evidence and insights to support innovation and improvement in health and care systems.

She is also a member of the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research, an expert advisor to the NHS England cancer innovation programme, a Trustee of the Nuffield Trust and on the advisory board for the Centre for Healthcare Innovation Research (CHIR) as City, University of London.

Sonja is the RAND Europe lead for Decide, a new rapid evaluation centre focused on technology-enabled remote monitoring in health and care. Funded by the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) programme, Decide is a partnership between the University of Oxford and RAND Europe. Sonja received her Ph.D. from Judge Business School, Cambridge University.

Ian is the NPIC Programme Head for Digital Deployment & Business Services, responsible for delivering a digital pathology solution to NHS Trusts nationally, whilst supporting our partners to embark on digital transformation across pathology. Ian is responsible for managing the relationships with our existing partners and to identify opportunities with new partners to work with NPIC in the future.

Ian has worked in IT delivery in the Healthcare industry for the last 19 years and held various leadership roles covering Programme delivery, Operations and Training Services. Ian has delivered numerous digital transformation projects in clinical environments across Primary Care, Community, Child Health & Acute Care settings. Ian has also helped NHS Digital deliver the Health & Social Care Network which was the largest public sector migration to a new data network, saving the NHS £75m per year. 

Ian is now helping to drive forward the clinical implementation of the NPIC digital pathology solution across the country to help NPIC deliver against its objectives in forming a true national network for pathology. 

Cate has deep experience in delivering agile, user-centred services within the public sector. Her expertise includes leadership coaching and development, facilitating conversations across organisations and systems, and supporting leaders to be bold and brave in leading change.

At Public Digital, she works across public sector organisations, healthcare companies and charities, including the NHS, Arup, Greenwich Council and the charity Change Grow Live.

Currently, Ciara serves as the Nova Program Director, the first of type electronic patient record initiative across three domains (acute community and mental health) at the Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust Hospital and Essex Partnership University Trust Hospital. This groundbreaking programme underscores her belief in digital technology as a pivotal enabler of improved work experiences for staff and enhanced care for patients.

Ciara is dedicated to delivering a program that prioritises people and purpose, demonstrating unwavering commitment to advancing healthcare delivery through digital innovation and strategic transformation. Ciara is also a social entrepreneur, redefining the professional landscape for women over 50, building new narratives that empower women in their encore careers enabling them to thrive with confidence and purpose.

Dr. Jessica Morley has worked in NHS data, tech, and AI policy for the past ten years. Originally working in the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care, she transitioned to working full-time in academia in 2019: working for the Bennett Institute of Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford on OpenSAFELY and the Goldacre Review until April 2023.

Now, having completed her PhD “Designing an algorithmically enhanced NHS”, also at the University of Oxford, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Yale Digital Ethics Center. All Jess’s work focuses on ensuring healthcare systems can capitalise on the opportunities of better use of data, whilst mitigating the ethical harms.

A/Prof. Ng Yih Yng is the Director of the Digital and Smart Health Office for the Healthcare Innovation (CHI) at the National Healthcare Group (NHG), overseeing the Hospital without Walls Program, Digital Enablement & Adoption, Digital Transformation and the Health Empowered by AI Launchpad (HEAL) initiative, focused on adoption and scaling of artificial intelligence across the NHG.

He is also a faculty in Digital Health & AI with the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKC-SOM), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), as well as the clinical director of the LKC-SOM, NTU World Health Organisation collaborating centre for Digital Health & Health Education. 

At the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Yih Yng is a Senior Consultant, Department of Preventive & Population Medicine as a public health physician and supporting the training of emergency physicians in evidenced based medicine.

His research interests includes resuscitation, emergency medical services, innovation and the adoption of digital health and AI.

At the start of the Covid pandemic, Ella joined the London Nightingale Hospital’s Training and Education team. Since then, she has worked within the NHS, supporting a wide range of national, regional, and local programmes. For more than two years, Ella led a national initiative to implement the first-ever national digitised proficiency framework for adult critical care nurses, spanning 60 NHS Trusts across the UK. She now leads NHS Elect’s digital transformation offer, in addition to supporting exec teams at national, regional, and Trust levels in shaping their organisational strategies.

She is equally leading efforts to facilitate secure access to data for research and innovation with the design and implementation of a network-wide approach to data management and governance.

Jill has extensive experience across public health, including working on national policy for substance misuse and on workforce development. Jill has also been a private company director, and studied and worked in law, bringing these perspectives to innovator support.

Architecture Lead, Traverse Digital – providing services on behalf of the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Shared Care Record. Toby is currently working alongside health and care organisations in the region to deliver shared care record functionality aligning to local priorities. He is leading on discovery activities to ensure that challenges in different care settings are well understood and that technical capabilities solve the right problem. This also includes the design of standards for health and social care information that align to national and regional approaches.

In the past he has worked on health and care digital transformation initiatives with NHS trusts and local government in Leeds as well as on the Yorkshire & Humber Care Record. Toby’s previous experience has also included solution architecture, application development and clinical informatics for EMIS Health. He has a particular interest in using human-centred design and design-thinking methodologies alongside enterprise architecture best practice.

Jenny’s mission is to make healthcare work better for patients and staff through innovation. She is an engineer by background, with a particular interest in how digital technology can support better healthcare. Jenny worked for many years in primary care management setting up new services and medical centres, and recognises the huge potential of AI to address service and workload challenges. 

Her leadership extends beyond her current role, having spearheaded local transformation projects during her time as a Darzi fellow and managing the national COVID-19 Test programme during the pandemic. A shortlisted finalist for the Next Generation Leader at the Women in IT Awards, she brings a blend of frontline clinical experience and strategic digital health expertise to drive impactful change across the NHS.

Alan is an executive level Digital and Technology leader with over 30 years in Healthcare, Health Insurance, Banking and Capital Markets, bringing digital innovation, vision, knowledge, drive and the ability to deliver globally across multiple businesses and support functions.

He’s held executive technology and engineering leadership positions at Sensyne Health, Aetna International, Nuffield Health, BUPA Merrill Lynch, Oracle and CTO at JPMorganChase.

Alan is now Group Product and Engineering Director for the Health, Support & Care division at the Access Group. Here he is responsible for the overall vision, direction and delivery of the technology for this crucial group of customers, as they aim to meet the twin aspirations of digitisation and integrated health and care.

He also holds an Honorary Professorship at the UCL Faculty of Engineering (Intelligent Systems) and has specific research interests in Digital Health, Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship.

Iolanda Pedrosa is the first CIO in the NHS to come from a Nursing Information Officer background. An avid learner across multiple disciplines, she has a nursing degree, an MBA, level 2 of British Sign Language, and is a Mental Health First Aider.

Her experiences of both providing care and being a patient, in the UK and in Portugal, have given her a unique perspective. She is passionate about amplifying patients’ voices in decisions around digital and information technology in the NHS, and creating a supportive culture of wellbeing in the teams that she leads.

With over 20 years of experience in leadership roles across the UK’s charity, health and higher education sectors, Gemma has led ground breaking initiatives in cancer research, care and clinical best practice. Since joining Macmillan in January 2023, Gemma has catalysed the collaborative development of a new organisational strategy, preparing the organisation to ensure that everyone living with cancer in the UK gets the best possible care today, while sparking a revolution in cancer care for the future.

Rachel joined the Patients Association as Chief Executive in 2017and has led changes in the charity, resulting in a more engaged membership and an increase in profile for the Patients Association and its goal of embedding patient partnership in the design and delivery of health and care services.

Described by The Times as, “the UK’s foremost patient campaigner”, Rachel is a passionate advocate for patient-centred care. In 2023 she was invited by the English Patient Safety Commissioner to join her advisory group and be a member of the Martha’s Rule working group. She sits on the NHS Assembly and is also a member of the National Data Advisory Group, Personalised Care Institute Steering Group, and NHS England’s Patient Choice Steering Group, among other memberships.

Rachel’s focus is on empowering patients through the provision of information that enables them to be active partners in their care. This is reflected in the Patients Association general election manifesto that provides the next Government with a roadmap of how to ensure access to high quality care and embed patient partnership across health and care services.

Alec Price-Forbes joined NHS England as national Chief Clinical Information Officer at the start of October.

Alec is an experienced Consultant Rheumatologist at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, was previously the Trust’s CCIO and was the NHS’s first system CCIO for Coventry and Warwickshire’s Health and Care System. He has also held roles as Clinical Lead and co-Chair for NHSE’s Digital Blueprinting Steering Group and as CMIO for 3M Healthcare (UK and Ireland).

With a reputation as a compassionate and empathic clinician, he has an established track record of working across care settings to facilitate new ways of working to transform health and care delivery. With extensive experience in strategic planning and quality improvement, he has successfully led many programmes and projects, accelerating and embedding core Digital capabilities. These include the Shared Care Record, consolidating EPR capabilities with a vision for a single EPR, Virtual Health and Care capabilities and a Population Health Management solution. In 2021, he spearheaded the creation of a digitally-enabled Transformation Strategy for Coventry and Warwickshire’s ICS. This emphasised the convergence and standardisation of systems to deliver maximal integration, focusing on citizens and patients and not just care providers.

He is passionate about the role of high quality data, digital technologies and capabilities in enabling us to reimagine health and care services and outcomes in meeting the Quintuple Aim of HealthCare and dedicated to improving patient care by fostering a culture of change and collaboration.

Dr. Simon Rang is a Consultant Anaesthetist at East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust and serves as the South East Regional Clinical Lead for Perioperative Medicine at NHS England. With a strong focus on improving the perioperative pathway, Dr. Rang works to ensure optimal patient outcomes while enhancing the efficiency and standards of care. He is particularly interested in leveraging digital technology to streamline healthcare data availability, ensuring the right information is accessible at the right time. His work aims to improve the safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of perioperative care across the healthcare system.

As a doctoral researcher, she explores the impact of electronic health records (EHRs) in maternity care, particularly regarding healthcare inequalities affecting marginalised populations. Her research aims to assess whether EHRs enhance care coordination or exacerbate disparities, while developing frameworks to engage service users effectively in the design of these digital tools, ensuring they deliver equitable care for all.

Dr Charlotte Refsum is a trained physician and expert in health policy. Her work focuses on harnessing the power of AI and other technology to drive prevention, create sustainable health systems and achieve health for all. 

Working alongside Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir John Bell, her thought leadership contributes significantly to policy discussions of social-care policy, biotechnology and health care in the AI era. 

Over the course of her career, Charlotte has worked in 25 countries to support the transformation of health systems globally.

Hi! I’m Kaye, a Registered Nurse since 2011. I have worked clinically for over ten years, predominantly as a chemotherapy and palliative care nurse. In October 2021 I became the full time CSO for my organisation, and in June 2024 was promoted to the Lead CSO role. I am currently working towards my MSc in Digital Health (due to complete summer 2025), and I am very passionate about the safe use and introduction of digital systems into the clinical setting.

Patient safety is my priority and increasing awareness about the potential risks and benefits of digital health is imperative. I also run a national network for CSOs to meet online, meeting once a month via Teams. We have just hosted our first in-person collaboration day (26th June 2024) with the amazing team at DrDoctor and their CSO Laura – who is also on the council with us here. I’m really looking forward to being a part of this amazing team of dedicated clinical safety professionals and hope we can form an inclusive, collaborative council, for the benefit of all.

Steve Roche is an experienced Occupational Therapist with over 14 years clinical experience in a variety of settings. Steve is an NHS accredited Clinical Safety Officer and digital health leader with a passion for digital transformation, clinical safety, and quality improvement. Prior to his healthcare career, Steve specialised in quality assurance and continuous improvement methodologies in the automotive industry. As the Programme Lead for digital Clinical Safety, Steve utilises the transformative power that digital Clinical Safety can have to ensure Health IT systems and processes are effective, safe, and efficient. These skills and a desire to improve the quality of care, outcomes and experiences for people, their families, and carers is what motivates Steve professionally.

Shelly Rose currently serves as the Associate Director of Nursing for Critical Care, Anaesthetics, and Specialist Surgery at East Kent University Trust. Alongside this role, she is also the Non-Medical Advisor for Anaesthetics and Perioperative Medicine for NHS England in the South East region.

Shelly has been passionate for many years about supporting improvements in the perioperative pathway, ensuring a smooth transition from the point of listing through to discharge planning. She recognises that digital innovations are essential for supporting elective recovery, enhancing the quality of care, improving efficiency, and reducing duplication, all to benefit both patients and healthcare professionals.

Dr. Shelmerdine plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of radiology through her leadership positions in prestigious national and international organisations. She is a member of the Royal College of Radiologists’ AI and Academic Advisory Committees, chair of the European Society of Paediatric Radiology AI Taskforce, and member of the European Society of Radiology’s eHealth and Informatics Subcommittee. Her work focuses on ethical AI deployment, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and improving patient outcomes through technology-driven solutions.

​Haris Shuaib is CEO of Newton’s Tree, a company that delivers an enterprise AI platform to healthcare organisations to help them evaluate, deploy, and monitor 3rd party AI solutions.

Haris is also a healthcare professional and currently 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.

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.

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He has strategized, operationalised, and transformed stroke services at BHRUT with the PRIDEWAY leading to a D-rated service to A or B-rated. This service won the BMJ award for 2019 for rapid transformation.

He is interested in clinician-focused digital intervention with population-based data to prevent secondary events, clinically meaningful AI, and data-led intervention in the pathways.

Dr Robert Smillie has a dual role as Chief Medical Information Officer at the Royal Free London, and Radiology Registrar at the Royal London Hospital.

Professor Reecha Sofat is Chair of the Professional Records Standards Body. She is also Breckenridge Chair of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool. She practices general internal medicine and is also an Associate Director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Data Science Centre (DSC) which is led by Health Data Research UK (HDRUK). 

Reecha was also announced as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in May 2024, recognising her remarkable contribution to advancing biomedical and health sciences, ground-breaking research discoveries and translating developments into benefits for patients and wider society.  

He has authored numerous publications on digital consent and shared decision making. He is the Partnership Lead of the Innovation Hub for the Royal College of Surgeons (England). He is passionate about healthcare and effective, safe innovation. Amongst other skills he has domain expertise in consent & shared decision making, the evaluation of medical devices and digital health.

Dr. Laura Tan is a Medical Doctor (MBBS BSc) and Co-founder of Avid, where she combines her clinical, technical and academic expertise to build and scale impactful care solutions to shift healthcare to be more preventative, predictive and personalised. Graduating from Imperial College Medical School, she worked across a wide variety of specialties, also securing an Academic Clinical Program with research into wearables, AI and data analytics. After building programming skills in app and web development, she co-founded Avid – a VC backed digital health start up for proactive health action. Dr Laura’s commitment to healthcare innovation is reflected in her participation in Harvard’s Value-Based Healthcare Seminar, the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Program, and the DigitalHealthLondon Bootcamp. She is driven by a mission to redefine proactive healthcare at scale – combining the best of consumer tech and AI-powered risk prediction, with clinical rigour, meaningful outcomes and practical support.

About Avid: Avid actively engages you in protective health activities, driving proactive action to manage chronic disease and reduce health risks through our comprehensive pipeline of programs. Avid applies a targeted, modular program of early intervention, that is highly engaging, to drive a specific outcome improvement, via a combination of accountability health coaching, content and data insights, leveraging AI to scale and augment human expertise: from automated Coach assist, to personalised risk prediction, to engaging AI avatars.

Ming has over 20 years’ experience in managing and delivering large scale change involving implementation of new operating models in complex and challenging environments.

She joined the NHS in October 2009, initially leading commissioning support services in the West Midlands as the Managing Director for Healthcare Commissioning Services and then as the Managing Director for South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit.

Ming is currently the Chief Data and Analytics Officer for NHS England responsible for strategic development of data and analytics capability across NHS.

Dr Gareth Thomas joined the Greater Manchester health and care system in 2023 as Digital Innovation Director. He joined as part of a joint appointment between Health Innovation Manchester and NHS Greater Manchester.

Gareth’s previous role was Deputy National Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) within the Transformation Directorate at NHS England, where he brought clinical leadership to national policy, strategy, systems liaison, and workforce development initiatives.

He is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia and worked as Clinical Director at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to his national role he was the Group Chief Clinical Information Officer at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.
 

Helen has been the CEO of Digital Health & Care Wales since 2021, 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.

Helen also led the organisation through its transition to a Special Health Authority on 1st April 2021, with Digital Health & Care Wales continuing to deliver national digital and data services to NHS Wales.

Helen was named Digital NHS CEO of the year in 2021, and has an MSc in Health Informatics from Swansea University, 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.

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Sarah is an experienced digital healthcare leader who is passionate about the power of data and technology to transform outcomes for patients and the working lives of staff across the NHS. She has been Digital Director on the New Hospital Programme since 2020, spearheading the digital ambition to develop, deliver and optimise Intelligent Hospitals.

She has 15 years’ private sector experience specialising in healthcare technology. She has been accountable for senior client partnerships with Trusts, resulting in first of type deployments across the UK. She created and led international executive alignment between UK hospitals and US healthcare systems, shaping digitisation and transformation programmes focused on reducing unwarranted variation in care. She has also managed strategy and deployment of industry leading digital delivery models into large acute providers, resulting in the opening of digitally advanced hospitals in the UK.

At Rewired 2025, David will share insights into the collaborative efforts between Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to expand Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs). His presentation will highlight how leveraging existing technology and clinician-led design can accelerate access to critical diagnostics, speeding up the diagnosis of conditions like cancer and heart disease, and addressing health inequalities in the North East.

David’s experience in strategic programme oversight, major incident management, and integrating complex IT systems has been instrumental throughout his career. His pragmatic approach, focusing on patient-centred solutions and operational efficiency, underpins his approach in ensuring access to services, improving patient experience and healthcare outcomes.

“Born in Newcastle, Louise Thompson’s first job was at the Freeman Hospital.  From there, she became an alumna of Northumbria University School of Law.  She went on to complete her MSc at UMIST and became a Certified Company Director by way of examination on behalf of the Institute of Directors, at Warwick Business School.  She is also an alumna of Windsor Leadership Trust.  Louise is a CEDR-accredited mediator. 

Louise spent 25 years in blue chip corporate organisations (EDS, BT, SAP, Accenture, De La Rue, Sopra Steria), applying the legal and commercial wrap to tech solutions and managing the end to end contractual lifecycle of customer agreements including bid submissions.   She has been a committee member of BSI’s ART/1 Committee on AI.  She is also a hospital governor.  She is a speaker and writer. 

Most recently, and based on her experience of being in a senior leadership position whilst caring for ageing parents, Louise founded Myfolks.  Myfolks (www.myfolks.uk) is the digital platform that sends someone round to an isolated elder to put the kettle on and have a cup of tea and a chat and Mysocialhealth (www.mysocialhealth.uk) which is using AI to delve into identifying and tackling social isolation as a preventative measure before it leads to disease such as dementia, heart disease, stroke and diabetes that are more costly in every sense.

Louise is on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, as a Patient Entrepreneur and Myfolks is supported by the National Innovation Centre for Ageing and Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria. Louise lives in Sussex, with her husband Paul, although her businesses are registered on the banks of the Tyne.”

Anne completed the Florence Nightingale Foundation Digital Leadership Scholarship in 2020 and is a FNF Digital Alumni. She believes maternity services should be women-centred, clinically led and supported by digital transformation.

Having trained initially as a nurse in 1985 and later qualifying as a Midwife in 1991, Anne has gained 33 years’ midwifery experience. She has worked across all aspects of maternity services, establishing an integrated Midwifery-Led Care Birth Centre, and works both locally and nationally on workstreams, delivering the maternity vision for Wales. Anne holds a Postgraduate Master’s Degree in Advanced Practice and Education for Health Professionals. As a Senior Midwife, Anne seeks to amplify the voices of both women and the Maternity Service to ensure they are at the forefront of planning and delivering maternity services. Anne is a Florence Nightingale Digital Leadership Scholar and has a strong interest in raising the profile of digital technology across maternity services. She is committed to modernisation of the service and embraces innovation with enthusiasm. She believes that maternity services should be women-centred, clinically-led and supported by digital transformation.

Andy is a UK futurist, speaker, podcaster and founder of FUTURE OF HEALTH – a new think tank and systems convener exploring the long term vision for holistic health in a technology enabled 21st century.

Through the lens of human-centred value creation Andy has undertaken many research, innovation and strategy projects across Health and Care. This includes authoring high profile reports for the UK’s NHS and policy makers on whole systems approaches to the future of Health.  Most recently he has been working closely with Suffolk and NE Essex ICS to bring a new futures based approach to whole systems working.

Emma Wills is a Researcher at The King’s Fund. She has a background in psychological and mental health research and has worked at an e-health organisation in the Netherlands. Her research has particularly focused on tackling health inequalities and on making health and care more inclusive. She has worked on a range of projects involving patients and the public in research to produce evidence and recommendations grounded in lived experience.

Matthew joined Imperial College Health Partners in November 2021 as a Senior Innovation Manager. A Physiotherapist by background, Matthew has over 20 years of NHS frontline clinical delivery experience.

In the five years preceding his tenure at ICHP, Matthew worked as a Consultant Physiotherapist and Head of Musculoskeletal Practice for a leading community services healthcare provider. Leading multi-disciplinary teams of over 400 clinicians, Matthew oversaw the provision of innovative and transformational community Rehabilitation, Musculoskeletal Assessment and Treatment, Persistent Pain, Rheumatology and First Contact Practitioner services serving over 375k patients and 50+ NHS Trusts/ CCGs.
Matthew has spent over ten years in NHS London Teaching Hospitals in various clinical and leadership roles.

Alongside his frontline roles Matthew served for eight years as London representative on the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Council. He served terms as the Chair on both Research and Development, and Practice and Development Committees during this time.

Matthew is passionate about innovation, quality improvement, patient engagement and public health.

I have worked in the NHS for 10 years starting operationally in a hospital managing surgical specialities, before going on to work at a CCG where I worked on improving patient flow and discharges, UEC and on the outpatient improvement programme. I have now been at NHSE for 3 years originally working on the clinical review of standards and then for the last two years as a Senior Change Manager for Digital Planned Care. Primarily I have been focussed on the roll out of patient engagement portals and integration into the NHS App for the South East.

With over a decade of experience in advancing early-stage innovations, Ilias has led high-profile projects across medtech, digital health, and cell and gene therapy on both national and international platforms. His work has also contributed to promoting the UK’s life sciences sector globally, attracting international investments reflecting his commitment to improving population health and economic growth. A dedicated advocate for diversity and inclusion in healthcare, Ilias champions equitable recruitment and fostering supportive workplace environments.

During this time at UCLPartners, he has spearheaded collaborative programmes in early cancer detection and dementia care. Currently, he leads projects aimed at accelerating the adoption of AI technologies at scale across London healthcare providers, driving transformative change in health and care delivery