Tara Donnelly – interim Chief Digital Officer, NHS England

Tara Donnelly panellist photoTara Donnelly is the interim Chief Digital Officer at NHS England.  Tara is on secondment from her role as Chief Executive of the Health Innovation Network, which exists to speed up the best in health and care across south London as its academic health science network, or AHSN.  She has led the Health Innovation Network for over three years and remains accountable officer, she is also a non-executive director at the Nuffield Trust, a leading health policy think tank.

Tara has an extensive background in leadership roles within the NHS and the voluntary and community sector.  She has a long-term passion for improvement and the potential of digital in healthcare and has spent the past 18 years at board level including at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as a non-executive director at Macmillan Cancer Support, as Chief Executive at the West Middlesex University Hospital and as Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Operations at the Whittington Hospital.  She has worked in the NHS for 30 years with her first role being as a Ward Housekeeper when she was 18.

As Chief Digital Officer at NHS England, Tara leads the strategy for citizen facing digital services to ensure people are empowered to manage their health care using digital services which meet their needs, target prevention and offer a personalised experience.  She is SRO for the Empower the Person pillar, part the NHS’ Digital Transformation Portfolio.

This is one of the most ambitious digital healthcare transformation portfolios in the world and its flagship programmes include the NHS website (nhs.uk), the NHS App, NHS login (verification of citizen’s identity), NHS Apps Library, Personal Health Records and Digital Standards, Digital Child Health, Digital Maternity, Widening Digital Participation, GP online services, and ensuring access to WiFi across the NHS estate.