The first chief executive for the Online NHS Trust has been named as Dame Caroline Clarke, current regional director for London at NHS England.
Plans for the new “online hospital” were first announced last year, with a go-live date set for 2027 and an aim to deliver up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years. The service will aim to connect patients virtually to clinicians based anywhere in England, with triage to be completed through the NHS App, and appointments for scans then offered at local community diagnostic centres.
The trust will initially focus on nine common health conditions, including menopause and prostate problems, aiming to support faster access to specialised care. NHSE published a preliminary market engagement notice in May, seeking to explore the feasibility of establishing end-t0-end diagnostic testing pathways for the virtual hospital service. It shared its intent to use information gathered from the engagement to inform the future commercial and sourcing strategy for diagnostic access, looking at the provider capabilities, digital maturity, and interoperability required to support digital test ordering, appointment booking, and digital notification of results.
Recruitment began for key roles in July, seeking “vision, experience and enthusiasm” to help shape the future of healthcare services across leadership positions such as medical director, chief nurse, chief people officer, and chief financial officer. John Browett, former Tesco.com chief executive, was also named as chair, alongside seven non-executive directors. Browett noted: “I am delighted to welcome Caroline as the first chief executive of the Online NHS Trust. Her exceptional NHS leadership and record of delivering transformation at scale make her the right person to lead NHS Online from ambition into implementation. I’m looking forward to working with her to build a service that will harness the best of NHS clinical expertise and digital technology to make care simpler, more responsive and built around patients’ lives.”
Prior to NHSE, Caroline held roles including group chief executive of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and finance director at several different NHS organisations, being recognised as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours for her services to the NHS. “Having spent my career working across the NHS, most recently leading the health service’s work across London, I have seen first-hand how much difference the right innovation can make to patients and staff alike,” Caroline commented. “I am hugely excited to bring that experience to building NHS Online from the ground up, creating a service that puts patients first and helps reduce waiting times for everyone.”
Wider trend: News from NHS England
NHS England is seeking feedback on its proposed contracting models for multi-neighbourhood provider (MNP) and single neighbourhood provider (SNP) contracts, aiming to promote joined up services, improve health and outcomes, better organise services around local population needs, and outline clearer responsibility for services or pathways.
NHSE also recently published a quality strategy to outline a structured approach to “making quality the organising principle for all NHS activity in England over the next decade”, including the use of data to measure and manage quality, the promotion of innovation and research, and tech to underpin safer, more consistent care. Focus is on the drivers or the clinical and system levers that influence outcomes, and process metrics, or “fast-moving operational signals that show whether care processes are functioning effectively”.
NHS England has set out a model discharge pathway, noting seven principles of discharge and what organisations need to have in place to deliver the model. “While the components of good discharge are well understood, they are not applied consistently,” NHSE notes. “There is still unwarranted variation between wards, sites and systems, and across different days and times of year.” The model puts focus on early decisions about those who can be supported through alternative pathways such as virtual wards (Hospital at Home).
