Faculty of Health and Care Inaugural Conference

Here you will find details of our forthcoming and past conferences.

Register for our next event to be held on Thursday 10 October, 9:00am - 4:30pm

Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London, WCIN 2AB

Conference Programme

Time	Talk	Speaker(s)
09:00	Registration
Session chair: Mr Sobath Premaratne FRCS, Consultant Vascular Surgeon
09:20	Conference Welcome	Holly Porter, Managing Director, BCS Institute Andrew Griffiths, CEO, FEDIP
09:30	Keynote 1	Sonia Patel, Chief Technology Officer, NHS England
10:00	Priorities for developing the nursing informatics profession	Sam Neville, Regional CNIO (Eastern) and BCS Nursing Informatics Group
10:20	Equipping the future pharmacist Exploring how technology will impact the pharmacy profession and how to adapt to harness this.	Amita Aggarwal, Senior Policy Lead, NHS England
10:40	Mind the Gap Poor data quality impacts everyone – this session will help identify what these gaps are, some causes and possible solutions to help improve data quality	Mandy Burns, CEO, IHRIM (Institute of Health Records & Information Management).
11:00	Break
Session chair: Dr Ian Thompson FRCGP, General Practitioner
11:30	Keynote 2	Dan West, Chief Digital Information Officer, Department of Health Northern Ireland
12:00	NICE’s journey to computable knowledge	Shaun Rowark, Associate Director Data Access and Analysis, NICE Jeremy Wyatt, Emeritus Professor and Chair BCS Computable Knowledge Specialist Group
12:20	We need to talk about social care – why social care should be front and centre to our thinking	Tommy Henderson-Reay, Lead Social Worker, Digitising Social Care Programme, DHSC/NHS England
12:40	Transforming the social care commissioning profession to better deploy Extra Care Housing Service through a data-driven approach	Jacqui Evans, Adult Social Care Commissioner, Hampshire County Council Pye Nyunt, CEO Impera Analytics James Shraiky, Chief Impact Officer, Impera Analytics and previous Professor Arizona State University
13:00	Lunch and networking
Session chair: Dr Tito Castillo, CITP CDMP CHCIO FBCS, Enterprise Architect
13:45	Developing your Faculty of Health and Care: workshop	Facilitators: Holly Porter, Managing Director BCS Institute and Andrew Griffiths, CEO Federation for Informatics Professionals (FEDIP)
14:45	The importance of developing future digital leaders – Members of FedIP's Future Digital Leaders programme will provide an overview of the scheme, sharing their personal journeys & growth as leaders across different digital healthcare careers.	Jodian Barrett, Deputy Chief Nursing Information Officer for West London Children’s Healthcare and Ella Preston, Informatics Lead for transformation, Moorfields Eye Hospital
15:05	Break
Session chair: Dr Elisavet Adrikopoulou, PhD MBCS, Senior Lecturer, University of Portsmouth
15:35	Health Data Exchange Formats: IPS, EuropeanEHRxFormat and a G-HER	Henrique Martins, Associate Professor in Health Management and Leadership at FCS-UBI medical school, ISCTE business school.
16:00	Transforming the Data and Analytics Profession to Enable Service Improvement	Emma Wright, Director of Professional Development AphA Jane Johnston, AphA Executive Director for Member Services
16:20	Keynote 4 – Developing the digital health workforce of the Future	Helen Thomas, CEO Digital Health and Care Wales
16:50	Thanks and close	Prof Philip Scott, Chair, Faculty of Health and Care Board

 

Speakers

Sonia Patel, FBCS, System CIO, NHS England

As CTO for the NHS, Sonia’s key priorities focus on delivering a clear vision of what successful digital transformation looks like at a national level. She is dedicated to strengthening the digital foundations of frontline organisations, ensuring equitable access to cutting-edge technology, and supporting local boards in taking ownership of their digital transformation strategies. Central to her mission is building a digitally confident workforce, capable of harnessing technology and data to empower citizens in managing their health and well-being in new, meaningful ways.

With over 20 years of experience in the healthcare sector, Sonia is a highly respected leader with a proven track record of driving digital innovation, even in the most challenging environments. Her leadership is shaped by a strong commitment to diversity, equality, and inclusion, and she is an active advocate of the Shuri Network and Stemettes. Sonia also dedicates her time to mentoring emerging talent, demonstrating her passion for cultivating the next generation of digital leaders.

Helen Thomas, FBCS, LFEDIP, CEO Digital Health and Care Wales

Helen has been the CEO of Digital Health & Care Wales since 2021, leading the organisation’s impressive response to the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting NHS Wales to adopt data and digital advances at pace and scale. She has worked in the NHS for over 30 years, gaining wide health informatics experience across a number of senior roles, and has spearheaded digital transformation to deliver more effective and safer care. She was named Digital NHS CEO of the year in 2021.

Dan West, Chief Digital Information Officer, Department of Health Northern Ireland

The CDIO post was created in 2019 to bring together strategy, policy, funding, delivery structures, governance, data leadership and digital innovation in an attempt to accelerate positive impact on people's lives in the region. The goal is to help deliver a Health and Care system that is economically sustainable with better care outcomes and safety and improved experiences for citizens and staff. The CDIO post is an Undersecretary / Director General in the Civil Service, and Dan sits on the board of the Department, as well as holding leadership roles in HSC delivery organisations (HSC = Northern Ireland's NHS - noting that Northern Ireland is unique in the UK context in having a fully integrated Health and Social Care system).

During COVID Dan's focus, like many others in the NHS, shifted to delivery - working across teams in public and private sectors to meet the needs of staff and citizens as Northern Ireland reacted to the rapid changes in public health policy. The work resulted in a dozen brand new public facing Digital services. These are cloud hosted, agile delivered, smartphone apps and open, transparent public data analytics capabilities. These technologies and techniques were virtually unheard of in the Health and Care sector in the region. Post pandemic Dan's role has turned core accountabilities of developing a Vision and Strategy for the Digital transformation of Health and Care in the region, establishing the long term investment roadmap and funding commitment, building the right delivery structures to make the journey successful, changing the culture and capabilities around data and information in the sector and building a new innovation architecture to enable academic and private sector Digital innovators to be able to contribute to addressing the challenges in Health and Care in the province. The current public services economic situation provides a challenging backdrop to maintain momentum on transformational digital investments.

Amita Aggarawal, MBCS, Senior Policy Lead, NHS England

Amita is a pharmacist by background and has worked in a variety of roles spanning digital initiatives from implementation of EPMA, to installation of a new hospital robot and roll out of automated medicine cabinets across a system. She has held several national roles too and held leadership positions.

Sam Neville, Regional CNIO (Eastern) and BCS Nursing Informatics Group

Sam is Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) and Clinical safety Officer (CSO) for MSEFT, and NHS England for the Eastern Region. Representing the nursing, midwifery and AHP workforce in the digital arena. Sam has over 30 years of nursing experience, mainly across surgical specialities and governance roles, and has spent her career within MSEFT driving the quality agenda. For the last 6 years the focus has been on the use of technology to improve patient care and staff experience, this had led to multiple conference presentations around clinical leadership in the digital space, and the development of papers around the digital way of working within nursing as a Fellow of the Phillips Ives review. Her work across the region has led to a successful network of clinicians working in digital and safety coming together and sharing best practice.

Sam holds a master’s degree in leadership and development and a master’s in business administration, as well as qualifications in digital clinical safety. She is a steering committee member of the Royal College of Nursing’s Digital Nursing Forum and supports the development of educational materials.

Mandy Burns, CEO, IHRIM (Institute of Health Records & Information Management)

Mandy Burns, is a Fellow and the CEO of IHRIM (Institute of Health Records & Information Management). Mandy is also a Royle Mansell award recipient – the highest award that IHRIM bestows. In addition Mandy serves as UK National Director for IFHIMA and a Director for FEDIP (Federation of Informatics Professionals) and is on the register as a Leading Practitioner.

Mandy has over 34 years of experience working within the National Health Service predominately within Health Informatics. Her range of experience covers Health Records (Library and EDMS/Scanning) Clinical Coding, Data Quality/Assurance, Information Governance, Clinic Prep & Reception, Transcription, Secretaries, Child Health, Domestics & Building Management, Booking & Scheduling, Referral Management, RTT and Outpatient Management (Including Nursing). Mandy has worked in a variety of Health Organisations including Acute Hospitals, Specialist Hospitals, Community Service and General Hospitals.

Mandy has supported the implementation of new PAS systems, EPR’s and EDMS programmes of work as well as other significant projects and programmes of work.

Mandy is a qualified teacher and remains passionate about promoting Health Informatics and supporting education within this field.

James Shraiky, Chief Impact Officer, Impera Analytics and previous Professor Arizona State University

Dr James Shraiky is a former Professor of Health and Architecture at Arizona State University. He is a pioneer of qualitative research methods deploying tools in various disaffected communities. He has specific research experience in the use of the built environment to influence healthy behaviour. James holds a PhD in Humanitarianism and Global Prosperity from University College London.

Pye Nyunt, CEO Impera Analytics

Pye Nyunt is a data analytics expert focussed on the better use of data in local government and integrated care systems. He was formerly Head of Insight & Innovation at the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and was the borough’s Data Lead for Shielding Patients throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jacqui Evans, Adult Social Care Commissioner, Hampshire County Council

Jacqui Evans is Strategic Commissioning Lead for Adults at Hampshire County Council and sponsor of the development of a demand model for Extra Care Housing. Her career spans local government at district and unitary levels focussing on the intersection of Housing and Social Care. Jacqui has formerly held positions such as Director of Communities and Wellbeing at Harborough District Council and a Housing Development Manager at Test Valley Borough.

Dr Tito Castillo PhD CITP CHCIO CDMP MBCS, Enterprise Architect

Tito began his career as a Medical Physicist and Researcher, focussing on development of software for the measurement and analysis of gastrointestinal physiology, and he continues to be a member of the British Society of Gastroenterology. Throughout more than 36 years in biomedical computing he has had roles in software development, project management, service development that led him to a variety of strategic leadership roles including CIO of Life Study, IT Director of the NIHR BioResource, Application Architect at UCLH and Data Architect at Guy’s & St Thomas’. He has provided consultancy to Chatham House, UCL, The Welcome Trust and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and, most recently, a large UK government healthcare transformation programme.

Dr Ian Thompson FRCGP, General Practitioner

A graduate of the University of Newcastle combined MBBS/PhD programme and the Royal College of Surgeons/University of Bath MSc in Health Informatics, Dr Thompson has spent 11 years as a GP Clinical Lead to Digital Health and Care at Scottish Government including acting as Clinical Lead for the Scottish Emergency Care summary until 2020. As past secretary of BCS Health Scotland and current chair of BCS Primary Health Care Specialist groups he has a longstanding involvement with BCS. He has spent 14 years as a part-time GP partner in a semi-rural practice in East Linton where he continues to practice.

Mr Sobath Premaratne FRCS, Consultant Vascular Surgeon

Sobath Premaratne is a Vascular and Endovascular Surgeon at Bart’s Health NHS Trust in London and a member of the BCS Faculty of Health and Care. Sobath is passionate about enhancing the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery through innovative solutions such as clinical process re-engineering, electronic health record systems, and artificial intelligence-enabled products. He has served as a council member of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics and is a clinician who codes, with extensive experience in health informatics at the secondary care level within the UK.

Sobath’s current interests in Health Informatics include Natural Language Processing (NLP), digital transformation in healthcare, development of medical apps, and the ethical use of AI in healthcare. He aims to leverage his unique blend of clinical and informatics expertise to create innovative and impactful solutions that enhance patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and optimize workflows.

Shaun Rowark, Associate Director Data Access and Analysis, NICE

I have worked in UK healthcare informatics for over a decade, starting out as a data analyst in hospital trusts to now being an associate director overseeing NICE’s access to healthcare data sources and developing its burgeoning data analysis function. I have managed several programmes of work including automated analysis and computable guidance, helping to ensure that NICE’s products are suitable for a digital healthcare system.

Jeremy Wyatt, Emeritus Professor of Digital Healthcare, University of Southampton and Chair BCS Computable Knowledge Specialist Group

Jeremy is Emeritus Professor of Digital Healthcare at Southampton and former Director of Wessex Institute of Health Research, advisor on validation methods to NHSX AI Lab, member of the MHRA Devices Expert Advisory Committee to Royal College of Physicians. He led the Faculty of Clinical informatics’ Special Interest Group on AI and currently co-convenes UK activity on Mobilising Computable Biomedical Knowledge (MCBK). He was previously Leadership Chair in eHealth Research in Leeds, setting up the £7M MRC Biomedical Informatics Centre in Leeds Institute of Data Analytics. His research uses empirical methods to uncover scientific principles guiding the design of clinical information and eHealth systems, studying interactive tools to change the behaviour of clinicians (eg. decision support), patients (eg. apps, telehealth) and the public (eg. SMS msgs to promote healthy lifestyle), and of digital tools to support health research.

Tommy Henderson-Reay, Lead Social Worker, Digitising Social Care Programme, DHSC/NHS England

A registered Social Worker, Tommy has worked across social care both for local authorities and represented the not-for-profit care provider sector in his current role as the National Care Forum’s Digital Lead. Having worked both locally and nationally, he has an excellent understanding of using technology, digital and data standards to promote person-centred integration across health and social care. Tommy is focused on ensuring that people and those who work in care have the skills they need to engage with technology. In addition to his role with BCS, he is a member of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, the British Association of Social Workers, and a trustee of youth engagement charity, Grow UK, in Sheffield.

Dr Elisavet Adrikopoulou, PhD MBCS, Senior Lecturer, University of Portsmouth

Dr Elisavet Andrikopoulou is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom (UK). Elisavet holds a PhD in health informatics. She has won several awards including the HDR UK Collaborathon 2020. Elisavet has held a variety of positions in the fields of database administration, IT consulting, and health informatics in Greece, Germany, Belgium, and the UK. Her current areas of interest are biomedical knowledge sharing, supporting healthcare decision-making, and utilising personal health record-focused technology to enhance the quality of life for individuals with chronic illnesses. Elisavet is the events and communications lead of the health and care executive group of BCS and a member of IET and EFMI, and her teaching focuses mainly on data visualisation and data analytics.

Henrique Martins, Associate Professor in Health Management and Leadership at FCS-UBI medical school, ISCTE business school

Henrique has a Medical Degree, Internal Medicine Speciality, a Master and PhD degrees in Management, and a Law Master’s degree, presently doing a PhD in Law. He was one of the first CMIOs in Portugal in 2009-2013 at Hospital Fernando Fonseca, Lisbon. During the years at the Ministry of Health he was responsible for setting the agenda for eHealth in Portugal. He was president of SPMS, Portugal's Digital Health Agency for close to 7 years, where he led National eHealth. He represented Portugal for 8 years and was the former Member States co-chair of the EU eHealth Network, the highest policy body on eHealth in the Union.

Elected Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (within IMIA) in July 2020. He is a National Defence Auditor. Since August 2020 he integrates the HL7 Europe Foundation Board of Directors. He now works as an academic at ISCTE Business School, one medical school (FCS-UBI), and at Korea University Medicine (Visiting professor), teaching and researching in Digital Health, Healthcare Systems and Transformation, Leadership and Management education for Medical Students and Health Professionals, he has authored a series of papers some of which looking at new trends for digital health at Global, European, National and Hospital levels. He is engaged in individual consulting projects in Healthcare Transformation and Digital Health. At present he works as Senior Consultant in Digital Health and Innovation for the WHO Athens Quality of Care and Patient Safety Office and as Senior Consultant for the Regional Action Plan on Digital Health for WHO Western Pacific Region. He is also the coordinator for a EU-Funded CSA called XpanDH aiming to support the development and adoption efforts for the European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format.

Jane Johnston, AphA Executive Director for Member Services

Jane is AphA Executive Director for Member Services, and an independent health & care data and analytics consultant with 30+ years in the NHS in Senior management. She has extensive experience managing analytical and business intelligence teams, ensuring delivery of timely, accurate reporting, analysis, intelligence, insight and predictive analytics, delivering service improvement, service redesign, transformation and integration through evidence based decision making. Producing digital and data strategy, identifying use cases to support cross system intelligence, with a strong emphasis on Population Health Management, always maintaining high standards of governance and ethical consideration.

Jane is continually supporting and driving the professionalisation, career and skills development of the analytical community with AphA through strategic partnerships and collaborations with other bodies such as CAO Network, NHSE, AnalystX, HSJ, The Strategy Unit, FedIP, HEE and Digital Health.

Emma Wright, Director of Professional Development AphA

Emma is Director of Professional Development with the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA), an organisation driving forward the professionalisation of analysts and data specialists in health and care. With post-graduate qualifications in Digital Health Leadership and also Health Data Science, Emma is passionate about developing strong analytical capabilities, with analytical leaders providing insight to shape health and care for the future. Emma co-designed the professional registration standards for analysts as part of her work with AphA and now chairs the AphA Professional Development Committee, overseeing the professional registration process and championing professional registration for the analytics community. Emma is professionally registered as a Leading Practitioner with Fed-IP.

Emma’s day job is with the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust where she is a Programme Director specialising in data improvement. Emma’s career spans over two decades and has included roles across the informatics spectrum, from IT to project management, but her passion remains with data and analytics.

Prof Philip Scott, Chair, Faculty of Health and Care Board

Professor Philip Scott is Programme Director of the MSc in Digital Transformation for the Health & Care Professions at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He was previously Reader in Health Informatics at the University of Portsmouth. Philip worked in the NHS in various IT development and management roles for fifteen years before moving into academia in 2009. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of Health Level Seven and board member of HL7 UK.

Philip is Deputy Editor of BMJ Health & Care Informatics and co-chair of the BCS working group on computable biomedical knowledge. He was co-chair of the Scientific Programme Committee for MedInfo 2021 and MedInfo 2023, the biennial IMIA global health informatics conference. Philip’s most recent publications can be viewed in the UWTSD research repository.

Philip has previously been chair of the evaluation working group of the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI), member of the steering groups for the NHS Digital Academy and the Global Digital Exemplar evaluation programme, non-executive Board member of the Professional Record Standards Body and member of the informatics committee of the Royal College of Radiologists.

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 encompassing the 2 functions of Voluntary registration/regulation and Developing the Health and Care Informatics profession.

Andrew’s previous career has primarily involved working for the NHS in Wales, being a CIO for over ten years, helping to establish a national organisation to develop and implement the Informing health care strategy, before later leading development of a new organisation (NWIS) which brought together the strategy, implementation and delivery IT organisations in NHS Wales.

Ella Preston, AphA, MBCS, FedIP, Co-Chair, Future Digital Leaders Council

Ella Preston is a healthcare data analyst, currently the informatics lead for transformation at Moorfields Eye Hospital. She works in a dual role, firstly managing the analytics support across the trust’s improvement project portfolio, and secondly managing a team of change analysts supporting Moorfields’s EPR programme. She has a Mathematics BSc, Health Informatics MSc, is a member of Apha, BCS and FedIP, and is the co-chair of the Future Digital Leaders Council. Additionally, Ella is active in research, with her work most recently being accepted at ARVO and Euretina conferences in 2024.

Holly Porter, Manging Director, BCS Institute

Holly leads the Institute at BCS, which supports the development of ‘competent, ethical and inclusive’ technology and informatics professionals. She works with both individuals and organisations who are members and volunteers in over 100 regional and special interest groups. Her focus is to help members drive their professional development and shape the future of technology as part of the BCS membership community. This starts with students and apprentices developing their digital skills through to experienced technology leaders.

She joined in 2019 from GS1 UK, a global data standards organisation where she was Chief Marketing Officer & Membership Director. Prior to this, she was Marketing & Communications Director at Wincanton plc. Through her role at BCS, Holly Chairs the Federation for Informatics Professionals Board in Health and Social Care; a collaboration between the leading professional bodies in health and care informatics. She is a Non-Executive Director of the SFIA Foundation (Skills for the Information Age) and a Trustee of internet safety charity South West Grid for Learning.

Jodian Barrett, Children’s Chief Nursing Information Officer (CCNIO) for West London Children’s Healthcare

I am Jodian Barrett I work in a dual role as the Children’s Chief Nursing Information Officer (CCNIO) for West London Children’s Healthcare (working across Imperial College Healthcare Trust and Chelsea and Westminster’s) Paediatric services. I also serve as the Deputy Chief Nursing Information Officer for the Northwest London Virtual Hospital. In my roles, I lead digital transformations and optimisations for children’s services and oversee all technical changes and integrations for the virtual hospital.

I am a member of the first cohort of the FedIP Future Digital Leaders program and sit as an active member of the Future Digital Leaders Council. I’m also a member of BCS, and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.