Biography

Professor John Powell is a senior clinical academic with a long track record in the areas of digital health, healthcare innovation, knowledge management, health technology assessment, and patient experience. He also works as a medical and public health adviser to television drama (credits include Downton Abbey, Casualty 1909, Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen, SSGB, Ammonite, The Durrells, Jamestown. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3500745/ ).

Since 2012, John Powell has combined an academic role at the University of Oxford (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) where he is Professor of Digital Health Care, NIHR Senior Investigator, and Theme Lead for Applied Digital Health in the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, with the post of Consultant Clinical Adviser with the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation at NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) where he is currently working on the rapid Covid19 guidelines for the NHS. He is Editor-in-Chief of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment journal, chairman of the NIHR HTA & EME Journals editorial board, Deputy Programme Director of the NIHR Evidence Synthesis Programmes, and the Joint Editor-in-Chief of the SAGE journal DIGITAL HEALTH.

He has held significant national roles including Clinical Director of NHS Choices, the NHS website, and chairman of the BMA Information Technology committee. He also worked as Senior Medical Adviser to Netdoctor.co.uk. He was Professor of Public Health Medicine at the University of Warwick where he led an Ehealth Research Group for seven years, leading externally funded projects using a range of methodologies. He also built a strong collaboration with Warwick Business School studying the organisation and management of health services, especially the use of knowledge and decision-making. He played a key role in establishing the NHS Institute for Digital Healthcare with NHS West Midlands.

Powell has degrees in Social and Political Sciences and in Clinical Medicine from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics and a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.