When I moved to the UK in the early 2000s, I came as a clinician first, an occupational therapist shaped by systems thinking and a commitment to equitable, person‑centred care. Two decades on, that same compass guides my work as the inaugural Chief Allied Health Professions Information Officer (CAHPIO) at NHS England. My mission is simple: connect frontline insight with digital strategy so technology serves care, not the other way round (The AHP Strategy for England: AHPs deliver ).
Why AHP leadership in informatics matters
Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) comprise 14 registered professions regulated by HCPC and GOsC, working across acute, community, primary care, social care, independent and voluntary sectors. Their breadth spanning rehabilitation, diagnostics, optimisation, prevention, means AHPs don’t just deliver care; they are uniquely positioned to shape digitally enabled pathways and service redesign.
Yet AHP digital leadership often remains less visible than its impact. A recent study by Eddison et al (2024) found that while most organisations employ a Chief AHP or equivalent, relatively few posts sit at executive board level. Visibility isn’t about hierarchy; it’s about governance. When AHP perspectives are present in digital investment and change decisions, patients and staff benefit (BMJ Open. 2021;11:e053886. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-053886).
Authentic leadership: the engine of digital change
Digital transformation is rarely held back by technology; it’s held back by how we lead. Authentic leadership, grounded in self‑awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and a clear moral purpose offers a practical model for complex change as evidenced by Walumbwa et al (2008) and Avolio et al (2009). Alilyyani et al (2018) and West et al (2015), evidence the links between authentic leadership with improved staff wellbeing, engagement, trust, and quality in healthcare. In short: who we are as leaders matters as much as the technology decisions we make.
For me, authenticity means staying clinical at the core: translating real AHP practice into strategy, creating psychologically safe spaces for multidisciplinary challenge, and listening across provider, ICB, regional and national levels. It also means naming structural patterns respectfully. Medical leadership has historically dominated statutory governance; the goal now is multi‑professional representation so AHPs help shape risk, safety and design alongside medicine, nursing and pharmacy.
Building the blueprint: top‑down and bottom‑up
In year one as CAHPIO, I prioritised three strands:
- Define the role and its levers. Clarify remit, governance touchpoints, and the pathways by which AHP insight informs technology, data and standards work.
- Strengthen professional partnerships. Work with Royal Colleges and regulators (e.g., RCOT, RCSLT, CSP, HCPC) and digital communities (e.g., BCS, FEDIP) to align professional standards and digital careers. This includes leveraging the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Capability Framework, which sets out competencies and career stages for digital roles across government and health systems. Adapting DDaT principles for AHPs ensures clarity on skills, progression routes, and alignment with national workforce planning.
- Scale regional AHP digital networks. Seven regional networks create a bottom‑up fabric for peer collaboration, inclusion and local innovation, surfacing real‑world use cases and on‑ramps into digital leadership.
Top‑down strategy needs bottom‑up agency. AHPs are critical to the NHS’s shift from analogue to digital, not only implementing EPRs and apps, but re‑designing pathways for accountability, safety, sustainability and inclusion (NHS Confederation reference guide; Greener AHP Hub).
Where AHPs shape decisions: clinical safety and deployment
AHPs already hold substantial responsibility for safety and flow. We must embed that responsibility in how technology is selected, implemented and assured, through clinical safety governance, risk standards, and informatics stewardship across deployment and use as detailed in Digital Health CNIO Handbook. We’re seeing growing examples of Digital Lead AHP roles within EPR programmes embedding clinical risk management and safety cases into delivery a marker of maturing multi-professional digital leadership.
Inclusion and women’s leadership: accelerating capacity
Digital transformation must deliver equity in who leads and who benefits. I am particularly passionate about women’s leadership in health tech, especially for women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The Shuri Network Digital Fellowships, supported by NHS England, is a standout example combining coaching, peer networks and project‑based learning to build confidence, skills and career progression as a practical accelerator for authentic leadership and unlocking digital potential.
AHP Digital Maturity Assessment: building an evidence baseline
To make AHP digital leadership visible and actionable, we needed a baseline. Organisational digital maturity tools are helpful, but they rarely capture the nuances of professional practice, the workflows, competencies and safety considerations that shape how digital services deliver outcomes for patients and staff. That is why I have led the first national AHP Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA): a profession‑specific baseline to inform strategy, investment, workforce development and adoption pathways. I will share findings separately; my aim here is to signal purpose, complement organisational assessments with profession‑level clarity so we can target improvement where it matters most.
From data silos to health equity and integrated neighbourhoods
AHPs are natural system integrators. They see where people move through services, where data is missing, and where digital pathways fracture. Moving from data silos to population insight helps target unwarranted variation and support health equity, aligning with national ambitions for personalised, digitally enabled care as detailed in the 10 year health plan for England. This shift is inseparable from integrated neighbourhood working, the future of care delivery. AHPs already connect health, social care and community services. Digitally enabling that role through shared care records, interoperable systems and real‑time data will make neighbourhood models more proactive, inclusive and sustainable. This is where AHP-led digital leadership will have its most profound impact.
A call to action: visibility, evidence and co‑ownership
Three shifts will make the difference:
- Co‑ownership of digital. Make AHPs co‑authors of strategy, standards and investment decisions, not just end‑users.
- Evidence and visibility. Systematically capture AHP digital use cases (a national repository on NHS Futures is in development), evaluate impact and credit AHP leadership.
- Inclusive pathways. Align professional standards, digital competencies and career frameworks; scale programmes like Shuri to widen access for women from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including AHPs.
The analogue‑to‑digital shift is no longer a technical programme; it is a leadership practice. If we design systems where AHP expertise shapes decisions, lead authentically across boundaries and make visible the innovation already happening at the frontline, we will build a digital NHS that is safer, fairer, greener and truly person‑centred.
Author
Prabha Vijayakumar
Prabha is a registered Occupational Therapist and the first Chief Allied Health Professions Information Officer (CAHPIO), at NHS England.
Declaration of interests
I have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: none.