Professor Avey Bhatia OBE appointed first Chief Nurse of the Online NHS Trust
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The Online NHS Trust has appointed Professor Avey Bhatia OBE as its first Chief Nurse, bringing more than three decades of clinical and executive nursing experience to the new national provider.
She will undertake the role part-time while continuing in her role as Chief Nurse at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Professor Bhatia will provide professional leadership for nursing and will oversee quality, patient safety, safeguarding and patient experience as the Trust prepares to deliver specialist planned care through the NHS App from the end of 2027.
Professor Bhatia has served as Chief Nurse at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since November 2020. She qualified as a nurse in 1991 and has clinical experience in theatres, coronary care, and general and cardiothoracic intensive care. Her previous executive roles include Chief Nurse at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and Chief Nurse at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
She is Professor of the Practice of Nursing at King’s College London, President of the Florence Nightingale Foundation and Honorary Vice President of the Nightingale Fellowship. She holds a master’s degree in public administration and was awarded an OBE in 2025 for services to nursing and the NHS.
Professor Bhatia also brings significant experience of large-scale digital and clinical transformation. As Senior Responsible Officer for the implementation of the Epic electronic health record at Guy’s and St Thomas’, she led one of the largest Epic go-lives globally, alongside wider clinical transformation and the successful adoption of a patient portal serving more than one million patients.
Avey is an exceptional nursing leader with the experience, judgement and ambition we need as we build a new kind of NHS provider. Her appointment ensures that the voice of nursing and an unwavering focus on quality, safety and patient experience, will shape the Online NHS Trust from the outset.
Avey understands both the opportunities and the responsibilities that come with using technology to deliver care differently. I look forward to working with her to build services that earn the confidence of patients, staff and partners across the NHS.
I am delighted to be appointed as the first Chief Nurse for the Online NHS Trust. This is an exciting opportunity to give patients greater choice and faster access to high-quality care, wherever they are.
My priority will be to ensure that patient safety and experience are at the heart of everything we do as we develop high-quality online services that meet the needs of patients today and in the future.
I warmly welcome Avey’s appointment as the first Chief Nurse of the Online NHS Trust. Her leadership and extensive clinical experience will be invaluable as the Trust develops new ways for people to access care.
Avey’s appointment reflects the Trust’s commitment to embedding nursing leadership from the outset, with services shaped around patients and grounded in the highest standards of quality, safety and experience.
The Online NHS Trust was established on 1 June 2026 as the first national, digital-first NHS trust. From 2027, it will offer people in England the option to receive specialist planned care through the NHS App, connecting them with NHS clinicians across the country. Tests, scans and procedures will continue to take place at healthcare sites closer to patients’ homes, and face-to-face care will remain available where patients need or prefer it.
The Trust has also recently appointed Pete Sinden as its Chief Digital and Information Officer, strengthening the senior clinical and digital leadership team that will shape the organisation from the outset.