Dame Caroline Clarke appointed first Chief Executive to lead the Online NHS Trust
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Dame Caroline Clarke has been appointed the first Chief Executive of the Online NHS Trust, the national digital-first NHS trust, established to deliver NHS Online and transform access to specialist care across England.
The Online NHS Trust was established earlier this year to deliver virtual elective care across England from the end of 2027. Through NHS Online, patients will be able to access specialist clinical expertise through the NHS App, connecting them with clinicians across the country while continuing to receive tests, scans and procedures closer to home through local NHS services. The service is expected to provide millions of virtual appointments and assessments in its first three years of operation.
Caroline joins the Online NHS Trust from NHS England, where she is currently Regional Director for London. In that role, she leads the NHS’s work across the capital and oversees an ambitious programme of transformation and improvement for health services serving almost 10 million people.
Before joining NHS England, Caroline was Group Chief Executive of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust between 2019 and 2023, having previously served as Deputy Chief Executive. She has also held a number of senior leadership positions across the NHS, including Finance Director roles at several NHS organisations, and worked as an Associate Partner in KPMG’s health strategy team. In 2025, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours in recognition of her services to the NHS.
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.
I am delighted to be joining the Online NHS Trust as its first Chief Executive, at such an important moment for the NHS. NHS Online has the potential to transform how patients access specialist care, connecting them with expert clinicians quickly and conveniently through the NHS App, while continuing to provide tests, scans and procedures closer to home.
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. 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.
I’m delighted that someone with Dame Caroline’s experience and talent has joined the Online NHS Trust.
As we develop NHS Online, her leadership will be vital in helping more patients access specialist expertise through the NHS, wherever they live.
The government is looking forward to working with Dame Caroline and the new trust as we reshape how people interact with the health service for generations to come.