Cookies on this website
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Continue' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Contact information


john.powell@phc.ox.ac.uk


+44 (0)1865 617768
Fax +44 (0)1865 289412


Kate Markham
kate.markham@phc.ox.ac.uk


ORCID ID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1456-4857

John Powell

MA MB BChir MSc PhD PGCertMedEd MRCPsych FFPH FFCI

Professor of Digital Health Care

  • Professor of Digital Health Care
  • NIHR Senior Investigator

Background and current work

Interview with Andrew Marr on Radio 4 Start The Week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tvj71

John Powell is an academic public health physician studying healthcare in the digital age and how and why people use information and communication technologies in relation to health, and how services can harness digital tools to deliver benefit. He combines an academic career as Professor and NIHR Senior Investigator at the University of Oxford with a role as a senior clinician at NICE, where he advises the NHS on the safe adoption of innovations in surgery, and on the appraisal of digital health technologies. He is an expert adviser to national agencies including PHE and MHRA. He has worked as a comedy writer for BBC Radio and as a television drama advisor where his credits include Downton Abbey, Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen, SSGB and the movie Ammonite.

He was formerly Professor of Public Health at the University of Warwick where he led an Ehealth Research Group for 7 years and helped establish the Institute for Digital Healthcare. He was the Clinical Director of NHS Choices, the NHS website, and Senior Medical Adviser to Netdoctor.co.uk during its launch phase. He is Editor-in-Chief of NIHR Health Technology Assessment and Efficacy & Mechanism Evaluation journals and was Deputy Programme Director of the NIHR Evidence Synthesis Programme. He was founding editor of the SAGE journal Digital Health. He has degrees in Social and Political Sciences and in Clinical Medicine from the University of Cambridge. His PhD was in the use of the internet in relation to mental health. He has an H-index of 51.

Summary CV and publications list

Summary CV and publications list

Key publications

Recent publications

More publications