John Powell

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 and AI tools to deliver benefit. He has combined an academic career as Professor and NIHR Senior Investigator at the University of Oxford with national policy roles, most recently as a senior clinician at NICE, where he advised 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 is an Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol, and the former Editor-in-Chief of NIHR Health Technology Assessment and NIHR Efficacy & Mechanism Evaluation. He has worked as a comedy writer and as a television drama advisor where his credits include Downton Abbey and the movie Ammonite. He was formerly Professor of Public Health at the University of Warwick where he helped establish the Institute for Digital Healthcare. He was the Clinical Director of NHS Choices, the NHS website. He has degrees in Social and Political Sciences and in Clinical Medicine from the University of Cambridge. He has an H-index of 57.