Thirty-five years ago, Caroline Clarke began her NHS journey, and today she is the founding CEO of NHS Online.
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Just two weeks into her new role, Ms Clarke joined DrDoctor chief executive and host Tom Whicher on the DrDoctor Will See You Now podcast to discuss this monumental step forward for the NHS and how it is going to shape its future.
The idea for NHS Online was born in September 2025 and cemented into being on 1 June 2026. While still in its infancy, NHS Online will be available to the public from late 2027. When it launches, it will give patients something they often feel is missing from their healthcare: choice.
They will be able to manage their care online through the NHS App, from answering questions about their symptoms to booking tests and having results clinically (and remotely) reviewed. And if the patient needs to hop offline and have an in-person appointment? NHS Online will refer them to local providers, supporting the 10-Year Health Plan’s drive to bring healthcare back into the community.
The new trust’s ambitions are bold: up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years of operating1. That’s four times the volume of the average NHS trust. But for its CEO? Her biggest motivator is public trust.
“This is about trust”, she said. “It’s about public and political sentiment. It’s about getting clinicians and people running health organisations in the NHS to trust us.”
Winning the trust of the people is what is driving Ms Clarke. And in many ways, that is even more ambitious than carrying out millions of appointments over the course of a few years. Here’s why.
Only 26 per cent of British adults are satisfied with how the NHS runs, and only 16 per cent think the standard of NHS care will improve in the next five years. In fact, 53 per cent expect that it will only get worse. This sentiment is probably not surprising to many within the NHS, but these are figures that cannot be ignored.2
And even though NHS Online is just one trust and Ms Clarke is just one person, it’s a challenge that she is gladly taking on. More than that, even, she is excited by the prospect:
“NHS leaders go, ‘it’s humbling and an honour’. Actually, it’s really thrilling as well. It’s absolutely amazing. I feel very, very lucky to have been given this opportunity.”
NHS Online is a fresh start, a clean slate, and a chance to prove, internally and externally, just how efficiently the NHS can run when it’s given the right resources, time, and people.
With this huge opportunity in the very safe and capable hands of Ms Clarke, former CEO of Royal Free London Foundation Trust and former London regional director for NHS England, there is a lot to look forward to.
And it would appear NHS staff agree.
When NHSE surveyed nearly 300 consultants and specialist doctors, 60 per cent said they would be interested in working for NHS Online. They would do so alongside their current NHS roles, and 48 per cent said they would be willing to give at least four hours a week.3
Why?
Because NHS staff want to improve the patient experience. They want to innovate and create and be part of something that will actually change the way people view our healthcare system. It comes back to public trust and satisfaction. CEOs aren’t the only ones who care about this, nor are they the only ones impacted by it.
It’s a shared experience and a collective ambition, and we are lucky enough to witness the NHS break new ground in real time, a sentiment Ms Clarke herself shares: “This is like a really good shot at making the NHS properly modern, properly transformed.”
