Dr Lia Ali

Dr Lia Ali BSc(hons) MBBS MRCPsych Consultant Psychiatrist & Digital Health Strategist | SLaM NHS FT & NHS England

Dr Lia Ali is a Consultant Psychiatrist, design thinker, and digital health strategist working at the intersection of clinical practice, community, and technology. Grounded in frontline NHS care and shaped by national policy and system leadership, her work centres on building safer, more equitable, and genuinely person-centred health systems - with people, not just platforms, at the heart of design.

She is one of two national clinical advisers to the Connected Care Records (ConCR) programme at NHS England, helping shape how shared data and interoperable systems can support integrated, place-based care. She also contributes to the National Neighbourhood Digital & Data Steering Subgroup, advises on digital therapeutics strategy and NHS App development, and supports the Equalities Steering Group within the Transformation Directorate - bringing an equity lens to some of the NHS's most consequential digital decisions.

Lia's career spans frontline clinical practice at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, senior roles in industry - including Head of Mental Health and Long-Term Conditions Strategy, Chief Safety Officer, and Chief Clinical Innovation Officer - and design initiatives including Root & Branch Collective, which she co-founded. Across all of these, she has consistently championed safety by design, the biopsychosocial model, and co-design approaches that centre lived experience alongside technical logic.

She is currently pursuing an MSc in Healthcare and Design at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, and was a Faculty of Clinical Informatics fellow, RCPsych Informatics Committee and Digital Special Interest Group member, and 2024 CCIO of the Year finalist.