Eligibility

Academic and wider eligibility requirements including example candidate personas.

To be eligible to apply for the Digital Health Leadership Programme, you must meet the following employment, academic requirements, and wider eligibility requirements.

Employment requirements

You must either be:

• directly employed by an NHS organisation as a member of the NHS workforce in England
• employed by a social care provider or local authority working across health and care services in England

You must also be intending to be employed in an NHS organisation or commissioned service in England until at least March 2026. It is preferable that you intend to stay employed NHS organisation or commissioned service beyond this to fully realise the benefit of the programme.

Academic requirements

You must:

• not currently be enrolled on another substantive education and training course that goes beyond September 2024
• be able to fully participate in a full-time course over 12 months, committing to 10 to 15 hours of study a week and attend in person events (that is, the 3 leadership forums in York, London and Birmingham)
• be able to demonstrate that you are able to study at a level 7, for example, having obtained a 2.2 undergraduate qualification or equivalent (evidence will be required during onboarding)
• be able to demonstrate proof of English language proficiency
• be able to demonstrate proof of right to study in the UK for the whole duration of the eligibility period for the cohort   

If attending in-person events will disadvantage you from accessing the programme

If attending in-person events will disadvantage you from accessing the programme, adjustments can be discussed with Imperial College London.

If you do not have a degree or cannot demonstrate proof of English language proficiency

If you do not have a degree or cannot demonstrate proof of English language proficiency, you may need to go through a special case procedure. This has been applied to many of our previous applicants and is designed to ensure that the programme is as inclusive as possible. Please contact the Imperial College London team at [email protected] for more information.

We do not want degrees to be a barrier to applying for this programme, so having a previous degree is not a pre-requisite. If successful in your application, colleagues from Imperial College London will guide you through the academic admission process. As part of this we will ask you to provide previous academic records or evidence of equivalent professional experience. 

If you do not have a degree at 2.2 or higher, part of the onboarding process will involve an interview and written assessment. This will be a well-supported process and gives you the opportunity to confirm that you are comfortable with the academic requirements of the programme. Please contact the Imperial College London team at [email protected] for more information about this process.

Wider eligibility requirements

You must:

• have a senior sponsor who supports your participation in the course and has submitted an accompanying form confirming their support. 
• have a good level of knowledge, skills, and experience as a senior leader with experience of leading change in digital, data and technology
• have a good level of understanding of person-centred aspects including perceptions, motivations and attitudes of people related to digital change and transformation
• have a role within your organisation that allows you to influence and implement digitally-enable projects at an organisational level - this could be in a clinical role, a non-clinical role, a digital expert role or a combination, but you must be able to demonstrate that the role encompasses both digital and health leadership requirements
• be able to demonstrate how your passion, current performance, future potential, and preparedness make you a suitable candidate

Types of people that undertake the course

We have created illustrative case studies (candidate personas) to outline the diverse range of different professional backgrounds and experiences (both clinical and non-clinical) that you may have, prior to starting the DHLP. Along with the eligibility criteria above, this may help you to clarify if you are suitable for the course. 

There are many other roles that may be suitable for this programme, that have not been highlighted here. You can find out more from previous alumni of the programme by signing up to an application support webinar.

• Illustrative case studies

  Candidate personas