Blinx Healthcare strengthens leadership to drive system-level growth 

The appointment of Minal Bakhai MBE as Deputy CEO and Chief Clinical and Strategy Officer reflects Blinx’s ambition to strengthen strategic partnerships to accelerate system-level growth for neighbourhood health solution. 

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Blinx Healthcare has appointed Dr Minal Bakhai MBE as Deputy CEO and Chief Clinical and Strategy Officer, bringing one of the UK’s leading experts in neighbourhood health, primary care transformation and digital innovation to the company.

Most recently, Minal served as Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme at NHS England. She also led major national programmes including Modern General Practice, Digital First Primary Care and Primary Care Transformation.

Minal joins Blinx at a time of rapid growth as the company expands its role as a strategic digital and transformation partner to Places. Built in the UK and co-designed with Places and frontline teams, Blinx is building the digital integrator that enables organisations, professionals and communities to work together to improve population health and wellbeing.

Patient and Care Optimiser (PACO) is the platform that powers this. PACO is not another point solution. It is a modern, cloud-native, AI-enabled, person-centred operating platform that enables organisations to work together around a shared view of the person, shared workflows and shared learning. It brings together the core capabilities needed for neighbourhood health in one place, including a shared digital front door and triage, a longitudinal person record, neighbourhood and multi-agency care management, population health intelligence, person-centred communications, AI-enabled workflows and research-ready infrastructure.

Through bi-directional integration with existing digital systems, PACO sits on top of existing EHRs while creating a standardised data foundation for the future. This provides a practical route from fragmented systems to a shared neighbourhood platform, lowers barriers to innovation and enables partners to build new capabilities on a common foundation. A single price per person, rather than separate licences for each organisation, user or module, helps level up digital capability across Places while reducing duplication and creating a more sustainable cost model.

Commenting on her appointment, Minal said:

“One of the biggest challenges I saw was that our digital and data infrastructure often constrained collaboration rather than enabling it. If neighbourhood health is to succeed, we need digital infrastructure designed around people rather than organisations.

What impressed me about Blinx was its commitment to solving the problems that matter most: overcoming fragmented systems, reducing the administrative burden on staff and residents, giving neighbourhood teams a shared view of the person and using contextual intelligence to identify need earlier, intervene sooner and support decisions based on what matters most to the person. Just as importantly, Blinx works alongside Places to continuously evolve the platform around local priorities, creating the digital foundations neighbourhood teams, partners and communities need.”

The appointment comes as Sir Jim Mackey, Chief Executive of NHS England, calls for greater emphasis on neighbourhood health, strategic commissioning and digitally enabled models that improve access, coordination, productivity and prevention.

Unlike many technology companies, Blinx has grown organically without venture capital backing, enabling it to take a long-term approach focused on continuous innovation, close partnerships with Places and the development of sovereign infrastructure that evolves around local priorities rather than external investor demands.

As Blinx continues to grow, the company remains focused on helping Places create healthier, more connected and more resilient communities by providing the digital infrastructure that enables neighbourhood health to scale.

Read more about Blinx Healthcare

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