Navina Evans

Ahalia Navina Evans is a British former child and adolescent psychiatry consultant who has been the Chief Workforce, Training & Education Officer of NHS England since April 2023. She was previously the chief executive officer of East London NHS Foundation Trust between 2016 and 2020 and chief executive of Health Education England between 2020 and 2023.

Career
Evans was born in September 1962, grew up in Malaysia, and emigrated to the UK in her childhood, graduating with a medical degree from a London medical school in 1987. She joined East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) as a child and adolescent psychiatry consultant in 1997. She later became the clinical director for the speciality and deputy chief executive and director of operations at the trust in 2011. Five years later, Evans was appointed as the trust's chief executive.

In 2020, she left ELFT to become the chief executive of Health Education England (HEE). Evans was the first and only Asian woman to lead HEE. She also became the interim Chief Workforce Officer of NHS England in June 2022. HEE merged with NHS England in 2023 and Evans became its Chief Workforce Training and Education Officer. She is also a board member of Think Ahead, an organisation which trains mental health social workers, and was previously an Honorary Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

In February 2024, Evans wrote a letter of apology to the parents of Dr Vaish Kumar who died of suicide in June 2022. Kumar had been wrongly told in December 2021 by HEE that she had to complete a further six months of training at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham where she was being allegedly bullied and belittled by consultants. Evans stated, "I wish to unreservedly apologise for these mistakes and for the impact they would have had". On 12 April 2024, NHS Practitioner Health, a national mental health support service for healthcare staff, announced that they would no longer be accepting new referrals from secondary care staff from 15 April as NHS England had withdrawn funding. The British Medical Association, a doctors' trade union, criticised the decision as a "short-sighted financial decision with potentially harmful consequences for both doctors and their patients". The Medical Defence Union, a healthcare professional indemnity provider, also commented that the decision was a "huge concern". On 15 April 2024, Evans announced that NHS England would continue to fund the service for another year after a direct intervention by Health Secretary Victoria Atkins.

Honours
Evans was made an Honorary Fellow at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2020. In the same year, she was awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours for services to NHS leadership and the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community.