|
contents | business | |||||||
| Ovum on: NHS IT Gets Two New Bosses by Tola Sargeant, principal analyst at Ovum The UK Department of Health has appointed the first CIO for Health, Christine Connelly, and a new Director of Programme and System Delivery for NHS Connecting for Health, Martin Bellamy. Both bring relevant skills but they lack experience in the healthcare sector or NHS. A similar lack of understanding of the NHS has led to problems in the past – within NHS Connecting for Health, the broader NHS and the private sector suppliers brought in to run elements of the Ј12 billion National Programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) – so it is vital that Connelly and Bellamy are brought up to speed quickly and make an effort to win over sceptical clinicians. Filling Richard Granger's shoes was never going to be easy "The new appointments follow the departure of Richard Granger as Director General of NHS IT in January and a review of NHS IT leadership as part of the Health Informatics Review. The CIO for Health role is new and will see Connelly focus on developing and delivering the department's overall information strategy including the work of NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) and the Department of Health's Information Centre. The role that Bellamy is taking on is essentially Granger's – he will lead NHS CFH and have day-to-day responsibility for NPfIT." "Both Connelly and Bellamy are experienced CIOs and used to running large IT projects. Both will also bring skills from the private sector – as is increasingly common for public sector CIOs, neither of them are career civil servants. Connelly has most recently been working as an independent consultant but was previously CIO of Cadbury Schweppes with direct control of all IT operations and projects. Before that, she spent over 20 years of her career at BP. Bellamy has been at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) since 2003 and will be familiar to many as the CIO of the Pensions Service. But prior to the DWP he was a partner at KPMG Consulting and also spent some time at Reuters." New appointees need an honest briefing and to engage with clinicians "While this experience will be useful as the pair take control of the NHS's IT and get to grips with the Ј12 billion NPfIT, it is a shame that neither of them has any previous experience of the health sector or NHS IT. Many a software and IT services supplier will testify that the NHS is complex and operates unlike any private sector organisation. As an NHS insider commented recently, 'What [the NHS] needs is someone who can harness a few hundred anarcho-syndicalist communes'." "If Connelly and Bellamy are to make an impact quickly and gain the confidence of sceptical clinicians and NHS IT professionals, it is vital that they get a thorough and honest briefing on the status quo and make a point of engaging with NHS staff." "In this context, we are glad to see that Gordon Hextall, who has been acting as Director of Programme and System Delivery for NHS CFH since Richard Granger's departure, is expected to continue in his role as Chief Operating Officer for NHS CFH. He will provide continuity in the day-to-day running of the programme and play an important role in bringing the new appointees quickly up to speed." write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Computing News :: home page |