Granger era ends as DG leaves CfH

07 Feb 2008

Richard Granger has left NHS Connecting for Health, the NHS IT agency responsible for the £12.4bn NHS IT programme, he has led for the past five years.

CfH staff and NHS Chief Information Officers began to be notified of Granger’s departure this morning.

The announcement ends a period in which it has been unlcear the extent to which Granger has been running CfH. He had originally been due to quit by the end of 2007, after announcing in July that he would quit.

A DH spokesperson told E-Health Insider this morning that Granger will not be replaced by an equivalent director general, but instead by a new director of programme and systems delivery at CfH. A new role of Chief Information Officer will be created, based in the DH, covering both the DH and NHS.

The spokesperson said: “We’ve just had Cabinet Office agreement that we can go ahead and start filling these roles.”

Until these recruitments are completed Matthew Swindells, who is currently leading the DH’s Informatics Review, with act as the DH’s CIO. Gordon Hextall, the chief operating officer of CfH will act as director of programme and systems delivery.

As previously reported by EHI Matthew Swindells is understood to have been fulfilling the CIO role in all but name since the launch of the review of NHS informatics, encompassing the NHS National Programme for IT and CfH, last year. The Swindells review has now been wrapped up into Lord Darzi’s review into the the future of the NHS.

Granger’s last day working for the DH was 31 January, with his last official appearance being a speaking slot at the Arab Health Conference in Dubai.

Jon Hoeksma

Reader's Comments

It's

a_goodman38@hotmail.com

07 Feb 08 10:49

a crying shame!

What next?

colin@clinformation.com

07 Feb 08 11:27

After the "Granger era" .... perhaps the "Age of Enlightenment"?

Can anyone follow him?

Rod@RodSpace.co.uk

07 Feb 08 14:19

If Connecting for Health is still in existence after the Swindells/Darzi review, it will be interesting to see the sorts of skills which are seen as being important for this role.

Will a different style of management be seen as being more conducive to roll out (rather than purchasing) required after the contract resets, and will this be more effective at winning the hearts and minds of clinicians - and possibly informatics staff as well?

not the problem

07 Feb 08 16:41

It has been a long time since our dear ex-DG has been the main problem that CFH has. The problem is that the contracts in place do not deliver what the NHS wants. If this event can be used as an opportunity to grasp that particular nettle, then this may well be a turning point. If not i fear more of the same.

To misquote another conviction leader:

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning.

Or not.....

Quite so

07 Feb 08 17:33

'The problem is that the contracts in place do not deliver what the NHS wants.'

Isn't this largely the same failing that the old Information Authority had? The IA never really saw the NHS as its customer - in the hierarchy of people to satisfy, it was always politicians first, followed by the DH, then 'patients' (often just a synonym for other vested interests). CFH has broadly the same attitude and Granger was brought in as someone who would force change on an unwilling and uncooperative NHS.

Unfortunately, just trying to provide the NHS with what it wants may not be enough without a significant culture change in the service. With chief execs waking up to the fact that IT is important and needs investment, and IT managers realising that systems have to work for the entire NHS and not just their little corner of it.

Deadlines, deadlines

07 Feb 08 21:08

I thought Mr Granger was supposed to leave by the end of 2007? I suppose it's just one more missed deadline.

(post edited by EHI)

Research into an EHR is needed.

marvin_littlewood_426716@yahoo.co.uk

08 Feb 08 09:56

Granger did well to persuade the Treasury to invest in NHS IT at a time when other Government IT projects were being exposed either as failures or very late. Unfortunately he seems to have relied too heavily on the commercial sector to deliver. In turn, the various companies were over optimistic - perhaps in a bid to win contracts. Lack of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) is no surprise when HL7/SNOMED CT, OpenEHR and recent reviews of health informatics research comment that there is a long way to go before we achieve such a thing. It is time to balance the investment and have a concerted research led effort to define an EHR.

Re EHR research

08 Feb 08 11:03

Whilst it may well be a good idea to carry out some research on EHRs, it all adds time delays to actually doing something useful for clinical staff. The years led by RG have seen vast amounts of money going to large firms such as iSoft and Cerner who have delivered little. This has left smaller suppliers, who have served the specialist clinical side of NHS IT very well in the past, in a very difficult situation and many will be lost. Research on an EHR may well identify that what they provided is what is needed, but by then they'll be gone.

A holiday maybe?

08 Feb 08 12:06

So what next, A little trip to Norway for some husky hunting?

Time to move forward

08 Feb 08 14:13

After reading the above comments the answer is obvious, let the clinicians take over deliver the CfH programme and make it a success! Any takers?

Move forwards?

08 Feb 08 16:04

I don't think anyone with even the slightest insight into the delivery of clinical care would have contemplated - even in their wildest dreams - of attempting to deliver something like CfH.

The prognosis was clear back in 2003.

Last appointment in the desert

09 Feb 08 09:00

Nicholson described his contribution as extraordinary. It was certainly that.

But now we are told that CfH is to oversee all IT in the NHS. No need for a track record of success to qualify them to get in the way of progress across the board. Though it will be interesting when they continue to claim that N3 is only for CfH applications.

I fear the disaster continues...

(post edited by EHI)

Effective or Not

09 Feb 08 17:50

He was effective, the question is timescales and deliverables! and we still get the old chestnet of all GPs and trusts connected to a 'secure network' David, please note that N3 is NOT a secure network, even CFH own IG state that. If our leaders still continue to state incorrect comments about a 'success' you do have to wonder about the overall direction.

Effective?

12 Feb 08 06:53

Effective is doing the right things. Efficiency is doing things the right way. Personally, I can't see much evidence of either from CfH under Richard Granger.