New leaders for NHS IT

07 Aug 2008

The Department of Health has announced Christine Connelly as the first chief information officer for health and named Martin Bellamy as director of programme and systems delivery, leading NHS Connecting for Health.

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 DH advertised the new posts on salaries of up to £200,000.

NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson said he was delighted with the new appointments and that they brought “a breadth of skills and experience that will be invaluable as we continue to roll out new and innovative systems to help NHS staff to transform the services they provide for patients.”

The DH says Connelly is an independent consultant. Previously, she was chief information officer at Cadbury Schweppes PLC, with direct control of all IT operations and projects.

However, she spent more than 20 years of her career at BP PLC, where her roles included chief of staff for gas, power and renewables, and head of IT for both the upstream and downstream business.

Martin Bellamy has worked for the Department for Work and Pensions since 2003, where his main role was chief information officer for the Pension Service.

He has also held the positions of group applications director in Corporate IT and senior responsible officer for information management in the DWP Change Programme. Before that, he worked for KPMG Consulting in London and for Reuters.

In her new job, Connelly will lead on the DH’s information strategy and integrating leadership across the NHS and associated bodies, including NHS CFH and the Information Centre.

Bellamy will lead NHS CFH and focus on “enhancing partnerships with and within the NHS.” Both will start work on Monday, 22 September. Gordon Hextall is expected to remain chief operating officer at NHS CFH.

Jon Hoeksma

Reader's Comments

How are new entrants into the top ranks in the NHS briefed?

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

07 Aug 08 20:31

At the beginning of the NPfIT a high-flyer with no NHS experience or knowledge was appointed with a very tight time schedule to change ways of working and IT in the NHS. The results (DOI) for general practice - which already had mission critical IT systems - were disastrous - and it has taken a great deal of work to prevent total melt-down in general practice. **WHO*** is responsible for making sure that new appointees to senior positions within the NHS understand - or at any rate are fully briefed - on the business, organisation and structure of the NHS? and has any material been checked to make sure that the general practice aspects are included? the last time tends to confirm my impression that politicians (all parties), HMG, DH and all management in the NHS haven't a clue!

DOI - GP, long experience

More lambs to the slaughter?

08 Aug 08 06:34

The problem with NPfIT is surely the concept itself? The DH has been pursuing its monolithic approach to NHS IT - in various guises, at considerable public expense, and with a series of managers and responsible officers - for many years. Sadly, in terms of end-user functionality, we are little more advanced now than we were ten years ago.

Whilst wishing the new incumbents good luck, IMHO, there is little evidence that their political masters have understood the complexity of what the programme is setting out to achieve.

CORRECTION When will they ever learn?

08 Aug 08 07:13

I'm sure these new people are excellent and knowledgeable in their own spheres, but when, oh when, oh when will DoH learn that a background in oil, confectionary, fizzy drinks or DWP will not prepare people for the great complexities of NHS informatics leadership? Just as with Granger, we’ll see the same mistakes repeated again. Why are our DoH “executives” so completely incapable of learning from history? I despair.

DOOMED

08 Aug 08 10:14

Of course it won't work. They probably only have experience of working in organisations where people functionally drive towards effecting the direction from the top. What they need is someone who can harness a few hundred anarcho-syndicalist communes - see you next century then.

No home grown talent?

08 Aug 08 10:43

I wish the new candidates well... two of the most competent CIOs I know originally came from non-healthcare sector backgrounds. For brevity I'll gloss over how many years they spent reaching that level of expertise.

My question is this. In a project of this maturity and scale why were there no compelling 'internal' candidates for at least one of these positions?

Were candidates not recognised, did they not care to apply or do they simply not exist within the legions of DoH, NHS or NPfIT management? I don't find any of these possibilities reassuring.

re: Doomed

08 Aug 08 11:38

"someone who can harness a few hundred anarcho-syndicalist communes"

that was an "E for essential" when DoH posted the vacancies on the nhsjobs site a few months back (right after "must be degree educated")

Come on readers you can do better than this!

08 Aug 08 13:24

Two years ago this news would have provoked a flood of comment. Come on EHI readers, get your fingers out!

who says?

08 Aug 08 14:40

....there were on internal candidates? all we know is that if there were they didnt get the job

The Blind Leading the Blind

11 Aug 08 00:48

....candidates with 20+years experience in Healthcare IT - with a record of delivering are often twarted when applying for these positions with such excuses as "to much experience for what we are looking for", "to entusiastic about the position" .... and I think that we should look no further than the filtering process (and the experience in Healthcare IT of those perfoming the filtering) for the explanation as to how this happens.

This is not confined to Connecting for Health either - I've seen it all over NHS IT.

DoH: brush up your Einstein

12 Aug 08 09:13

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein, physicist (1879 - 1955)

Sadly - Doomed to fail

13 Aug 08 14:23

Another two individuals who are, IMHO, sadly, doomed to fail.

I'm sure these people are among the finest in their respective fields. Their background should be irrelevent as the type of data is immaterial, it's how it is handled that is important. However, in the private sector projects are given a clear objective, and are managed until that objective is achieved.

These two should forget everything they know about project management and start studying politics and learn how to build solid foundations in the shifting sands that this political footbal has become. Who honestly believes they will be allowed to get on with the job of delivering the biggest IT project the world has ever seen without political interference?

I wish them well, I agree with the concept, and believe their background is irrelevent. However, I shall continue to opt-out from having my personal data included on this system. Not because I don't believe the technology is up to it, but because I don't believe this government or any successors will not ultimately use my data and that of approximately 64,999,999 other people for nefarious purposes.

I'll watch this space with resigned pessimism.

(post lightly edited by EHI)

No home grown talent??

nhstechie@btinternet.com

15 Aug 08 19:25

Perhaps the people within the NHS who could have done these jobs well didn't apply because they recognised a poison chalice when they saw one? Would the extra hassle associated really be worth a few bob more in your pay packet as say a Director of Informatics at a leading Foundation Trust or CIO of an SHA?

Let's face it, whoever takes on the management of CfH will be on a hiding to nothing. Only someone who is ignorant of this sad truth, or arrogant enough to ignore it, could succeed! No-one within Health Informatics, whether within the NHS or one of our suppliers, could possibly be ignorant - I can only assume these people aren't EHI readers!

I can only put hope above experience and pray that they succeed where Richard Granger couldn't!

Conscripts not volunteers!!

04 Sep 08 16:40

Whilst these extremely well qualified individuals probably have excellent track records in single entity organisations they may not grasp the point that in the NHS (a commune of independently run Trusts and assorted organisations and independant practitioners) you cannot simply tell people what to do and expect them to obey! The NHS culture is unique in that people strive for uniformity and consistency of process and we still have not achieved it in 60 years. Their approach will have to be radically different from what has gone before to achieve the timescales promised, (thats the last lot obviously) Good luck, but I am not holding my breath