South East London Integrated Care Board has announced the appointment of their new chief digital information officer, Philippa Kirkpatrick.

Described as “passionate about reducing inequalities in access to healthcare, and in ensuring healthcare is culturally sensitive and accessible to all members of our diverse population”, Philippa’s vision is “for digital health to be an enabler to better patient care, breaking down silos in the provision of health and social care services and facilitating the delivery of patient-centred care.”

Philippa brings a range of experiences to the role, having previously held a number of senior leadership roles in the Australian healthcare system. As part of these roles, she was involved in delivering the electronic patient record for the Australian Capital Territory and numerous digital programmes including strategy development, procurement, contract negotiation and implementation.

On her new appointment, Philippa says: “There is so much to achieve in the application of digital technology to healthcare, whether it’s in driving efficiency in patient pathways, engaging people in developing the services they use, or using data to inform public health priorities at a population – or individual – level. South east London presents diverse and complex health and social challenges, as well as significant opportunities to make positive change, and I’m excited to be joining such a forward-thinking and committed team.”

Andrew Bland, SEL ICB Chief Executive, adds: “Improving our digital approach and capability is fundamental to the delivery of our strategic priorities as a system, enabling us to make better use of our resources and improve the quality of our services. Philippa brings international expertise and experience that are exactly aligned with our aims, and we’re very much looking forward to welcoming her to the ICB.”

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals (BTH) has recently appointed a new chief information officer, Mark Singleton, to lead the organisation’s digital journey and be responsible for the data and digital systems and teams at the trust.

Mark has recently spent the last nine years working at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where he oversaw the transfer to digital from paper. 

He has worked within the NHS for nearly 20 years in roles such as mental health, commissioning, and for acute and community organisations. 

BTH recently released a five-year strategy in which the trust sets outs its ambitions around new ways of working, with focus on embracing the digital agenda. In his new CIO role Mark is to support the trust with these aims and guide digital and information transformation, in collaboration with the wider healthcare community and partners.

Mark said: “When the opportunity came up to join Blackpool and help the hospital I was born in and that still serves my family and friends I had to throw my name into the hat, I want to make sure our community receives the best possible care and data and digital will play a major part in that over the years to come.”

He has worked closely with the trust in previous roles and is “looking forward to re-establishing relationships and working with new colleagues on this chapter in our digital journey.”

Steve Christian, deputy chief executive at the trust, commented that digital is playing an important role within the NHS and said: “Mark will be instrumental in developing and delivering a new digital plan that will have clear benefits for everyone – from patients and their families to our colleagues and partners in the community.”

The Transformation Directorate at NHS England has opened a call for evidence for recruitment and retention of digital, data and technology staff in the NHS.

Through an online survey the digital transformation unit aims to explore what good practice looks like and understand the challenges that exist in attracting, recruiting and retaining these professionals.

It comes against the challenge that “digital, data and technology professionals are in high demand across all sectors of the economy and the NHS needs to do more to attract and retain these specialist skillsets in order to meet current and future digital transformation ambitions,” NHS England notes.

The survey aims to understand participants experience to recruit digital, data and technology professionals, as well what is working well or what is needed to attract these professionals to the NHS. It also asks how easy it is to retain digital, data and technology professionals and whether skills, capability or competency frameworks are in use and how they’re working. The survey continues to ask for participants experience, what more can be done and wider views on this area.

Information gathered from the survey will be used to support the NHS digital workforce programmes and form an evidence base on which to build future solutions.

The survey closes 15 December; to find out more, please click here. 

Recently for HTN Now, we held a panel discussion to share advice, ideas and experiences for anyone working in a digital role within healthcare, or looking to move into one. We were joined by three digital leaders: Jeffrey Wood, Deputy Director for ICT at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Dr Tamara Everington, Chief Clinical Information Officer at Hampshire Hospitals NHS FT, and Morgan Thanigasalam, Clinical Lead for Digital Innovation and Transformation at Sherwood Forest Hospital.

Earlier this month we welcomed another panel to discuss and progress women in digital transformation roles. The session shared advice for moving into a digital role or developing into digital leadership roles. The panel included Katy Lethbridge, Marketing Director at Ideal Health; Alison Walker, Ideal Health Associate in the strategic consultancy practice with expertise in organisational development and digital transformation; Jo Smith, CIO and consultant with in-depth digital health experience; Katherine Church, Digital Transformation Specialist with experience in mentoring women and start-ups, independent consultancy and women-focused activism; and Victoria Betton, Digital Health Consultant focusing on human factors such as user-centred design. You can watch the session back here. 

The chief executive at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is to move to a regional digital health and care role.

Professor Dave Rosser will leave UHB at the end of the year to become strategic director for digital health and care across the West Midlands. The role will focus on transformation, with an aim to “link together public sector digital, technology and data programmes across the region”.

Commenting on the appointment, Professor Dave Rosser, said: “Transformation has been my vision, and my passion, for many years. I believe that we have the biggest opportunity in a generation to completely reshape the provision of health and social care; having a life-changing impact on many.

“I have been exceptionally privileged to have held a number of roles at UHB and to have worked with so many incredible people; I am so proud, of so many things we have achieved for our patients and our colleagues.”

Jonathan Brotherton, currently UHB’s deputy CEO and chief operating officer, will become the trust’s CEO from 1 January 2023.

Harry Reilly, Interim Chair, added: “Dave will be a massive loss to the trust, but I am pleased that he is following his long-term passion for transformation and will remain very much integral to health and care, Birmingham and beyond, in his new role.”

HTN last reported on UHB in September, when the trust launched a market engagement exercise for a digital dictation and speech recognition solution.

Caroline Shaw CBE, the chief executive officer at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS FT is to join health tech supplier Evergreen Life this month.

Following leading the trust out of ‘special measures’ Caroline is set to join the health and wellbeing company as chief operating officer.

The company provides a solution said to bring together health information and GP records into one place, and support appointment bookings and prescriptions. It also provides tools to track diet, fitness, metabolism, skincare and happiness.

Commenting on the appointment, Caroline said: “I can honestly say that my time at QEH has been the most challenging, yet by far the most rewarding of my career to date. I could not be prouder of what team QEH has achieved and how far we have come over the last few years. After almost four decades of service to the NHS, I now feel ready to look to my next and likely final stage of my career and I know now is the right time to end my chapter at QEH and move on to make a positive difference to people and healthcare in a different way.

“I am really excited that I have been asked to join a forward-thinking health and wellbeing company called Evergreen Life which is all about using digital technology to innovate NHS services and improve people’s personal healthcare and support people to stay well and healthy, which I am hugely passionate about. After over three-and-a-half memorable years, now is the right time for a new and exciting chapter in my career which will see me being based back at home in Manchester.

“I leave with so many fond memories of my time at QEH and this organisation and local community will always have a very special place in my heart. There is strength in depth at QEH and I know the best is yet to come for Team QEH. I look forward now to watching QEH fly as an organisation as it pursues its journey to ‘Good’ and ‘Outstanding’ and I also look forward to QEH securing the new hospital it deserves.”

HTN last reported on Evergreen Life in April 2022, when University College London Hospitals NHS FT were awarded a grant of £685,316 to test in clinical practice a new proof-of-concept machine learning algorithm designed to improve cancer care.  The new algorithm, tested in collaboration with Durham University and Evergreen Life, is said can ‘accurately’ predict liver and kidney function levels in cancer patients.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has appointed Sarah Hanbridge as chief clinical information officer for nursing and AHPs.

Sarah is set to start at the trust next week, having joined from The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. Championing digital at a regional and national level, she has recently worked as regional chief nursing information officer for NHS England & NHS Improvement, and helped raised the profile of digital nursing and midwives across the country.

Commenting on her appointment, Sarah said: “I’m delighted to be joining the Leeds Teaching Hospitals team. It’s a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference as part of a well-established, highly respected digital team with many exciting and ambitious plans for the future.

“The trust has a fantastic reputation, with a real ‘can do’ culture and emphasis on quality improvement, and I’m really looking forward to meeting more of my new colleagues to understand the opportunities and challenges ahead.”

Paul Jones, Chief Digital Information Officer, added: “We’re absolutely delighted Sarah is joining our leadership team at such an exciting time in our digital journey. She has some fantastic regional and national experience, with a strong network of contacts, all of which will be invaluable in our work to ensure digital solutions improve the day-to-day experience of our patients and staff, and support the delivery of world class healthcare and research.”

In recent news at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, the trust has shared a video providing a virtual overview of the two new state-of-the-art hospitals it is developing. The trust is building two hospitals, one for adults and one for children, with plans to also build the largest single site maternity centre.

The trust highlighted technology is to support patients at every stage of their journey, stating “that advances in technology will play a key role over the next 20-30 years and its designers have considered the relationship between design and digital as we move towards our digital hospitals of the future.” Explore the virtual overview here.

System C has appointed Guy Lucchi as their new Managing Director of Healthcare, leading the healthcare division with a particular focus on supporting the company’s customers to achieve higher levels of digitisation.

Guy Lucchi was previously joint Digital Innovation Director for Health Innovation Manchester and Chief Digital Officer for the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership.

In his role, Guy was responsible for co-creating the health and care digital strategy and associated digital transformation plan across the £6bn devolved health and care system. The transformation plan accelerated innovation across Greater Manchester and was targeted towards improving health outcomes for 2.8 million citizens.

Before that, Guy was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with DXC Technology, leading digital healthcare and life sciences initiatives across the Group. A notable achievement was his role in DXC’s product portfolio which led to significant digitisation of administration and EPR systems across much of the NHS.

“I’m delighted to be joining System C,” Guy commented, “and my first programme of work will be leading the development of an innovative design and deployment blueprint for our integrated EPR that will enable trusts to identify gaps and create a comprehensive, actionable digital transformation roadmap. I’m looking forward to meeting with our customers and sharing more detail.”

Nick Wilson, CEO of System C, added: “I’m pleased to be welcoming Guy to the team at a very exciting time.  The work we have done over previous years means we now have everything required to support NHS trusts and other hospital customers to achieve the upper echelons of digitisation.

“Alongside System C’s Liquidlogic integrated social care solution, our Care Alliance partnerships, including the CareCentric shared care record, Population Health and Docobo’s remote patient management are the other pieces of the jigsaw required by our Trusts to achieve HIMSS 7 accreditation and the MDF requirements.”