Salaries in theNHS may
compare unfavourably with other sectors, but it seems that
there are compensations. "It may sound a little corny, but people
want to work in the NHS because they are making a difference," says
Zane O'Driscoll, head of the health division at recruitment firm
Elan.
"Everything you are supporting is life-critical, and you are
ultimately improving patient care and saving lives. People take
salary cuts to work in this sector because there is real job
satisfaction."
The NHS also offers excellent opportunities for development and
training. "It is a good starting place for a first job," says Ken
Rutherford, information security and governance manager at the
Tyne and Wear Contractor
Services Agency. Rutherford joined the NHS in 1999 in a general
support role, after more than 20 years with the British Army.
Jon Reed, director of ICT at the
Royal Marsden
Hospital, agrees. In 1992, Reed was a recent graduate and had
just started at the NHS, working as a developer for the St Helier
Hospital. "It was a new trust, and only just thinking about its
local IT needs," he says. "It was an opportunity for me to get my
hands dirty in lots of different areas."
Reed progressed at St Helier as the IT department grew, moving
into management and eventually becoming head of an information
department that encompassed medical records and management
reporting, as well as IT.
Investment in staff
In 2006, Reed moved to the Royal Marsden Hospital, where he is
now one of many NHS ICT department heads who recruit trainees into
roles where they can flourish. "Continuous development is a strong
theme here, and we will invest in you as much as we can," he
says.
Jane Bodley-Scott, a director at training company Premier IT
which heads up the company's NHS activities, says this focus on
training is partly a result of the highly structured approach to
recruitment within the NHS. However, she warns that many NHS
organisations will meet the cost of courses, but not the
final certification process.
"The NHS needs technical people with the skills to deliver, but
they often find that if they put staff through programmes to become
certified, those individuals realise their value in the marketplace
and move on," Bodley-Scott says.
Nevertheless, Rutherford says the NHS is very supportive when it
comes to training. "I had some Microsoft and Novell qualifications
from my time in the army, but when I came to work in the NHS, my
employer sent me on numerous courses over the next few years
related to both specific NHS software and general IT such as
networking, databases and various Microsoft back-end
technologies."
Rutherford was promoted into his current post of information
security and governance manager at the Tyne and Wear Contractor
Services Agency in 2005.
"When I moved into the security role, I was able to identify and
request the courses I felt I needed to do the job, including the
certified information systems security professional (CISSP)
qualification," Rutherford says.
"Funding for training can be an issue - some of the courses are
very expensive and can wipe out the whole training budget for the
IT department - so you have to be flexible. But within those
constraints, the NHS is very supportive of training."
Rutherford's role is a mixture of providing technical support
for security measures and leading operations for the agency's data
protection, freedom of information and data governance
obligations.
This combination of traditional IT skills and
"
informatics" - data analysis and information governance - is
typical of NHS IT departments, says O'Driscoll. Project and
programme managers are also in demand to deliver the stream of
IT-based initiatives flowing from the government, most recently the
National Programme for IT.
On the cutting edge
"It is also a sector where there is constant change, with the
chance to work on challenging and complex projects," O'Driscoll
says.
Many jobs offer the chance to work with cutting-edge
technologies on interesting projects. The independence of the
trusts that make up the NHS means there is also a great deal of
variety in how they tackle IT.
The two hospitals where Reed worked exemplify the two main
approaches: St Helier focused on implementing and integrating
best-of-breed packages the Royal Marsden, until recently,
developed most of its systems in-house.
The Royal Marsden is now planning to introduce some
best-of-breed components in areas such as pathology, where
sophisticated packages are available. However, the hospital will
continue to invest in its own systems for elements of the patient
record, using
InterSystems' Ensemble package to integrate the two.
According to Reed, the downside of working in the NHS is that it
can be difficult to implement change, with regular reorganisations
and changing targets. Nevertheless, it seems that once people join
the NHS, they are reluctant to leave.
The careers of both Reed and Rutherford are typical of the long
service found within NHS IT departments. "Many staff have been with
the same organisation for more than 10 years because the NHS is a
very people-based organisation, which breeds a culture of loyalty
and commitment to the role that is not purely financial," Reed
says.
"It is a worthwhile place to work, and you do feel like you are
making a tangible difference."
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