The departure of Martin Bellamy, who heads the implementation
of the £12.7bn NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), is likely to
add to uncertainties in the organisation, according to the NHS's
head of IT.
The disclosure was made in an internal e-mail from NHS CIO
Christine Connelly, in which she calls on her staff not to forget
"the real appetite out in the NHS for quality informatics".
Bellamy is leaving the Department of Health after only nine
months as head of NHS Connecting for Health to take up a position
with the Cabinet Office managing the G-Cloud government-wide cloud
computing strategy.
Computer Weekly understands that Bellamy's job description was
not clearly defined. One executive who works in the NHS said that
Bellamy had vague responsibilities for everything and clear
responsibilities for virtually nothing.
The Department of Health created Bellamy's job after splitting
the role of Richard Granger, previously head of Connecting Health
and director general of NHS IT
into two new positions.
Connelly took on the job of NHS CIO and Bellamy was appointed
director of programme and systems delivery, reporting to
Connelly.
Both jobs came with
salaries of at least £200,000 each.
Connelly said in an e-mail: "The challenges ahead are tough,
particularly in the acute sector, but achievable and we are united
behind our objectives for the remainder of the year. Collectively
we remain absolutely focused on all key deliverables.
"It is important for us to all maintain the momentum of delivery
that we have collectively worked hard to establish, and we will
continue to enhance our capabilities and our skills to deliver the
very best solutions for patients and the NHS.
"The ultimate outcome - creating the best electronic healthcare
systems and services in the world to help save lives and improve
the quality of care - is an ambition we can all aspire to and
share.
"I know that with change comes uncertainty for employees - and
this news probably fuels that uncertainty - but let's not forget
the real appetite out in the NHS for quality informatics and the
capability we have already shown in delivering an information
infrastructure for one of the largest organisations in the world,"
she said.
Connelly drew attention to the range of systems that are used
every day in the NHS, such as PACS and Choose and Book, to improve
patient care.
Under the re-organisation group programme director Tim Donohoe
becomes head of programmes and operations. Carol Clarke takes
overall responsibility for the enabling functions within the
Informatics Directorate, according to her e-mail dated 22 June
2009. They will report to Connelly.
Government CIO John Suffolk has commented on the G-Cloud
initiative on the
Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum.
New health IT leaders with joint salaries of £400,000
>>