Tim Kelsey resigns from NHS England

Kelsey's successes in making NHS more 'digitally enabled' overshadowed by care.data, NHS Choices and Apps all in danger of failing

Tim Kelsey, NHS England's national information director and chair of the National Information Board in health and care, has resigned.

Kelsey will take up a role at Telstra Health, a division of the Australian telecoms provider, where he will lead development of new digital and mobile solutions.

Kelsey joined NHS England in 2012, after a one-year stint as executive director of transparency and open data at the Cabinet Office's efficiency and reform group. He had previously been a journalist at the Sunday Times, and founded Dr Foster Intelligence, where he spent a decade as CEO.

NHS England's chief executive, Simon Stevens, gave Kelsey credit for driving the case for "open, transparent and technology-enabled health services". But despite some success stories - with England becoming the first country in the world to enable citizens to book appointments with their GP online, order prescriptions and access their medical record - there have been several failures too.

Most notably, NHS Choices, the national online health-information service, which was given a ‘red' status from the Major Projects Authority earlier this year, while the hotly debated care.data programme has also been tagged with a ‘red' status, the worst possible rating.

In June, NHS England's Health Apps Library, which it launched in March 2013, was criticised as the review criteria - intended to provide a framework to access those apps for suitability before they're published for the public to download - had been labelled weak. Furthermore, some of the apps failed to meet even that standard.

Kelsey said that along with his colleagues, the UK health authority had made the case for a digitally-enabled NHS in which patients are encouraged to participate. "Over the last three years we have made significant progress on turning that aspiration into reality," he said.

Kelsey will be leaving NHS England at the end of December. He will have to observe a six-month ‘cooling off period' until 1 July 2016 before engaging in any business activity with the NHS.