NHS England hires CIO, CCIO and director of digital experience

CCIO is Keith McNeil who resigned as CEO of Addenbrooke's Hospital after it overspent by £1.2m a week

NHS England has hired a chief clinical information officer (CCIO), a chief information officer (CIO), and a director of digital experience.

The organisation had initially wanted to hire a chief information and technology officer (CITO) to replace national director for patients and information, Tim Kelsey, who left in December 2015. It released a job ad back in January, but struggled to find the right candidate to take up the role. Last month, NHS England told Computing that the exact remit for the CITO role would be decided when a successful candidate is in place.

But since the job ad was initially released, the NHS has hired Matthew Swindells as the national director of operations and information. He had previously been CIO of the Department of Health, and was most recently SVP of population health and global strategy at the Cerner Corporation.

Now, the NHS has hired a CCIO and CIO to report into him, suggesting that there will no longer be a need for a CITO. Computing has asked NHS England whether this is the case and will update the story accordingly.

The NHS has hired Professor Keith McNeil as its CCIO, which may raise some alarm bells, as McNeil resigned from his post as CEO at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust back in September 2015, just before a damning report by the Care Quality Commission was set to be published.

The trust was put into "special measures" by health regulator Monitor, after over-spending by an average of £1.2m a week, in part due to a new £200m online patient-record system by US supplier Epic, which was fraught with issues.

NHS England has also poached the Royal Free Hospital's CIO Will Smart to be its chief information officer.

"The NHS CCIO and NHS CIO post-holders will act on behalf of the whole NHS to provide strategic leadership, also chairing the National Information Board, and acting as commissioning ‘client' for the relevant programmes being delivered by NHS Digital (previously known as the HSCIC)," NHS England explained.

Juliet Bauer, who the NHS said led the move to take Times Newspapers online, will take up the role of director of digital experience. The NHS only released a job ad for this particular role in June. Bauer will receive a salary of at least £131,301.