The start of the new NHS financial year sees another round of musical chairs with the abolition of the old NHS Information Authority (IA) and creation of the new Health and Social Care Information Centre as a new authority, and the National Programme for IT morph into an executive agency called ‘Connecting for Health’.
The new Information Centre takes on some of the services previously carried out by the NHS Information Authority and the statistical functions of the Department of Health(DH). Some 250 staff transferred across from the DH, with 107 transferring from the IA.
A key aim of the new body will be to reduce NHS form-filling to a minimum and improve accessibility by acting as central point for everyone who needs information, including patients, clinicians and regulators such as Monitor and the Healthcare Commission. The authority says that it will engage with the NHS and Social Services frontline staff to make information more useful for the management of the NHS without increasing burdens.
Professor Denise Lievesley has been appointed as chief executive of the new authority. A social statistician, Professor Lievesley joins from UNESCO. She has recently been elected President of the International Statistical Institute, the first woman to hold this office.
Bob Allen, on secondment from his job as chief executive of Airedale NHS Trust, will continue as an interim chief executive until Professor Lievesley takes up her new post on 1 July.
The chairman of the new authority is Mike Ramsden, a former chief executive at Leeds Health Authority (1999 – 2002), together with a background in public service and the NHS combined with wide experience in the private sector. He is currently a director of two limited companies specialising in consultancy and management.
The new authority is intended to improve co-ordination of information requirements on the NHS to reduce further unnecessary administrative burdens. According to DH figures closing down the NHSIA and transferring its functions to the new Health and Social care Information Centre and the National Programme for IT could save up to £40m in operating costs.
Health minister Lord Warner, welcomed the creation of the new authority, which he said would scrap unnecessary collections and bring together data gathering to reduce bureaucracy. "Staff will be released from ticking data boxes to spend more time working directly with patients. The authority will also set standards and improve the quality of information for decision-making by health professionals and patients.”
The Health and Social Care Information Centre has its head office in Leeds and currently other offices in Winchester, Birmingham, Exeter and London.
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