NHSX names chief nursing information officer

The UK government’s specialist digital health unit NHSX has named Natasha Phillips as its chief nursing information officer.

Chief nursing officer for England Ruth May announced the appointment on Twitter, and Phillips will take up her role in April.

Phillips has been a nurse for 26 years, and is currently the chief nursing information officer (CNIO) at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

https://twitter.com/CNOEngland/status/1230088387903680512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1230088387903680512&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitalhealth.net%2F2020%2F02%2Fnatasha-phillips-nhsx-cnio%2F

https://twitter.com/NatashaRoseP/status/1230188710479777792

Phillips’ career in the NHS began as nursing assistant at the North London Hospice, working as part of a multidisciplinary team.

She trained at the North Middlesex Hospital, and like many nurses expressed concerns about organisational constraints that limited the care she could deliver.

Phillips has been commended for her work on UCLH’s electronic patient record system, which was the second in the country to go live with a setup from US supplier Epic.

NHSX is the brainchild of health secretary Matt Hancock, and attempts to encourage digital innovation by bringing together teams from the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England.

Its many responsibilities include cyber security, setting standards for the whole NHS workforce and training.

Hancock hopes that NHSX will spearhead the largest digital health and social care transformation programme in the world.

Driven by investment of more than £1 billion a year, the initiative is part of the NHS Long Term Plan to modernise services.

In charge is CEO Matthew Gould, the government’s former director of cyber security who will oversee the project pulling together various functions that previously were managed by the DoH, social care, NHS England, and NHS Improvement.

Among the projects overseen by NHSX is the existing Global Digital Exemplar programme, focused on creating sites of digital excellence.

There is also the Local Health and Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE) programme supporting joining up data across multiple sites, as well as the NHS Digital Academy.