National clinical leads (NCLs)
National Clinical Leads have been appointed to strengthen clinical authority within the national services and applications.
They will ensure that all parts of the NHS national IT infrastructure have the appropriate clinical input, are fit for purpose, and deliver real benefits for both the NHS and patients.
GPs | Hospital doctors | Nurses | Midwives | Allied health professionals | Pathology | Mental health | Paediatrics and child health
GPs
Dr Manpreet Pujara - NCL for GPs
Dr Manpreet Pujara practises at the Thorndike surgery in Rochester, Kent. He trained at Southampton University and became a GP in Carshalton, Surrey.
He became an EMIS user in 1990 and was elected to the National User Group (NUG) committee in 1994 and was NUG chair between 2001 and 2007.
During this time he represented EMIS Users at the Joint GP IT Committee (JGPITC), as well as the NHS Connecting for Health's GP Pan User (GPPUG) and GP System of Choice (GPSoC) groups.
In recent years, he has been involved in a number of issues including EPS, Choose & Book and GP2GP. He became an NCL in January 2008.
"Having worked on a number of NHS Connecting for Health issues relevant to GPs, as well as on GP Choice, I am pleased to have been appointed as one of the GP National Clinical Leads. There is a great potential to bring many benefits to both patients and primary care." - Dr Manpreet Pujara.
Dr Peter Short - NCL for GPs
Dr Peter Short practises at the Stewart Medical Centre, Buxton, Derbyshire. He trained at Doncaster and around the West Midlands, after he qualified from Birmingham Medical School in 1983.
Peter describes himself as enjoying the challenge of being a "GP generalist" two days a week, with additional work in community hospitals covering GP beds and a minor injury unit, in addition to Clinical Commissioning Group involvement.
Until his appointment as GPs' NCL for NHS CFH in January 2008, Peter was Deputy Chair of Derbyshire Local Medical Committee and NPfIT Clinical Lead for Derby City and County.
"The many challenges for General Practice require effective and reliable IT support, and increasingly the linking of information from multiple sources. The lifelong record held in GP systems is likely to remain the key for patient centred care, but to be increasingly made available to other authorised clinical users, with patient consent."
Hospital doctors
Dr Charles Gutteridge – National Clinical Director for Informatics
Charles has been the medical director at Barts and the London Trust since 2002 and a consultant haematologist there and at Newham General Hospital. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists.
As a member of the London review acute group, Charles was involved in providing clinical advice to Lord Darzi's review of health provision in London. He also chaired the Association of UK University Hospitals Medical Directors.
Charles has been strongly involved in patient safety, confidentiality and informatics issues at Barts. He was the Caldicott Guardian for Barts, led the Safer Patients Initiative 2006-8 and chaired the Clinical Informatics Design Authority which gave clinical advice about improving the use of Cerner Millenium at the Trust.
Charles took up this appointment in January 2010. He said: "This is an exciting time to be at the cutting edge of delivering informatics to improve patient care.
"As recent events have shown, there is a sea change in clinical attitudes to informatics and the NHS IT Infrastructure. My colleagues know that good, accessible information enormously raises the quality of treatment and diagnosis we can provide to the public.
"My work with medical under-graduates confirms that these expectations are strong amongst the next generation of doctors. I hope to contribute to encouraging those attitudes and enabling dialogue between clinical staff, patients and informatics providers."
Dr Simon Eccles - Medical Director
Dr Simon Eccles is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Homerton Hospital, London.
Simon's current and previous roles include:
- clinical advisor to the NHS National Workforce Project, tackling the impact of the European Working Time Directive;
- clinical advisor to the Health Insight Unit of the Department of Health;
- past chairman of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee and secondment to the Modernisation Agency, as the medical advisor to the Hospital at Night project which is now being implemented nationally.
Simon has interests in plain-speaking communication; making sure clinicians, managers and planners are all using the same routine information to improve care for patients and in helping clinicians have ownership of improvements brought about by better health informatics.
Dr Henry Dowlen MBE - NCL for Hospital Doctors - Information Standards and Defence Medical Services
Henry took up this appointment in October 2011 which he carries out alongside his work in London-based Emergency Departments.
Henry has carried out a number of Clinical Informatics projects within different hospital trusts since 2005, mainly focussing on the better use of Information Technology by clinical staff to improve communication, safety and efficiency.
He has also served with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines as both a regular and a reservist in a variety of roles, mainly concentrated on Afghanistan where he worked alongside the Afghan Government in assisting the reconstruction of community medical provision. He maintains an interest in this area of work and is a Deployable Civilian Expert for the UK's Stabilisation Unit.
Visit 'Connecting with hospital doctors'.
Nurses
Anne Cooper - NCL for Nursing
Anne started her career in nursing, working in cardiology and chest medicine where she was a ward sister before moving into general management, focusing on complaints management and developing approaches to deal with feedback from patients.
Later, at NHS Direct, Anne worked as part of a team setting up the service in West Yorkshire before specialising in IT system development in a national role at NHS Direct. During her time, Anne developed an IT skills competency framework for nursing.
This was followed by a role as regional programme manager to support local healthcare providers to develop diabetes services in line with the National Service Framework requirements for care.
Anne has been involved in informatics since her time at NHS Direct. As a result, she accepted a post working with the Summary Care Record programme team, providing clinical advice, design input and clinical leadership.
Other areas of interest include, information governance and in particular, ensuring that patient confidentiality is protected throughout the introduction and long term use of technology to improve clinical care.
Anne currently holds the post of national clinical lead for nursing, providing clinical leadership in the development of informatics policy and works across the health and education sectors to build relationships with strategic partners.
Visit 'Connecting with nurses'.
Midwives
Julie Tindale - NCL for midwifery
Julie Tindale is National Clinical Lead for Midwifery she is seconded to the Department of Health Informatics Directorate (DHID) from her role as a Clinical Information Systems Manager for the Maternity Information System at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, where her previous 30 years midwifery experience is useful when working with the service managers and midwives to develop, problem solve and audit not only the system and contents but the service it supports.midwife.
Julie's previous roles have included being a member of the Clinical Engagement Team for the National Care Records Service in the Birmingham and Black Country areas.
"I believe that midwives are supporting the Information Revolution in NHS care today. The day-to-day administrative duties may put a strain on their roles when they are working in a busy, pressurised environment, but the benefits to patient care are so astounding that midwives feel the good job they do is constantly rewarded and acknowledged."
Visit 'Connecting with midwives'.
Visit 'Making a difference', an article by Julie Tindale on engagement with nurses, midwives and AHPs.
Visit Delivering High Quality Midwifery Care.
Allied health professionals
Yvonne Pettigrew - NCL for allied health professionals
Yvonne Pettigrew is Associate Director for Allied Health Professionals and Head of Therapy Services at the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHBFT).
Yvonne Pettigrew is Associate Director for Allied Health Professionals and Head of Therapy Services at the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB). Yvonne's previous roles include clinical work as an Occupational Therapist in the acute and community sectors as well as with social services. She has also spent a period of time in an American hospital in the Middle East. Most recently Yvonne has had senior management and professional leadership responsibility in multi-centre and teaching hospital environments.
Yvonne has always had an interest in the appropriate use of technology to improve clinical services and is especially keen to see Allied Health Professional (AHP) clinical and commissioning recording integrated meaningfully at patient and organisational levels. She commented: "In my role for NHS Connecting for Health, I will be engaging regularly with AHPs, helping to communicate the benefits of informatics in the workplace as well as finding out more about AHPs professional needs to feed this back into shaping policy and system development.
"Choose and Book is a great example of a tool that can enable GPs and patients to access AHP services, and we need to ensure that we maximise the benefits for practitioners by using their feedback to help develop a system which both reflects their needs and enables better inter-professional working.
"I will do this via our national conferences, existing professional networks and by responding to individual enquiry. I'm very keen that we get better at sharing good practice as there are so many exciting and innovative examples that could benefit our patients."
Visit 'Connecting with allied health professionals'.
Pathology
Dr Gifford Batstone - NCL for pathology
Dr Batstone, became an NCL for pathology in March 2008. He studied medicine at St Thomas'Hospital, London before training in pathology in Bristol and Southampton.
He was a consultant chemical pathologist in Salisbury and then undertook a number of educational roles including that of postgraduate dean. Gifford has now returned to laboratory work at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals where he is also involved in teaching medical students.
Gifford has been involved in the implementation of Department of Health initiatives in clinical audit, medical education, and information technology. His wife is Chief Executive of Basingstoke and North Hampshire Foundation Trust.
Gifford commented: "Linking best evidence with laboratory requesting and reporting will increasingly enhance both the efficiency and effectiveness of pathology services."
Visit Gifford's pathology web page.
Paediatrics and child health
Dr David Low - NCL for Paediatrics and child health
Dr Low became the national clinical lead for paediatrics and child health in October 2008.
He has been a consultant paediatrician for 22 years at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, specialising as a Designated Doctor for Safeguarding for the last 15 years.
Dr Low is also a member of the NHS Connecting for Health Child Health Programme Board, which was set up to ensure child health systems within national services and applications were standardised and fit for purpose.
David has been involved in producing documentation that identifies the specific information needs of children in comparison to adults. He would like to use this for discussion with paediatricians and system providers as the basis for a unified child health record.
David is married to Carole, a clinical geneticist, and they have three grown up sons. When he is not safeguarding the health of children he keeps himself busy by gardening, supporting and listening to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and rowing – he has been a cox for almost 40 years - and appreciating Victorian architecture.
Mental health
Dr Joe McDonald - NCL for mental health
Dr McDonald, is a consultant adolescent psychiatrist at South of Tyne and Wearside. He became an NCL for mental health in March 2008. Joe has a very special reason for deciding to become an NCL.
He explains: "Two weeks before our wedding, I got a telephone call from an accident and emergency department to say my wife Fiona had crashed her car into a lorry and was in a coma. I jumped in my car and drove the 20 miles to the hospital in record time.
"I arrived to find my wife awaiting neurosurgery. The staff were unaware that Fiona was an insulin-dependent diabetic and was merely suffering from hypoglycaemia and a bump on the head.
"After the administration of glucose she was perfectly well in 15 minutes. Electronic records strike me as a good idea.
"I am looking forward to the challenge of developing electronic care records in mental health, where every recent report into psychiatric disaster has pointed the finger at 'failure to communicate'."
Joe lives on Tyneside and claims to be an eternal optimist as a Newcastle United supporter! He trained at Nottingham Medical School.
Joe hosts an online National Mental Health Informatics Network. Visit http://www.networks.nhs.uk/nhs-networks/national-mental-health-informatics-network
Visit Joe's mental health web page.