New London RID appointed

Kevin Jarrold, director of information management at University College London Hospital (UCLH), has been appointed as the new regional implementation director (RID) for the London cluster.

Jarrold recently managed the successful implementation of an IDX Carecast system into UCLH. He is due to join NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) in September.

He will takes over a post that has been vacant since April following the abrupt suspension and subsequent resignation of the first London cluster RID, David Kwo. Martin Forrest, the RID for the North-east cluster has been acting RID for London since Kwo’s departure.

The new London RID is one of two senior appointments announced by CfH. In addition, Paul Jones has been appointed to the role of chief technology officer and will head CfH’s technology office, taking overall responsibility for the business, systems and technical architecture for the National Programme for IT.

Paul was previously a director in systems integration at Atos Origin. Having worked in the City on financial systems, he moved into IT consultancy where he focused on IT delivery projects for both the public and private sectors. His main clients included the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

As well as these two appointments, NHS Connecting for Health says that it has strengthened the structure of its cluster teams to ensure they have enhanced links to central functions such as service management and the technology office. This is intended to enable the five RIDs to concentrate on the deployment of systems.

Gordon Hextall, CfH’s chief operating officer, said: "These appointments and initiatives aim to strengthen our capability as we enter a key stage of deployment of the National Programme for IT."