Prof Sir Bruce Keogh interim DH IT director general

Sir Professor Keogh, the Department of Health’s medical director, is to become the department’s interim director general of informatics.

He will take over from Matthew Swindells, the current DH director general of informatics, who has announced earlier this month he is to join consultants Tribal Group at the end of his current secondment.

Swindells, who has been responsible for undertaking a wide-ranging role of NHS informatics due for publication this summer, has been on secondment with the DH since November 2007.

The DH said in a statement that Prof. Sir Bruce Keogh “has taken an active role in the national informatics work stream supporting the Lord Darzi Next Steps Review”.

Accepting the interim role Prof. Sir Bruce said: “As the first NHS Medical Director, my clear priorities are to drive improvements in clinical quality and safety in the services we provide to our patients.”

Gordon Hextall will support Prof. Sir Bruce as interim Director of Informatics in addition to his current role as interim Director of Programme Delivery with NHS Connecting for Health. The DH said this would ensure “the continuity in the management of the NHS National Programme for IT and the implementation of the recommendations of the informatics review recommendations”.