Bell to “move on to new challenges”

Martin Bell is leaving his position as director of IM&T at North Bristol NHS Trust.

In a statement to eHealth Insider, the trust says he has decided to “move on to new challenges" in August.

Bell has been at the trust for ten years. The statement says that over that time North Bristol has seen a “radical improvement” in its IT.

This includes the implementation of clinical IT, such as the order communications system, Sunquest ICE; the deployment of picture archiving and communications; the creation of a new integrated data centre at Southmead and the new patient records centre at Cribbs Causeway.

“Martin has also overseen the introduction of new systems like children’s community services, as well as modernising the IT infrastructure and outlining plans for the IM&T in the new hospital,” it says.

More recently, Bell oversaw the implementation of the Cerner Millennium electronic patient records system at the trust.

The project hit some serious issues post go-live, with patients sent wrong appointment dates or no confirmation of appointments.

According to a local newspaper report confirmed by the trust in February, Bell told his board that if he had known the problems it would cause, the trust would not have gone live with Millennium in December last year.

But the trust statement says Bell “worked tirelessly” during the recovery phase to identify problems and work with the front line teams to resolve them as quickly as possible.

“We will now be looking to appoint an interim head of IM&T to ensure an orderly handover before Martin leaves in August,” it adds.