Dalton leaves NHS CB for BT health job

The NHS Commissioning Board has announced that its chief operating officer and deputy chief executive, Ian Dalton, will be leaving to work for BT.

Dalton will be taking up a job at BT Global Services as president of global health. In a statement from the NHS CB this morning, Dalton said his “exciting” new role would enable him to “work with health systems across the world.”

BT has seen a number of changes that affect its healthcare business recently. Huw Owen left as president of BT Health in November, to take up a role as chief executive of Ark Continuity.

His role was taken on a interim basis by Judith Halkerston, who joined BT Global Services in 2010, having previously built up the company’s business with system integrators and process outsources, and worked for Logica.

Dalton is a very experienced NHS manager. Before moving to the NHS CB, he headed up the North of England strategic health authority cluster, having been chief executive of NHS North East, and before that a trust chief executive.

As chief executive of NHS North East, he led word to develop a new mortality indicator for the NHS, in response to concerns raised by the first Francis review of the scandal at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust about the existing measure.

The early stages of the scandal were obscured by rows about whether the trust was suffering real or data quality problems, and the new summary hospital-level mortality indicator was devised to try and address some of the issues that led to the dispute.

It is now published by the NHS Information Centre for all acute trusts. Dalton was also in charge of ‘flu resilience’ during the bird flu panic of 2009-10, and was instrumental in setting up telephone and online symptom and treatment services.

Unusually, however, he started his career in the charity and local government sectors – although he has worked for the NHS since 1991.

Sir David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS CB, said he would like to thank Dalton for “his significant contribution and dedication to the NHS over many years” and that he would be missed.

BT said that Dalton will take up his new post on 1 May. In a statement, Luis Alvarez, chief executive officer of BT Global Services, said: “Ian is a well-respected healthcare leader and will bring a wealth of experience and understanding of the NHS and the evolving healthcare market in the UK.

"Our customers around the world are looking to realise greater efficiencies, increase productivity and provide better, safer patient care.

"There has never been a better time for technology to make a real difference and we look forward to ensuring BT continues to play a major role.”