Beverley Bryant to leave NHS Digital and join System C
- 31 May 2017
Senior NHS Digital director Beverley Bryant is to leave the Leeds-based NHS IT agency to become chief operating officer (COO) of health software supplier System C.
On Wednesday (31 May) Bryant was confirmed as the new dual COO of System C, the specialist in hospital electronic patient record systems; and sister company Graphnet Care Alliance, a specialist in shared record systems.
She will become the most senior executive in the two companies after joint chief executives Ian Denley and Markus Bolton, founders of the original System C. Bryant will join the boards of both companies.
Bryant’s departure from NHS Digital comes shortly after being passed over for the role of chief executive, with the role instead being awarded in April to Sarah Wilkinson, chief technology officer from The Home Office.
Bryant joined NHS Digital in June 2016 after a restructure of NHS England following the arrival of Matthew Swindells, NHS England’s director of information, commissioning and operations, in Spring 2016, who replaced Tim Kelsey, NHS England’s flamboyant director of patients and information.
Bryant first came to national prominence in NHS IT circles for as NHS England’s director of digital technology, and Tim Kelsey’s highly effective lieutenant.
While at NHS England, between 2013-16, Bryant led the two NHS Tech Funds and Nursing Tech Funds and gained a reputation for fighting vigorously for IT investment money on behalf of NHS trusts with the Treasury and ministers. She played a key role in securing the £4.2 billion funding commitment for NHS IT in the 2015 Spending Settlement.
The move will mark a return to the commercial world for Bryant, who has held senior IT positions at organisations including managing director Capita Health, before working at first NHS England as director of digital strategy, and since mid-2016 at NHS Digital as director of digital transformation.
She has also worked at a local level in the NHS, as director of performance at NHS Leeds and business development director at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.
Her NHS England role included playing a central role in negotiating the spending review settlement to deliver the NHS and social care digital strategy, heading the NHS e-Referral Service and the Patient Online programme, and helping to develop the ‘Personalised Health and Care 2020’ strategy.
Bryant was awarded Digital Leader of the Year 2017 in the Women in IT national awards.
Bryant commented: “The System C and Graphnet Care Alliance stand out for me because they work across the whole health and social care economy. They have real drive, a substantial user base and an excellent delivery record.”
“Beverley could have chosen a role at any business in the UK so we are delighted that she chose to join us,” said Markus Bolton, joint chief executive and founder of System C, and director of Graphnet.
Bryant will take up the new role on 1 August.
14 Comments
Good luck to Sarah Wilkinson.
Beverley has been a good friend to NHS IT – including primary care.
Many thanks and good wishes for the future.
There was a learning curve.
While I appreciate that “leadership skills” are regarded as being generic, does Sarah Wilkinson – background banking & home office – have the NHS domain knowledge Beverley has acquired – and if not, the willingness and ability to acquire it Beverley displayed?
Could you take Tim Kelsey back please? Whatever as a Nation we in Australia did, we are truely sorry and apologise.
right laff
Im struggling to see how this isn’t a conflict of interest. A public sector Health IT lead going to private sector Health IT provider.
Can anyone explain why this is not?
Why would leaving one job to take another job a conflict of interest? She’s not going to be doing both.
Im sure she wont be doing both and will be removed from all conflicting decisions between now and August.
Whatever term we want to use here to label this, it has a bad smell. From being in a position of immense influence politically and with trusts, STPs, funding, project approvals etc, to going to a provider of said solutions.
Nothing personal re Beverly, but this kind of move doesn’t sit well without significant garden leave or other kind of barrier.
Think HMRC tax folk going off to work for big accounting ‘advising’ etc. Its the same thing.
This is a big loss to the NHS. Beverley is a first class leader and has had a significant influence on good progress being made on the digital agenda. Her straight talking and no nonsense approach was a breath of fresh air.
Bad bad bad news – Beverley is a person who actually got things done. She cut through all the hype and made things happen. A sad day for the digital agenda within the NHS, and a sad day for the NHS as a whole. Shame on you NHS England / Digital for allowing this to happen.
A great loss to the NHS. Her enthusiasm and positiveness drove many in NHSE to go the extra mile. Good luck to System C and Graphnet I am sure her vision and openness will help them develop. It will be interesting to see how soon and how far System C develop an effective patient sharing interface.
In my honest opinion, Schrödinger’s cat is dead
“Open the box”
Good Luck to Beverley Bryant. In my personal and honest opinion the NH{IT}Service needs to be xferred to the private sector NOW as quickly as possible. Why? because you can not ignore history, that’s why p.s. In my personal and honest opinion IT’s far more efficient to process health data @ a national level, what do you think, what do you do?
NHS Needs good IT leaders. IT development plan has been simply shocking in our NHS. I visited India and saw amazing IT and the cost saving is huge. Primary care had excellent IT but we need integrated IT which can read all case notes from health and social care and from Primary, secondary, mental health and social care. We have fragmented care and without good IT based EPR and case note with access to patients for their own records we will not be able to transform health or social care. NHS can probably save £7 Billion a year by excellent IT and digital health and we need national IT strategy and we need huge investment which ever government wins election.
Regarding Beverly, I wish her all the best. All i hope is NHS leaders don’t go in to private sector and then get contract through their contacts working in NHS, Many private consultancy firms doing this worries me. NHS must make sure there is good governance across all purchasing and it saddens me the amount of money wasted in IT in the NHS over last few years. I care for NHS and I am sure many who work in NHS do. Important thing missing in NHS is accountability for leaders and managers who have the power to spend public money.
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