Movers and shakers news round-up

April’s movers and shakers round-up features Darren Mckenna being appointed as the new chair of NHS Providers’ informatics network. Elsewhere, there has been appointments at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and EMIS Health.

Darren McKenna has been announced as the new chair of NHS Providers’ informatics network.

Darren will still remain as director of informatics at Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

Speaking about his new role on Twitter, Darren said: “I’m delighted to take up this role and huge thanks to John Glover, the previous chair.

“Building on the great work to date, if any informatics colleagues have thoughts/suggestions for future meetings I’d love to hear from you.”

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) has appointed David Bradley as its new chief executive.

David has over 30 years’ experience working within the NHS and has previously served as chief executive for South West London and St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust (SWLSTG).

David said: “I am very pleased to be appointed Chief Executive at SLaM where we will continue to work hard to improve mental health services in south London for patients and carers.

“Mental health impacts one in four people at some point in their life and we will work closely with the people who use our services, their families and carers to shape how our services are delivered to best meet their needs. I will work with staff from across the trust to look at how we can improve our services to deliver the very best patient care.”

David replaces Dr Matthew Patrick, who is stepping down from the role in July.

Roger Paffard, chair of SLaM, said: “I am delighted that the trust has appointed David after a competitive appointment process. He is an experienced leader in the NHS, a champion of mental health, and a tremendous driver of positive change. Under his guidance, SWLSTG has seen improvements to how it cares for patients, leading to a ‘good’ rating from the CQC across all five domains.”

Susan Gilby has been appointed the new chief executive Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

She started the role on 1 April having been acting chief executive at the trust since October.

She said: “The Countess of Chester Hospital has a strong reputation for providing the community it serves with high quality services and for the skills and dedication of its staff.

“I am delighted to have been appointed as the chief executive and am looking forward to working with the board, the governors, our staff and partners to build on our strengths to ensure a sustainable future for the services that our population require and working as a team in facing our challenges.”

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) has announced Philip Astle is to be its chief executive from September.

Philip joins SECAmb from South Central Ambulance Service where he is currently Chief Operating Officer.

He said: “I am greatly honoured to have been appointed to this role and look forward to working with the excellent team in place at SECAmb.”

Philip replaces Dr Fionna Moore, who has acted as CEO on an interim basis since the departure of Daren Mochrie.

Welcoming Philip, SECAmb Chair, David Astley said: “I am delighted that we have made this appointment and I look forward to working closely with Philip to continue to help drive the organisation forward.

“I know that his experience at South Central Ambulance Service and his variety of public and private sector experience will be of real benefit to the Trust.

“I would like to thank Fionna for stepping up to offer her expertise ahead of Philip’s arrival.”

EMIS Group has made a number of appointments following the launch of its new platform, EMIS-X.

Suzy Foster is appointed CEO for EMIS Health. She will be responsible for EMIS Health’s end to end integrated care offerings to the NHS.

Suzy has previously held senior roles at Microsoft UK and ran their healthcare business for four years.

Bob Brown will take up the newly created role of Chief Solutions Officer at EMIS Health in the next few months and will be responsible for building end-to-end health economy solutions for customers.

 He is currently Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Manchester City Council and previously held senior positions at Aviva, Accenture and HCL.

EMIS Group CEO, Andy Thorburn, said: “I am pleased to announce these new appointments. Both Bob and Suzy will come on board in the coming months. They will boost our capabilities to execute our new strategy and drive EMIS Group forward.”

IMMJ Systems has announced it has made a number of appointments to the team.

This includes Lisa Harris as chief operations officer, Phil Burke as chief project officer, Jamie Hall as head of sales and Brian Chatterton as pre-sales solutions architect.

Dr Tim Rogers has been appointed by online mental health service, Big White Wall, to be its clinical director.

The former sport psychiatrist will be responsible for ensuring high quality and effective delivery of clinical assessment, treatment and risk management of Big White Wall members using the service.

He said: “This exciting organisation offers a break from stigma and fear of judgement using anonymity and the power of community as a support mechanism. Couple this with the language of high performance as means to encourage conversations and sharing of experiences, makes for a very exciting prospect to really help people at scale.

“I’m thrilled at the opportunity of helping to develop the service, expanding it’s reach and using tech for good.”