No clear NHS digital career pathway, more a ‘career rockface’ says Eccles

Former NHS chief clinical information officer (CCIO) Dr Simon Eccles said that people seeking digital roles in the NHS face a “career rockface” because there is no clear pathway.

Speaking at the Digital Health Networks Exchange event in London on 28 June 2024, the vice president and chief medical officer at Salesforce, focused on the lack of opportunities for those interested in a digital career in the NHS.

Eccles, who was the national NHS CCIO for four years before stepping down in 2022, said that “there is not a clear pathway for digital, more a career rockface” with some loose rocks falling off at the top.

He was joined in the session, titled ‘Case studies: Successful career pathways and early careers initiatives’, by James Freed, deputy director at NHS Digital Academy, and Kenny Oniti, senior teaching fellow, MSc dissertation module lead, and MBBS Phase 1a academic tutor on the digital health leadership programme at Imperial College London.

Freed said that a recent study showed 70% of digital initiatives fail, one in five for technology reasons, one in five due to resources, and three in five for cultural reasons at an organisation.

He added that the issue is that either “people can’t use digital tools, or the digital tools are unusable”, with 63% of the NHS workforce lacking the digital skills required to be successful.

“The NHS workforce is on average less digitally literate than the wider UK workforce”, he said.

In an earlier session, Andrew Griffiths, chief executive of the Federation for Health Informatics Professionals (FEDIP), also acknowledged the lack of career pathways in digital in the NHS.

Griffiths added that work by FEDIP is ongoing to set out competencies required for jobs in order to give people a better understanding of the digital skills required for certain roles in the sector.

He highlighted the FEDIP’s future digital leaders bursary programme, which invites those working in health and care informatics to become part of a yearly cohort of aspiring future leaders.

The issue of navigating career paths in NHS leadership was explored in an episode of Digital Health Unplugged in March 2024, which featured Griffiths alongside Dr Shera Chok, Ben Jeeves and Portia Eze.

Meanwhile, a leaked NHS England report, has warned of a “severe shortage” of digital nurse specialists, which could hinder ambition to drive the healthcare system forward with technology.