NHS Digital, for a very long time a key a part of the NHS IT panorama, has been merged into NHS England’s Transformation Directorate.
NHS Digital, the Division of Well being arms-length company that was chargeable for working many of the NHS’s nationwide IT infrastructure and related providers, along with the availability of key information and analytics on well being and care, ceased to exist at midnight yesterday.
From this morning the company turned part of NHS England’s Transformation Directorate, with workers going through an unsure future at an NHS England dedicated to deep job cuts to cut back its now 18,000 headcount.
NHS Digital had been chargeable for important providers together with the Well being and Social Care Community (HSCN), NHS backbone, the digital prescription service, abstract care report, NHS App and NHS 111.
The company which was primarily based in Leeds employed an estimated 6,000 workers, together with massive numbers of contractors. The company and workers performed a pivotal function within the NHS nationwide response to the Covid-19 pandemic with initiatives like fast rollout of Groups and guarded sufferers lists and the NHS Covid App.
Workers transferred to NHS England face an unsure future, with a 40% discount in headcount anticipated. Sources counsel that voluntary redundancies are commencing, whereas key staff including interim CEO Simon Bolton have now left.
Bolton posted his farewell in a tweet yesterday as he logged off for the final time:
Like all of my colleagues, this afternoon I logged off from @NHSDigital for the ultimate time. Tomorrow they grow to be staff of @NHSEngland. Being CEO at @NHSDigital has been the spotlight of my profession and I’m proud to have been a part of such an incredible dedicated and gifted crew. pic.twitter.com/cWuzqs1psq
— Simon Bolton (@simonrbolton) January 31, 2023
Kieron Martin, an NHS Digital worker in Hampshire and Isle of Wight, in the meantime tweeted:
Elevating a espresso cup to @NHSDigital on it is final day of existence. As a model it kinda did what it stated! Because of everybody I’ve labored with and onwards to the following factor! pic.twitter.com/CxeEyadeQu
— Kieron Martin (@Kieron_M) January 31, 2023
Chris Gibbons from KPMG tweeted a reminder of simply how massive and sophisticated the programs run by NHS Digital are:
Wishing colleagues from @NHSDigital all the most effective as they be part of @NHSEngland. Everybody has a view. NHSD’s folks run a few of the largest and most complicated providers, not simply within the NHS, however within the World. @samrobnhs @JohnMc_Ghie @ParsonsC446 @fordie @HelenFoy16 @LornaBranton pic.twitter.com/0lJNujwYgx
— Chris Gibbons (@chrisigibbons) February 1, 2023
NHS Digital was merged into NHS England on 1 February, bringing to an finish the existence of an unbiased company chargeable for operational working of NHS IT, separated from the coverage arm of the Division of Well being.
The Well being and Social Care Data Centre was created in April 2013, with the title modified to NHS Digital in 2016.
The lineage of HSCIC stretched again to 2005 when it was created as a particular well being authority by way of a merger of remnants of the Nationwide Programme for IT, a part of the Division of Well being, the NHS Data Authority, and the Prescribing Help Unit.
NHS Digital got here below the remit of the short-lived and ill-fated NHSX from February 2021, itself an arm of NHS England.
The demise knell for the company was sounded by the Laura Wade-Gery evaluate in November 2021. The erstwhile chair of NHS Digital really helpful it’s merged into NHS England to create a easy physique chargeable for NHS IT and digital technique.
A press release on the NHS Digital web site this morning reads:
“These programs and providers, features, processes and buildings that had been the duty of NHS Digital, will proceed to function as regular and contracts will robotically switch to NHS England, with phrases and situations unchanged.
“We’ll work collectively over the primary half of 2023/24 to develop the brand new, extra streamlined buildings and processes that can assist our NHS.
“As a single organisation, this new NHS England will likely be extra aware of the most important challenges and alternatives of the system. It’s now the only non-departmental authorities physique chargeable for digital know-how, information and well being service supply within the NHS.”
Explaining the rationale for the merger the web site says: “This merger will scale back duplication, bringing the NHS’s nationwide information and know-how experience collectively into one organisation,” and directs readers to the Wade-Gery review.
On the NHS England web site, nevertheless, there was no point out of the take-over of NHS Digital and the switch of 6,000 workers.
NHSE CEO Amanda Prichard, nevertheless, tweeted to welcome the merger final week:
Harnessing the potential of know-how – to assist our continued restoration from COVID-19 and enhance providers for sufferers and workers – will likely be entrance of thoughts as @NHSDigital and @NHSEngland come collectively as one organisation from subsequent week.
— Amanda Pritchard (@AmandaPritchard) January 28, 2023
Helen Balsdon, performing nationwide CNIO at NHSE, welcomed colleagues who had been becoming a member of NHSE:
Welcome to @NHSDigital Colleagues becoming a member of @NHSEngland right this moment.
A lot of the tech you employ within the NHS right this moment has been constructed or influenced by NHS Digital management – pic.twitter.com/1GvOrk7318
— NHS CNIO England (@NHSCNIO) February 1, 2023
