Hospital consultant takes charge of digital technology to support clinical care
NHS England and NHS Improvement have appointed Dr Simon Eccles as the new chief clinical information officer for health and care.
His role will be to lead on the NHS use of technology and data to support patient care, reporting to Matthew Swindells, national director of operations and information at NHS England.
Eccles is a practising hospital consultant in emergency medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and will succeed Professor Keith McNeil. He is also clinical director for emergency care at NHS England, London, and holds a number of senior roles nationally including as senior responsible owner for NHS Mail and interoperability.
He said: “Digital health is a fast paced arena, and we must ensure parties work together to drive improvements for patients, who will remain my focus as I move from hospital work to driving the NHS IT agenda.
“This is a really exciting time to be working on digital transformation and more so in the NHS with many important changes on the horizon.
“I look forward to working with all the teams across the Department of Health, NHS England, NHS Improvement and NHS Digital as we use data and digital technology to improve patient care and the efficiency of its delivery.”
McNeil had been in the post since July 2016, with focus on medical information and encouraging the use of digital technology by clinicians. His appointment marked the splitting of the NHS chief information officer role into two, with the other CIO focused on non-clinical information.
