Organisation picks first cohort of fellows to take part in new programme
NHS Digital has kicked off its first secondment programme, with four frontline health and social care professionals picked to spend a year working with data and technology.
The Clinical Informatics Fellowship Programme will offer secondees the chance to increase their skills on digital platforms and data by working “on a range of programmes, products, and systems that support the continued provision of high-quality patient care and the modernisation of frontline services”.
The chosen quartet will also work with the two people picked to undertake a pair of senior-management fellowships that will run in parallel: the National Medical Director’s Fellowship; and the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s Fellowship.
The purpose of the technology secondment scheme is to facilitate “the two-way sharing of knowledge and insight between the frontline and NHS Digital”, as well as increasing awareness of potential careers in informatics among health-service professionals.
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The four chosen participants for the fellowship programme are: Joan Pons Laplana, a transformation nurse from James Paget University Hospital; Tommy Reay, a social worker from Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospital; Ira Goodman, an anaesthetic operating department practitioner from Moorfields Eye Hospital; and Anthony Kenny, a specialist sexual health nurse from Kings College Hospital.
Pons Laplana said: “Technology is going to be fundamental for the future of nursing and the whole of the NHS. The only way we can develop and continue to deliver goal-centred care is to empower patients and staff with digital platforms, so that we can practise more forward-thinking, preventative health care. Ultimately, these tools will help us deliver more effective and efficient services and I’m so excited to be a part of that.”
The fellows were chosen after an application process that took place late last year, in which potential participants were invited to tell NHS Digital why they were suitable for the programme.
A decision on if, and when to invite a second cohort of fellows to apply will be taken “once the impact of the first group has been evaluated in the autumn”, according to NHS Digital.
