This session will explore the long-term challenges for the NHS and the different strategies being used to overcome them. David Elliott explores Nort humbria’s digital journey of ‘Build Vs Buy’ by highlighting the digital ethos of self-development rather than always an off the shelf product. Paul Frank will share 20 years’ experience in the NHS leading high profile change initiatives in and across multiple NHS organisations and the work of the Digital and Clinical Advisory Group. Prof Liz Breen will address the challenges around preparing the digital workforce and growing the digital pipeline.
Chair: Paul Jones
CDIO, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS FT
Paul is the Chief Digital Information Officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, where he leads a team of 450 digital and information staff. He has held senior, digital roles in the public and private sector over the last twenty-years including CTO for the NHS in England and Group CIO at Serco.
David Elliot
executive chief digital information officer, Northumbria Healthcare NHS FT and lead chief information officer, North East and North Cumbria Diagnostics Group
David Elliott is Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trusts, Executive Chief Digital Information Officer leading on IT Strategy including the Digital and Data developments across the trust. As part of the executive team and trust board, he brings over 17 years of technology transformation experience spanning the private sector in board level roles from the Energy sector through to hospitality and retail brands.
Paul Frank
operations and performance director, County Durham and Darlington NHS FT
Paul is Deputy Director of Operations and COIO at Co Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. He is an Operational Director with over 20 years’ experience in the NHS and has significant experience within the acute hospital sector with experience leading high profile change initiatives in and across multiple NHS organisations. Paul initially entered into the Digital Field in 2022 when he provided operational leadership during the big bang implementation of Oracle Cerner EPR across 8 sites; 2 acute, 1 sub-acute and 5 community. He now chairs the Digital and Clinical Advisory Group and provides operational leadership for the digital strategy across the organisation.
Prof Liz Breen
director, digital health enterprise zone, professor of health service operations, University of Bradford
Professor Liz Breen is the current Director of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone, an innovation facility based at the University of Bradford. DHEZ is a nexus for knowledge exchange, partnership development and research supporting Bradford Place and the West Yorkshire health eco-system. Liz is a Professor in Health Service Operations based in the School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, a Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research Fellow and an Affiliate member of the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Centre.
Liz’s research focuses on improvement and sustainability in service supply chains with a specific interest in pharmaceutical supply chains. Her work aims to better understand the complexity of supply chain systems and learnings within and between supply chains. Projects focusing directly on the pharmaceutical supply chain explore areas such as medicines shortages, medicines optimisation and waste management, digitisation, supply chain risk and patient safety.
Liz has undertaken extensive media engagement discussing the creation and deployment of Covid-19 vaccines within the UK and globally. This work has been cited in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America and Australia and in key media outlets such as The Guardian, Time Magazine and Forbes.
