Four frontline clinicians have begun a year’s informatics fellowship at NHS Digital to use their experiences as clinicians to support the design of a new generation of digital tools and services for NHS staff and patients.
The fellows, from a range of care settings and professions, are pioneering a first of type opportunity.
The unique experience will allow for both collaboration and the two-way sharing of knowledge and insight between the frontline and NHS Digital, as well as increasing awareness of the value of a career in clinical informatics.
The successful quartet 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.
During their year-long placement they will get the opportunity to work in both data and technology environments on a range of programmes, products and systems that support the continued provision of high quality patient care and the modernisation of frontline services.
They will also join forces with the two clinical leadership fellows who are undertaking the National Medical Director’s fellowship and the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s fellowship, both run by the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management, which was founded by all the UK’s medical royal colleges and faculties.
Further cohorts could follow once the impact of the first group has been evaluated in the autumn.
Joan Pons Laplana, Clinical Informatics Fellow, 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 practice 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.”
