The Department of Health and Social Care has announced its direct ministerial appointment of Tom Kibasi, joint chair of three mental health and community NHS trusts, to provide “expert advice and support” on the reform agenda, including the upcoming 10 Year Health Plan.
Kibasi acted as senior policy advisor to Lord Darzi for the 2008 NHS: High Quality Care for All review, and led the drafting and analysis for the September 2024 Darzi report. “Since then, there has been a remarkable process of public, staff and expert engagement on the 10 Year Health Plan” he said. “There is now huge energy and expectation about the vision that it will set for both the service and for the health of the nation.”
The appointment will see Kibasi support the department to develop ideas for a “better health service”, into the successful delivery of the 10 Year Health Plan. This will also see him working closely with Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
In other appointments, Baroness Camilla Cavendish, Naomi Eisenstadt CB and Phil Jordan have joined the board of the Department of Health and Social Care as non-executive directors.
The Darzi report and wider NHS reform
HTN covered the publication of the Darzi report back in September, which outlined key findings including that the NHS “has been starved of capital”, with the capital budget repeatedly used to fill holes in day-to-day spending. Lord Darzi notes outdated buildings and impacted productivity as a result with “outdated scanners, too little automation, and parts of the NHS [that] are yet to enter the digital era”. Over the past 15 years, whilst other sectors have been “radically reshaped” by digital technologies, Lord Darzi states that the NHS is “in the foothills of digital transformation” and highlights the last decade in particular as a missed opportunity to prepare the NHS for the future by embracing technology and its ability to support a pivot from a ‘diagnose and treat’ model to one focused on prediction and prevention.
We featured some key industry reactions to the contents of the Darzi report, reaching out to a range of stakeholders across the health and care system, asking for thoughts on the report’s findings and the “missed opportunities” Lord Darzi highlights from analysis of the past ten years, and look ahead to the ways technology can help secure the future of the NHS. In a HTN Now panel discussion to dissect the report’s findings saw us joined by panellists including Lee Rickles, CIO, director & deputy SIRO at Humber Teaching Hospitals; Andrew Jones, digital transformation leader at Amazon Web Services; Tracy McClelland, CCIO at Dedalus; and Dan Bunstone, clinical director at Warrington Innovation Network and Warrington ICB.
Last month, we also covered the publication of the plan for reforming NHS elective care, which set out a vision of future NHS care which is “increasingly personalised and digital”, focusing on improved experience, convenience, choice, and control. In a further HTN Now panel discussion looked at the role of digital in supporting NHS reform – modernising services, shifting from hospital to community, and supporting the move from reactive to proactive care. We welcomed Dawn Greaves, associate director of digital transformation at Leeds Community Healthcare; Ananya Datta, associate director of primary care digital delivery at South East London ICS; and Stuart Stocks, lead enterprise architect with Aire Logic.
