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The civil servant tasked with the £12bn computerisation of the NHS has announced his resignation, saying he will soon leave a job that has been “quite simply relentless.” Richard Granger, formerly of Deloitte, was appointed chief executive of NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) in 2002 after successfully managing the IT scheme for London’s congestion charge. He will leave his £290,000-a-year post by October, to consider a return to the private sector, which he reportedly hopes will afford him more time with his family. Speaking to The Financial Times, the 42-year-old said his decision to quit as Britain’s highest paid civil servant was “a very personal one.” He added: “My wife wants her husband back.” The industry is divided over the likely impact of Granger’s departure, which follows ministerial warnings that the final cost of the NHS IT scheme may be £20bn – an overrun of £7bn. But Granger, a staunch defender of state IT projects and a critic of its lax contractors, says he has served the five years he originally committed to the project, so the time is right to leave. “There is no doubt about the programme’s achievability,” he said last week. “Most of the building blocks are now in place.” Granger has dismissed some unfairly critical press reports on NHS IT, while proudly trumpeting areas that have enjoyed more success, such as the ‘choose and book’ system, which is arranging 20,000 appointments a day. In addition, the PACS system is said to have cut turnaround times from six to three days. However the IT project’s showpiece – the Spine – a database to store the electronic records of every NHS patient, has been scaled back, and is running two years behind schedule. Granger was also in office during breaches of confidentiality over patients’ and junior doctors’ details, the latter leading to the Health Secretary being heckled on BBC1’s Question Time. During his five year role, a leaked memo reportedly revealed that two NHS IT execs thought the Health Service would be better off without the billion-pound computerisation. Reflecting on his resignation last week, Mr Granger said: “There remain a number of challenges ahead, but I firmly believe that the leadership of the programme by Lord Hunt, David Nicholson and my colleagues within CfH will ensure these hurdles are overcome.” The statement said that in due course an announcement regarding a successor and transitional arrangements will be made by the Department of Health. Health minister Lord Hunt said: "I would like to thank Richard Granger for his hard work and tremendous achievements in delivering the National Programme for IT for the NHS and wish him luck for the future. “Richard will continue to lead Connecting for Health during the transition period, which we expect to be the late part of the year, and his decision will not affect the delivery of the NHS IT programme.” Jun 18, 2007 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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