Richard Jeavons to leave Connecting for Health

Richard Jeavons, Connecting for Health’s head of service implementation is to leave the agency before it implements its key detailed electronic record systems.

Two weeks ago at a DH press conference Jeavons said detailed electronic patient record systems would after repeated delays begin to be deployed by the summer.

Jeavons, a highly experienced NHS veteran, is to leave CfH to become chief executive of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, a body that advises on NHS mergers and service changes.

The move mean that two of the three most senior executives at the CfH agency will have departed in 2008. Gordon Hextall, the chief operating officer, remains at the helm and acting head of CfH. It also means the multi-billion NHS IT programme has now had four seperate implementation leads in the past four years.

Jeavons departure follows that of director general Richard Granger who left the DH agency responsible for the £12.4bn NHS IT agency at the end of January.

Further changes at CfH are expected following the publication of the Swindells review of NHS Informatics in the summer. CfH has already scaled back in size since in the introduction of the NHS National Programme for IT Local Ownership Programme.

Prior to joining CfH in March 2005, Jeavons was chief executive of West Yorkshire strategic health authority, and had been the senior responsible officer for the North East cluster of the NHS IT programme.

He succeeded Alan Burns, the then chief executive of Trent strategic health authority, who had stood down as the implementation lead for NPfIT just six months after being appointed in November 2004.

Prior to the appointment of Alan Burns the reponsibility for implementation had rested for six months with the then deputy chief medical officer Aidan Halligan. Professor Aidan Halligan had taken over the role of clinical implementation lead in April 2004, following the departure of Professor Peter Hutton, who resigned citing the need for greater clinical engagement.

As recently as two weeks ago Jeavons provided the public face of the agency at a DH press conference where he sat alongside health minister Ben Bradshaw. At the time Jeavons indicated the agency would persist with delayed Lorenzo detailed care record software, even if delays to its delivery continue.