Richard Corbridge to become CIO at Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Richard Corbridge has resigned as CIO of the Irish Health Service Executive to take up a new role as Chief Digital and Information officer of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the largest trusts in the UK.

Leeds confirmed to Digital Health News that Richard Corbridge has been appointed as Chief Digital and Information Officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Julian Hartley, trust CEO said: “That we’ve appointed a CDIO of Richard’s calibre is a real statement of intent by our Board.”

The new role at Leeds entails taking leadership of a trust which has been a pioneer of integrating health and care, but has had a fraught recent history on IT with severe recent infrastructure problems.

The trust took months to recover from a catastrophic network failure that left staff without access to pathology systems.

Corbridge, who originally hails from Barnsley, Yorkshire, has been CIO at HSE since 2014 and Chief Executive Officer for eHealth Ireland. For the past three years he has been a high-profile leader for the digitisation of Ireland’s health service and achievements have included securing the appointment of CCIOs across Ireland.

The news of his move comes, however, just days after problems came to light with the Irish national radiology information system, known as the National Integrated Medical Imaging System, affecting at 25,000 reports from X-rays, MRIs, CTs and ultrasounds taken since 2001.

But the Irish Times newspaper reports quotes HSE as stating Corbridge’s decision to resign is not linked to the computer error which has just come to light.

An HSE spokesperson is quoted as saying:  “Richard Corbridge, HSE Chief Information Officer (CIO), has tendered his resignation to the HSE in order to take up a new role as CIO of Leeds NHS Teaching Hospital Trust in the UK. He will depart the HSE in November 2017.

HSE director general Tony O’Brien paid tribute to Corbridge’s contribution.

“In his time with the HSE, Richard has made a very significant contribution to our reform agenda and I know he will continue to do so in his remaining time with us.

HSE said it will commence a recruitment process for a successor in September.