DH appoints clinical director for informatics

The Department of Health (DH) has appointed Charles Gutteridge as the first national clinical director for informatics. He takes up his appointment during January.

Charles Gutteridge has been the medical director at St Bartholomew's Hospital (Barts) and the London Trust since 2002 and a consultant haematologist both at Barts and at Newham General Hospital.  He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists.

As a member of the London review acute group, Gutteridge was involved in providing clinical advice to Lord Darzi's review of health provision in London. He also chaired the Association of UK University Hospitals Medical Directors.
Gutteridge has been strongly involved in patient safety, confidentiality and informatics issues at Barts. He was the Caldicott Guardian for Barts, led the Safer Patients Initiative 2006-8 and chaired the Clinical Informatics Design Authority which gave clinical advice about improving the use of Cerner Millennium at the Trust.

Gutteridge said: "This is an exciting time to be at the cutting edge of delivering informatics to improve patient care. As recent events have shown, there is a sea change in clinical attitudes to informatics and the National Programme for IT. 

"My colleagues know that good, accessible information enormously raises the quality of treatment and diagnosis we can provide to the public. My work with medical under-graduates confirms that these expectations are strong amongst the next generation of doctors. I hope to contribute to encouraging those attitudes and enabling dialogue between clinical staff, patients and informatics providers."