Click here to link to the WCIT websiteGuidance on IM&T for NHS Board Members

This site is an online resource for feedback and enhancements on the
Guidance on IM&T for NHS Board Members prepared by the working group.

On this site you will find:

We are keen to contiue improving the guidance we give to NHS Board Members, building on the published document. Please use the feedback form to raise questions and make comments.

Nicholas Beale
Chair, WCIT Guidance Revision Subgroup

Foreword (from the Guidance Document)

Information, with its associated technology, is one of the most important resources in the National Health Service. It is also one of the least well understood. Inevitably, the drive for improved patient care is linked to better value from information, and the efficient management of information and its supporting technology is an important part of the responsibility of those accountable for public funds. It is often less clear how this responsibility should be discharged.

The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists has among its objectives, the promotion of the art and science of Information Technology and the encouragement of this by means of professional and social discourse. From its unique and multidisciplinary membership, it created a Medicine and Health Panel, which identified a need to provide advisory guidance to help NHS Trust and Health Authority Boards manage their responsibility for Information Management and Technology.

Consultation between the NHS Executive, the Worshipful Company, the National Audit Office, the Audit Commission, and the British Computer Society revealed a commonly held view that this was something that was required. A Working Group was put together, composed of representatives from each organisation, and charged with producing guidance on good practice to be a ready source of regular reference. However, it is not a document that necessarily represents the official policy or views of the Worshipful Company or any of the other signatory organisations.

It is now with great pleasure that together we commend this document to you, which we hope to review from time to time. We trust that it will help you carry out the demanding task of managing efficiently your information and its supporting technology.

Signed:
 
David Mann 
Master, 
The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists
Frank Burns 
Head of IM&T, NHS Executive
Sir John Bourn KCB 
Controller and Auditor General		 National Audit Office
Andrew Foster 
Controller of the Audit Commission
Sir Brian Jenkins GBE
President, British Computer Society