Mike O'Brien becomes NHS IT minister

A former ecommerce minister has been given responsibility for NHS IT, as one of the Department of Health's two ministers of state Mike O'Brien, MP for Warwickshire North, has been appointed as minister of state for health services, where his brief includes Connecting for Health and NHS IT. He will also cover other areas …

[Anonymous Coward]

IT angle

Whats the IT angle, this guy probably knows nothing about IT looking at his career. Studied History and Politics, was a teacher and solicitor. Who looked at his CV for this job? Gordon Brown? We all know his skill in making decisions don't we!

[Simon Mirsh]

oxymoron

"NHS efficiency"

[Nick Palmer]

One almost feels sorry for the guy.

The words "chalice" and "poisoned" leap all unbidden to mind...

IT? because they can't seem to work out where it is either...

[Kevin Johnston]

Mr Ben

Bradshaw should be excellent as Culture Secretary since if the reports of the state of some hospitals is accurate then he has been knee-deep in cultures for some time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Disaster

Oh please, when will the government select the person best suited to the job. From his own site:

"Mike is the first member of his family to graduate. After training as a lawyer, Mike was a college lecturer until 1997 when he began practising as a solicitor specialising in criminal law until his election in 1992."

Degree in Law, career in Law, lecturer, politician. Lots of IT experience there.

If he had been in the role prior to the contracts being awarded then his legal skills may have been of some benefit (alas, he specialised in Criminal Law but hey, some sills are better than none). Now he'll just be bemused at how the government could have signed such dire contracts and disaster will be the only outcome. BT, Logica, Crapita et. al will be laughing all the way to the bank !

[Andrew Sexton]

re:Disaster

"Mike was a college lecturer until 1997 when he began practising as a solicitor specialising in criminal law until his election in 1992."

Actually looks like he is a damn good choice ... he can travel in time so if he makes a bad decision he can go back and correct it!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How Many?

Have they had to build a new extension on number 10? They must need a much bigger table to hold a full cabinet meeting. They just seem to keep on adding ministers. And as for junior ministers I think we must be reaching the point where nulabour have more ministers than back benchers.

[Gav]

His brief **includes** Connecting for Health and NHS IT

What's all the whining about his lack of IT experience? He's a politician, what kind of IT experience are you expecting? Besides that, try reading the article;

"Mike O'Brien, MP for Warwickshire North, has been appointed as minister of state for health services, where his brief **includes** Connecting for Health and NHS IT."

He's minister for a whole bunch of things, a small part of which is "Connecting for Health and NHS IT". The NHS covers many areas, is he to be expected to have experience in them all? Where's his pharmaceutical experience? Any knowledge of research methodology or care of the terminally ill? If he knows little about bedpans is he unsuited to the job?

You really don't need the technical experience to manage at that kind of level. It's all about good management, not knowing the difference between network protocols.

[Ed Blackshaw]

@Gav

That said, don't you think it might be better to employ a doctor to run the NHS? You wouldn't expect a doctor to be in charge of a bunch of lawyers, so why the hell should it be the other way around? The best thing the gummint could do to help the nHS is to remove all the 'league table' bullshit that Bliar introduced, slim down the myrad layers of management and actually employ more trained clinicians. Oh, and get rid of the whole 'every patient must see a consultant' nonsense - all that has resulted in is that the NHS now calls registrars consultants and we don't have any REAL consultants any more.