The Information Centre for health and social care has announced the appointment of former dentist Tim Straughan as its new chief executive.
Announcing the appointment, Mike Ramsden, chairman of The Information Centre (IC), said: ‘I’m delighted to announce Tim’s appointment and believe he is the right person to lead The IC as it works to provide even greater support to frontline staff charged with improving services for patients.’
Mr Straughan said: ‘I passionately believe that high-quality information can have a real impact on improving services. Because of that, I want The IC to be even more tightly focused on delivering relevant, high-quality information to frontline practitioners to enable people like GPs, consultants and nurses, as well as local managers, to improve services and care for local people.’
As part of his role, Mr Straughan has also been confirmed as senior responsible officer for the Secondary Uses Service (SUS), which provides management information to the NHS. The IC is delivering SUS in partnership with NHS Connecting for Health as part of the National Programme for IT.
Mr Straughan had been acting chief executive of The IC since July 2007. Prior to that, he had been The IC’s director of finance and corporate services and deputy chief executive since April 2005.
He has a number of years of frontline NHS experience working in Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust where he developed a specialist knowledge of private finance initiatives and public private partnership. He is also a qualified dentist with experience of working in general practice, hospital and community facilities.
