NHS England on the hunt for new CIO
John Quinn leaving after two successful years
Quinn took over as interim CIO in 2023, before adopting the post – the most prominent technology role in the UK’s public healthcare system – permanently.
Quinn cited “a mix of professional and personal considerations” as factors in his decision, including family caring commitments.
In an email seen by Digital Health News, Quinn said announcing the news now should give the NHS “an opportunity to refresh as it goes through planning and prioritisation in readiness for the implementing the next Spending Review.”
The soon-to-be-former CIO will continue to lead NHS England’s technology team during the change, noting that “we still have critical and urgent work to do in this quarter as we transition leadership.”
Vin Diwakar, national director of transformation at NHSE, publicly announced the news on LinkedIn this week, calling Quinn’s work “invaluable” and noting the organisation will look for a replacement CIO “in due course.”
Quinn has, by all accounts, been a successful IT leader at NHSE. He oversaw mass adoption of the NHS App (at 75% of the adult population by March last year, according to an annual report), and a major infrastructure transformation when NHSE migrated the NHS Spine to AWS.
Computing says:
We’ve seen a real uptick in IT leaders’ mobility in recent years; the two-year-CIO is an established trend even in the public sector.
That's often to oversee times of change. Quinn, for example, managed the merger of NHS Digital into NHS England, while Richard Corbridge, who joined the Department of Work and Pensions as CDIO from February 2023 to November last year, accomplished sweeping changes before returning to the private sector.
That said, retaining leadership-level staff is an ongoing challenge in the public sector. You can’t permanently live in a state of massive transformation; eventually, you need someone who will steer the ship for the long haul.