The £2.3bn national programme for IT in the NHS is grappling with severe shortages of high-level skills, according to the most senior IT professional at the service.
Richard Granger, director general of NHS IT, said between 100,000 and 250,000 jobs had disappeared from the UK IT industry in the past five years.
A shortage of talented people is causing “big, big problems”, he told the HC2005 healthcare informatics conference held in Harrogate last week.
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“There are real difficulties getting high-quality teams to deliver complex programmes,” Granger said.
The NHS IT chief told delegates the traditional succession from analyst to team leader, junior project manager and inter-programme director was “falling apart”.
