Latest News

UKCHIP Council Elections 2010 - Results

When voting closed at midnight on 3rd September for the 2010 Council election, the following candidates were successful in each securing one of the seven vacants seats.

Mrs Judie FINESILVER

Dr Jonathan FISTEIN

Mr Tony PAGET

Mrs Jackie SMITH

Each of the successful candidates has confirmed they are willing to take up their seat from October and to abide by the current regulations for election to Council.

UKCHIP would like to thank retiring Council members Dr Ray Armstrong and Mr Mike Andersson for their contributions to the development of UKCHIP and the profession of Health Informatics.

Interview with Mik Horswell

In early June, Mik Horswell, Director of Stakeholder Management for UKCHIP, gave a short interview on HealthExec TV discussing how Health Informatics can contribute to the QIPP agenda.  The three minute programme was recorded before the publication of the recent White Paper, Liberating the NHS, but many of the points mentioned remain valid.  The interview can be watched in your media player by clicking here.

NHS Staff Council review of NRRP 

Agenda for Change contains provision for national recruitment and retention premia (NRRP) to be paid where it is judged that there are national problems with recruitment or retention.  On behalf of the NHS Staff Council, NHS Employers have commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) to review the application and level of recruitment and retention premia via an online survey.

If you would like to contribute to the survey, click here to go to the IES website

UKCHIP Newsletter - July 2010  

The latest UKCHIP news and details of forthcoming events may be viewed and downloaded here.

Student and Affiliate Registers Launched

Student and Affiliate registration is now available for those who are just commencing their career in Health Informatics. 

You may be a student, a trainee or just moving into Health Informatics and have not yet gained the requisite experience for full registration, but you can still demonstrate your commitment to professionalism in Health Informatics by signing up to the UKCHIP Code of Conduct and agreeing to abide by the rules of the Council.  When you have gained the qualifications or experience required, your registration can be upgraded.

Registration costs a one-off fee of just £20 and lasts for up to four years.

The first registers have been published and may be accessed via the main menu. Details of how to sign up can be found here.

New Health Informatics Specialist Workforce Strategy for England

A new Health Informatics Specialist Workforce Strategy for England is being developed by the DH Informatics Directorate.  It will be the first strategy since Making Information Count was launched in 2002 and will be based on research and intelligence gathered from across the NHS and other key stakeholder groups and organisations.  The aim is to have a draft ready for consultation in May/June 2010.

To help inform the content and to test out ideas and assumptions, two workshops have already taken place aiming to bring together a cross-section of stakeholders from a wide range of groups, disciplines and levels.  The workshops were open to those working in and working for the NHS with a vested interest in informatics workforce development including Health Informatics specialists working in and for the NHS, at all levels (Information Management, ICT, Health Records, Clinical Coding, Libraries and Knowledge Management, Education, Training and Development staff, Clinical Informaticians, Project and Programme Managers  - including senior managers and leaders from all disciplines).  

The outputs from the workshop will be available shortly and will feed into the development of the workforce strategy. 

UKCHIP eSpace Community Established

UKCHIP has established a community group on NHS Connecting for Health eSpace.  We will be posting items for discussion about professionalism in health informatics as well as news and events related to the development of the profession.

This community will complement the networking groups set up on LinkedIn and the Microsoft NHS Resource Cenre (see below).

You will need to be registered with eSpace to access the community, which you can do here.  If you are already registered, you are very welcome to join us.    

New UKCHIP Networking Groups

As part of a widening campaign to raise awareness about health informatics, to encourage discussion and comment about the profession, and to promote the latest developments at UKCHIP, two new networking groups have been established.

The first group is part of the community on the Microsoft NHS Resource Centre website, which is open to anyone with an NHS email address and currently has over 60,000 members.

An official UKCHIP group has also been created on the LinkedIn professional networking site.  We are currently developing other networking presences, including an eSpace community at NHS Connecting for Health, and we are in the process of developing our own discussion forum as part of the UKCHIP website. Watch this space!

Review of Health Informatics National Occupational Standards

Skills for Health have begun a major project to review and improve the Health Informatics National Occupational Standards.  National Occupational Standards (NOS) define what a competent person should be able to do when they carry out a particular work activity.  Some of these are specifically relevant to health informatics roles.

Dr Jean Roberts, UKCHIP Director responsible for Standards Development, is representing UKCHIP on the HINOS Review Reference Group and will ensure there is consistency between those developments and the requirements for registration with UKCHIP.

A copy of the HINOS Newsletter which highlights this work may be found here. 

Free lapel badges for UKCHIP registrants

UKCHIP have produced distinctive lapel badges available only to registrants. You can request your free badge by emailing admin@ukchip.net including the postal address to send the badge to.

If you have a meeting and would like to promote UKCHIP and be able to issue the badges to your delegates, who must be registrants, then please contact admin@ukchip.net.