Establishing health informatics as a recognised and respected profession in the UK National Health Service

The delivery of healthcare is an information dependent process. National government modernisation targets, and drives to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of care delivery systems and processes have the better use of information and IT at their heart. If we are to realise the benefits information and IT developments can bring, we have to ensure we have a suitable cadre of well educated, proactive professional specialists who understand the business of healthcare. The English NHS has an attrition rate of something like 43% amongst its ICT specialists, and there are recruitment and retention problems in a range of other informatics disciplines like medical records, project management and strategic management. A 1999-2000 survey indicated the reasons for recruitment and retention problems. One agreed solution has been to work towards establishing health informatics as a recognised and respected national profession. This is in addition to other national work to establish career pathways, make health informatics as a profession "mainstream", and to provide development opportunities at all levels. This paper sets out the background to the establishment of a profession in UK health services, outlines progress to date, and summarises other national development activity to support health informatics professionals.