New health minister takes on NHS IT

The Department of Health has announced Ben Bradshaw, MP for Exeter, as the new minister in charge of NHS IT. 

Bradshaw was appointed Minister of State for Health Services under Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health, and picks up the poison chalice of Connecting for Health and the National Programme for IT from Lord Philip Hunt of Kings Heath, who transferred to the Ministry of Justice in June. 

A recent NHS investment survey showed that IT consumed nearly 40 per cent of NHS capital expenditure in the 2006/7 financial year.

Local IT spending (i.e. in individual hospitals rather than centrally) rose 41 per cent in the same year to £336.4m, up from £238.5m in 2005/6.

Bradshaw's brief also includes NHS spending reviews, financial policy and policy reform. He is also minister for the South West of England.

Bradshaw joined the Health Department in June. Previously he was Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare at Defra, and has served time in the Privy Council Office and the Foreign Office.

Before becoming an MP, Bradshaw was a print and radio journalist, latterly for BBC Radio 4.