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Meet the Buccaneers: An interview with Richard Corbridge

The Chief Digital and Information Officer discusses NHS IT, service management reform and Fat Boy Slim.

Richard Corbridge has spent twenty-two years working in healthcare technology, and currently occupies the role of Chief Digital and Information Officer at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT). Together with Silver Buck, Richard has been an instrumental part of the #axethefax campaign, and also sits as one of six health IT disruptors on the Silver Buccaneers advisory board.

Published by
Rory Bibb
PR and Marketing Executive, Silver Buck

What is a typical day for you at work?

Busy, but we all say that. There is no typical day I guess, that’s why we love what we do. A typical Monday involves:

07:30 – Information Governance week ahead briefing
08:15 – CCIO Planning Meeting
09:00 – Digital Team People Link Stand Up
10:15 – Senior Management Team Meeting
11:30 – PA Catch Up on Five Day Forward plan
12:00 – LTHT Executive
15:30 – Meet the leaders
16:00 – PACS Progress Board
17:00 – LHCRE Briefing
18:00 – Home

What do you like most about your role?

The mission that we are here to deliver and the colleagues and friends I work with across the country and at LTHT.

What do you least like about your role?

Making the pennies stretch where the pounds are supposed to be.

How do you keep up to date on health IT news?

Digital Health Net, the unofficial networks and Twitter.

Other than increasing funding, what would you do to improve NHS IT?

  • Collaboration and more awareness from the ‘centre’ of what the system needs.
  • An adoption of Agile in the centre to the delivery of key components.
  • A new acceptance that working together will be more productive than ‘the centre knows best’.

What is the most important thing you have learned in your current role?

Service Management is always the hardest thing to get right, the slowest thing to change and the most impactful area we can work on.

If you could only pick one health IT conference or event to attend, which one would it be?

EU eHealth Week.

What are your top priorities over the next six months?

  • Reform the Service management function to truly offer customer excellence.
  • Support the next generation of digital leaders in becoming just that.
  • Deliver the digital hospital at more LTHT sites.
  • Continue to release successful EHR functionality.

If you wake up in a bad mood, what song would you play to cheer you up?

Prince – Lets Go Crazy.

What is number one on your bucket list?

To see Fatboy Slim play Café Mambo, in Ibiza.

If you could be anybody for one day, who would you be and why?

David Beckham, so I can find out how he is able to look that good all of the time!

What is your guilty pleasure?

Marvel films.

If you could have any super-power, what would it be?

Super Vision: the power to see anything, anywhere.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

A policeman or a teacher.

If you were to host a fancy-dress party, what would the theme be?

Superheroes.

What is your favourite take-away meal?

Curry.

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