Chief Information Officer Update – May 2026

Lee Rickles, Chief Information Officer at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust and Programme Director for Interweave, shares his monthly round up of digital focus and innovations in healthcare.

This month has been a strong reminder of the impact that collaboration and focused delivery can have on digital transformation – both locally and nationally.

I’ve been delighted to help share the outputs from CIO Live, an event developed by Chief Information Officers (CIO) for CIOs in response to the NHS 10‑Year Plan. As National Convenor for CIO Live, it has been a privilege to work with digital leaders from across the country to create a space focused on practical solutions, shared learning and collective influence.

The CIO Live Insights Report has now been shared with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care, including the Director General for Digital. It has already started informing constructive conversations around leadership, neighbourhood delivery, the digital profession, national products, AI and supplier relationships. What has been particularly encouraging is the growing emphasis on coproduction and CIOs shaping solutions together, rather than responding to challenges in isolation.

In April, I also spoke at the Integrated Care Delivery Forum, where discussions reinforced a consistent message: digital works best when it connects policy intent to frontline delivery. Technology must simplify pathways, support staff and be built on shared foundations such as good data, interoperability and clear accountability.

More recently, I had the opportunity to chair several panel sessions at Rewired 2026, focused on front‑line productivity, the move towards a single patient record, and digital sovereignty. These sessions highlighted both the opportunities and the tensions facing the NHS, from how we release time back to clinical teams to how we ensure patient data remains secure and trusted. The discussions reinforced the need for pragmatic, clinically‑led digital decision‑making that balances innovation with resilience and safety.

Closer to home at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, our focus remains firmly on embedding and optimising our Electronic Patient Record. Implementation is only the starting point, the real value comes through sustained optimisation, clinical engagement and practical change.

A key milestone for the Trust this month has been the rollout of request and results integration, enabling pathology results to be sent directly into our SystmOne units. This removes the need for teams to access results via acute hospital’s Lorenzo or shared GP SystmOne records, reducing duplication and improving access to information which is supporting more efficient clinical workflows.

For patients, these changes support:

• Faster access to information as results flow more efficiently between services
• Safer care, with clinicians able to see the right information at the right time
• Reduced delays caused by fragmented systems or manual workarounds

For clinicians and staff, this means:

• Fewer systems to access and less reliance on shared or duplicate records
• Improved visibility of pathology results within day‑to‑day clinical systems
• Reduced administrative burden, allowing more time to focus on patient care

Looking ahead, I’ll continue to contribute to national and regional forums focused on digital leadership, productivity and collaboration. For me it is important to maintain a strong local focus on what matters most which is using digital well to support our patients, staff and services.