Health industry news sites are reporting that the former NHS CIO Richard Granger has landed a consulting role at KPMG and will be based in Australia. Granger is said to be joining the KPMG Global Health Practice, which is based down under as a partner.
No formal announcement has been made and KPMG will not confirm the news to CIO, which was "informally announced at an e-health conference in Melbourne", reports E-Health Insider. It is believed that Granger's new role will be a global.
Granger, who resigned from his role as head of the NHS Connecting for Health programme in June 2007 left the role in January 2008. No golden handshake was given to Granger, who on a salary of £290,000 a year, was the UK's highest paid civil servant and responsible for the £12.4bn NHS National Programme for IT. Several of the deals with IT vendors that Granger secured have been "reset" since his departure due to changing demands of the programme.
Granger can expect a quieter life in Australia where there is a less investigative media and a convoluted political system of an ignored national capital and state governments. Author Bill Bryson described Australian politics as the most confusing and uninteresting political system on the planet.
Healthcare in Australia is along similar lines as the USA with residents required to have private health insurance to cover almost all forms of medication. A global role will mean he will have to become a keen enthusiast of the long haul flight, with cultural Europe at least 24 backside numbing hours away.
If Granger is joining KPMG it is a return to his management consultancy roots, prior to his controversial time at the NHS he was with Deloitte and Touche.
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michael | Published: 13:13 GMT, 20 February 2009
DATE: 2008-10-20 06:12:00.0
Healthcare in Australia is NOT along similar lines as the USA ... residents are NOT required to have private health insurance to cover almost all forms of medication. Most of us get by very well in the public system, thank you very much.