Weeknote 23.1 — starting 2023 as IT Director at Moorfields
Why weeknotes?
I write week notes as part of my reflective practice, here is a bit more about week notes (Ways of working — weeknotes). In the last few months of 2022, I let the practice slip a bit, but I’ve had a few gentle nudges to restart — so here we are!
We’re hiring
Moorfields are looking for an Enterprise Architect to join the team — Moorfields Eye Hospital are recruiting for an Enterprise Architect
A cracking time to join — a pivotal role in our digital journey with lots to get your teeth stuck into, from a new EPR programme and preparing for Oriel, creating a new world-leading centre at St Pancras for advancing eye health (click here to find out more about Oriel).
Salary is £86–99k, and advert closes on the 13th January 2022. If you’d like to chat — please do not hesitate to reach out!
This week
As you may have gathered from the above, I’ve started 2023 in a new position as IT Director at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It just so happened to coincide with the rail strikes as well, so I ended up driving from Bedford > Cockfosters and getting the underground in. An extreme measure, but it meant I could get to the office!
Tuesday was an atypical first day — security pass, laptop, mobile, and a tour of some of the site. I spent a lot of time with Nick (Chief Information Officer) and Adrian (Head of IT) asking lots of questions.
The rest of the week was a bit of a blur, here are a few reflections:
- There are always nerves when you start a new role, but everyone that I have spoken to has been so kind and welcoming
- There is an incredible amount of history about Moorfields that I have enjoyed learning, and am sure I am not even scratching the surface yet
- We have a cracking team who are passionate about providing the best IT service — I’ve had a number of sessions to start learning more about our day-to-day operations (from Service Desk, to Desktop & Application Support, to 3rd Line Technical Specialists, and more!)
- I’ve had a lot of those “typical” new employee challenges — needing to know to speak to different departments to get access to different systems, training, etc. One that did make me question myself was a system for accessing payslips that told me if I didn’t know my employee number (which I don’t) I need to check my payslip — it was all very circular. Something close to my heart about Employee Experience and value of joining up more services across the enterprise to make it easier for the employee.
A great first week, looking forward to getting my teeth stuck in more. I’ve also been overwhelmed by the kindness and best wishes from everyone on Twitter and LinkedIn — I am responding to everyone, but if you’re reading this and I haven’t replied to you yet, thank you and I will respond shortly.
What am I looking forward to next week?
- Continuing spending more time with Adrian and teams across IT — learning more about what we do, what is in-flight, and how / where I can support
- OpenEyes (open source EPR platform for Ophthalmology) User Reference Group — a Moorfields session, with clinical, operational and technical colleagues
- IT Projects & Programme Board — we have an incredible amount of work on, looking forward to building a better understanding of the work in-flight and roadmap
- Several sessions to learn about other business units at Moorfields — HR, Procurement, Estates & Facilities, and more!
- I’ve reached out to all divisions for introductions and to build relationships + understanding of the services we provide — responses have started to come in already and been very welcoming + supportive, so look forward to getting these scheduled in. Moorfields have a large number of sites, some of which we share estates and infrastructure with other partner organisations — so will be looking to get out to each of these over the coming months.
- And much more!
