Worked in NHS information departments for over 10 years within a variety of organisations from small, highly specialist organisations, through a PCT and ultimately to a large acute (Aintree). The main element of my role is to ensure that my 40 plus staff (RTT admin, Information, Business Intelligence and Clinical Coding) are delivering a value for money service to the organisation.

I'm also the Informatics Skills Development network (ISD) lead for my organisation which means I spend a lot of time thinking over how informatics, in it's broadest sense, can be used more effectively and how, as a network, we can bring about a higher level of professional recognition.

Through my career I've built up a wealth of skills, which I'm very pleased to say keep growing. I make sure I know enough about everything we do so I know the art of the possible, of late that's meant enough SQL Server management studio and reporting services to last me a lifetime ...

My philosophy on BI is pretty simple, it doesn't matter what technology you use as long as it makes a difference. I think we all get really hung up on whether we're a MS SQL, Oracle, SAP, Qlikview (I could go on) organisation, actually the value BI delivers is through being useful and enabling data-based decision making - there's as much value to be had from an Excel spreadsheet (assuming a few things around robustness) as there is from the most element filled dashboard