Hancock appoints chief technology adviser

Health secretary Matt Hancock has appointed former Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) tech and security expert Hadley Beeman as his chief technology adviser.

Hadley, who joined the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) last week, will work closely with the other health and social care bodies, including NHS Digital and NHS England.

Hancock, who personally appointed Beeman, recently moved from being secretary of state at DCMS to health secretary at DHSC himself, following the latest Cabinet reshuffle.

Last week, Hadley announced her new role on Twitter, saying she was delighted to return to working on transforming the NHS.

DHSC confirmed Beeman’s appointment as chief technology adviser, but said it does not comment on the secretary of state’s selection of advisers.

Beeman previously worked for the government’s soon-to-be former UK national technology adviser Liam Maxwell when he was chief technology officer (CTO) at the Government Digital Service (GDS).

Maxwell became the government’s first CTO in 2012, reporting to then-executive director of GDS Mike Bracken. In 2016, Maxwell took up the role as national technology adviser, reporting into the Cabinet Office and DCMS, with a “dotted line” to UK Trade and Investment (UKTI).

However, earlier this month, as reported by Computer Weekly, news broke that Maxwell will shortly be leaving government for cloud-giant Amazon Web Services (AWS).

In his role as national technology adviser, Maxwell linked the cross-government drive to improve government technology with DCMS’s work to grow the digital sector.