Tim Coupe has 14 years of experience working in the NHS in health information, clinical audit and effectiveness, and clinical governance. He holds an MSc in Information Sciences, a Postgraduate Diploma in Healthcare Quality, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. His MSc dissertation examined how digital networking and knowledge management, or "NHS Informationalism", have impacted and complexified the evolving NHS system in England since 1996.

1. Tim Coupe MSc, BA(Hons),PGdip, PGCE

5. English governments have been continually reforming the English National Health Service (NHS) since its creation in 1948. The period 1996 – 2009 has seen English governments adopt Information Technology and digital networking and also pursue regulation, efficiency and patient empowerment. Globalisation, digitisation and digital networking are increasingly defining how societies and their component organisations function and evolve, thus creating an incredibly complex health system. Digital knowledge management (KM) and networked information management, NHS Informationalism, has been promulgated as one mechanism to reconcile this complexity. A series of knowledge management initiatives, informed by the principles of Evidence Based Medicine, such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the National electronic Library for Health (NeLH) and more recently, NHS Evidence have been created to realise the power of health and clinical knowledge. Such a realisation however requires the co-ordinated action of doctors, patients and the state. Knowledge management, evidence based medicine and patient empowerment are however contested concepts. The Internet offers patients, professions and the state both opportunities and threats. State panoptic surveillance may be the inevitable price of state KM. As with other ‘Big bang’ NHS reforms, NHS Informationalism may fall foul of system complexity and fail where bottom up decentralised and incremental change may have been preferable. Solesbury 2001 warns policymakers and researchers to be modest about the ability of evidence based practice to improve public affairs (Solesbury, 2001). NHS informationalism may yet prove the wisdom of this statement. The Spirit of Informationalism and the New NHS Abstract of my MSc Dissertation , 2009

6. Current peer reviewed publications

7. A sample web survey tool designed by the author – this one was used in 2010 for a training needs analysis in Worcestershire & Herefordshire mental health services