CIO of SORCE customer West London Mental Health Trust (www.wlmht.nhs.uk), Alan Brown, has been recognised as the Public Sector CIO Innovator of the Year at the prestigious UK Technology Innovation & Growth Awards for 2007.

Founded in 1999, the UK Technology Innovation & Growth Forum champions the development of the country’s most innovative and dynamic technology organisations and innovators. All award winners have gone through an exhaustive process of investigation by an esteemed panel of judges. The UK Technology Innovation & Growth Awards have become one of the most coveted accolades within the industry over the last eight years.

Alan Brown, CIO of WLMHT, has been recognised as the Public Sector CIO of Year for his efforts in going the extra mile to identify the right technologies and being open to taking risks with new and innovative solutions.

One of the major IT projects that WLMHT undertook was to deploy a new Intranet, the Exchange, using SORCE Intranet software and services. WLMHT has grown out of the merging of four separate NHS Trusts and has the challenge of building a common ethos and team spirit for over 4,000 personnel at 30 sites and in local communities.

WLMHT approached the need for a new Intranet as a business requirement. They set up a project board under the sponsorship of Alan Brown, the Trust’s CIO, with Nuala O’Brien, Director of Communications and involved representatives from across their operations. The project board sets the priorities for the project, confirms roles and responsibilities and reviews progress against plans.

According to Viv Mowatt, the WLMHT Intranet project manager, The Board provides executive leadership for the project and ensures that all parts of our operations are kept in the picture about the latest developments and how they can make the most of the Intranet.

The Exchange has been positively received throughout WLMHT as the preferred method of finding and sharing information and is increasingly becoming a business application that is critical to the efficient and effective running of management, administrative and reporting procedures.

According to Alan Brown, CIO at WLMHT, From the outset we wanted our Intranet to be much more than a document repository. In fact, we are developing business applications with the support of SORCE that greatly improve our administrative procedures and deliver accurate and timely business information for better decision-making.

John Nicklin, Sales and Marketing Director at SORCE, commented, WLMHT is a shining example of an organisation that understands that an Intranet is much more than an internal website. The Trust views the Exchange as a business critical application that drives up productivity and helps to make a distributed workforce feel part of one team. We are delighted at the recognition for Alan Brown as Public Sector CIO Innovator of the Year for his work in delivering innovative technology solutions such as the Exchange Intranet.