NICON Webinar: Interview with Mike Farrar - Plans, Priorities & People
The next session in our ‘Grasping the Nettle’ webinar series will provide an early opportunity for our members and stakeholders to hear directly from Mike Farrar in his newly appointed role as interim Permanent Secretary for the Department of Health (DoH) in NI.
Mike has a long and impressive track record of health service leadership in the UK, including a previous role as CEO of the NHS Confederation. He has also been Head of Primary Care at the Department of Health in London and Chief Executive of Health Authorities in North West England, Yorkshire, and Tees. In more recent years, he has worked as a management consultant specialising in healthcare.
Mike has extensive operational and strategic experience of healthcare systems both at a national and international level. He is already well known to NICON members, having worked with HSC colleagues in Northern Ireland on a range of developmental programmes over the last three years. Notably, he authored a report commissioned by NICON on health and wealth in Northern Ireland in 2022. He brings with him an ambitious agenda for how we can achieve progress within health and social care.
In this interview, we will ask Mike to say a little about himself, his priorities, and opportunities for progress. We will also ask him to reflect on how we might best achieve a strategic approach in the current financial environment, within which colleagues will be expected to make significant levels of savings.
After a short interview led by NICON Spokesperson, Mark Taylor, there will be ample time set aside to hear reflections from health and social care leaders and to discuss how we can work together collectively to make progress.
For more information about Mike, please see the official TEO announcement of his appointment. NICON also released a statement welcoming his appointment, which you can read here.
This webinar is being held as part of NICON's 'Grasping the Nettle' webinar series, which will run throughout 2025. The series will aim to build on the momentum and theme of the NICON24 conference, held in October 2024, during which we explored what nettles need to be grasped to drive progress within the health and social care system in NI.
