School of Health Sciences and Social Work

Profile

Professor Severs is the Associate Dean [Clinical Practice] in the Faculty of Science in the University of Portsmouth. He is a Professor of Health Care for Older People and the Higher Education representative Non-Executive Director on the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Strategic Health Authority

Born in Guisborough, North Yorkshire, he qualified in Medicine in 1980 and became a Consultant Geriatrician in Portsmouth in 1987. He is still a practicing Geriatrician and undertakes acute hospital work and as well as community rehabilitation and continuing care. He does his full share of on-call commitments.

During the last 15 years his career has developed academically and professionally. Professionally his Royal College portfolio involves membership of numerous committees and working groups over the years including being the ex-chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges Information Group. He co-wrote Learning to Manage Health Information the de-facto standard syllabus for health informatics for the NHS. His most recent non-informatics work was as a member of the Inter-Collegiate Working Party report on Intermediate Care, which was published in Autumn 2002. He has chaired the NHS Information Standards Board [ISB], which is the approval body for Health and Social Information Standards in the NHS since 2001. Also, he is one of the representatives of the NHS on the SNOMED International Authority (The Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine) that oversees the development of SNOMED Clinical Terms jointly between the NHS and the College of American Pathologists. He has been a General Manager in the NHS and a Medical Director of a Local Trust. Academically his interests are in service development and evaluation. He is particularly interested in the use of systems theories to help assess, evaluate and design services. He came to the University of Portsmouth in May 1995 as Honorary Professor and in June 1997 became the Foundation Professor of the School of Postgraduate Medicine, and Head of School. In 2002 he became the Head of the Portsmouth Institute of Medicine Health and Social Care until January 2004 when he took up his current post.

Professor Severs is currently on secondment to the Department of Health where he has an assurance role concerned with information standards. His interest in information standards has been ongoing for 12 years and is, in his words, ‘still growing’. His particular interest stems from their need to demonstrate utility in terms of interoperability at the technical, organisational and professional level. His role within the NHS Information Standards Board [ISB] is part of the process whereby these different requirements are balanced. The Information Standards Board is an advisory board to the National Programme Board of the National Programme for IT.

Recent Publications

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