At Healios we deal daily with extremely sensitive information and we take our role incredibly seriously in ensuring it’s protected at all times and kept secure.
Leading our efforts is Hazel Dundee, our Head of Information Security & Governance, who is passionate about information security and at Healios has found an organisation ready and willing to lean on her expertise for the benefit of our customers and patients.
Here Hazel talks about how Healios has embraced her role and her pride at recent recognition as one of the top leaders in her field.
“I absolutely love what I do.”
Hazel Dundee has a 26-year career behind her in IT, 17 of which have been in Information Security which was a relatively immature area when she first took on the role.
A varied career eventually led to Healios in late 2022 and Hazel said the organisation embraced her ideas and expertise from the very beginning.
She said: “A lot of people feel quite threatened by information security – they think if someone from infosec comes to see you you’ve done something wrong. That’s not the case at all.
“It’s one of the lovely things about Healios that they have been really, really welcoming. They want to embrace information security, they want help, guidance and consultation. I’ve rarely experienced that anywhere else in the 17 years I’ve been working in information security.
“I absolutely love what I do. I’m really, really passionate about it. And I love working here at Healios because they are so willing to listen and learn and understand; I’ve worked in a lot of places and that’s not always the case as you can be thought of as a hindrance, that information security is an obstacle to get around. Here they come with open arms.”
Award-winning leader
Hazel was recently given prestigious recognition at the CSO 30 Awards UK.
CSO 30 UK recognises 30 IT leaders within the UK – from security specialists to IT directors/heads – who have made significant contributions to the advancement of information risk management and security within their organisations.
“It was incredible,” Hazel said about winning. “But what I would say while winning it was phenomenal, honestly the best thing was being nominated because it’s recognition of what I do, what I have done and what I’m going to do.
“To me I’m just doing my job, I’ve done it in other organisations but I’ve never had it recognised in the way Healios does. There’s a genuine appreciation for bringing this into the organisation.
“They’re so passionate about the clients and delivering the best quality of service and the expertise is around that, but they’ve also recognised they need that underlining supporting expertise for the compliance, security and governance side of things.
“To be recognised for adding value to an organisation and having that publicly announced through something like the CSO Awards is incredible.”
Assurance for our partners and clients
While a fantastic personal accolade for herself, Hazel also hopes such prestigious recognition acts as further assurance of how seriously Healios takes information security.
She said: “I’m hoping this will add to the assurance we already provide that we do take information security really seriously.
“We have externally audited accreditations – for example we’re ISO 27001 certified, Cyber Essential Plus certified and Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) certified and ‘exceeding expectations’.
“We don’t need to hold some of them but we have chosen to because it’s another level of assurance that we are doing everything we can to adhere to best practice as well as being compliant with laws and regulations.
“Having somebody who, in my role, has been recognised externally as being a leader in their field I think, and I hope, can only add to the assurance we are giving our customers.
“We handle some very sensitive information in this organisation and we need people to know they can trust us with that information. I feel very proud to be able to say that our NHS and private partners can trust Healios, not only with this data but also with their patients.”
Want to understand how Healios can deliver value to your organisation through partnership? Visit: https://healios.org.uk/healthcare-organisations/