The £2.3bn NHS national IT programme could face the same
delays, confusion and policy u-turns that have blighted the health
service's National Shared Service Initiative, politicians and
doctors have warned.
Computer Weekly last week revealed that a £400m project to provide
the NHS with a national payroll and human resources system was a
year behind schedule after just 18 months.
Another key plank of the shared service initiative, the national
financial services project, has stalled after the government
reversed plans to make it mandatory across the health
service.
"The government has been sleep-walking into another IT cost overrun
with confused aims and slipping timetables," said Evan Harris, the
Liberal Democrat health spokesman. "It now looks like the
much-vaunted savings will be years away, if they happen at all.
"The plan for a centralised NHS HR system comes at a time when the
government claims to be freeing hospitals from central diktat with
the foundation hospitals proposals. The real danger is that the
same problems could occur with the whole IT strategy. It is a huge
risk."
GP Adrian Midgley was equally concerned. "The national payroll and
HR project is an ambitious, if sensible, idea. It is a well-defined
process. The code is already there," he said.
"It should be far easier to implement than the clinical systems in
the national programme, and it is worrying that there should be
problems."
A spokesman for NHS IT chief Richard Granger refused to comment on
the shared service initiative but said the national IT programme
was meeting key milestones.
l The NHS is wasting millions of pounds through inefficient supply
chain management, according to e-commerce best practice group
e.centre.
E.centre said the NHS and related social care organisations could
make huge supply chain management savings by introducing
barcoding.
Ray Hodgkinson, chairman of the British Healthcare Trades
Association, which represents medical suppliers, said, "NHS
warehouses are stocked to the ceiling with supplies they don't
always need but have to keep because current mechanisms of stock
control are so time-consuming and labour-intensive."
GPs voice their concerns >>