A major West Country hospital has been left to cope with
a legacy patient administration system following Fujitsu Services'
decision to drop a key subcontractor from the Connecting for Health
programme.
Doctors leaders believe other NHS organisations could be facing
similar problems over delayed systems under the NHS IT
modernisation programme.
Fujitsu, the southern cluster Connecting for Health local
service provider, dropped its patient administration system
supplier IDX earlier this month. The move has left the Royal United
Hospital Bath NHS Trust, which was to be an early adopter of new
systems, without a date for replacement of its ageing kit.
The trust's business case to replace its TDS patient
administration system said, "Ideally these applications would have
already been replaced, but due to the advent of the NPfIT [national
programme for IT, the original name for Connecting for Health] this
process has been delayed."
The trust put itself forward to become an early implementation
site for the IDX product, with a planned go-live date of November
this year. Now neither Fujitsu or Connecting for Health can tell
the trust when a replacement might be ready.
Meanwhile, IT staff and doctors at the trust must support and
use a "clinically unpopular system with limited functionality",
said the trust's business case.
Connecting for Health said it would not compensate trusts for
the cost of running old systems while they are waiting for national
systems to be delivered.
John Powell, chairman of the British Medical Association's
Health Information Management Committee, said, "The planning blight
issue is of increasing concern, not just in Bath, but in hospitals
with creaking IT systems that have put off replacing them because
of the promises of the national programme. Every delay exacerbates
that position."
He welcomed Fujitsu's cancellation of its contract with IDX in
anticipation of potential problems, but said, "It creates further
delay. How long is it going to take other people to get where IDX
got to?"
Powell said the delay could undermine doctors' confidence in NHS
IT, but added that it would not derail the whole process.
Connecting for Health, the hospital and Fujitsu Services said
they were unable to comment until negotiations with IDX replacement
Cerner are complete.