The government's spending watchdog finds much to praise
in its report on the NHS programme, but costs are predicted to be
£6bn over original estimates
After an 18-month investigation, public spending watchdog the
National Audit Office has published a 60-page report into the NHS’s
National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
The findings are “very positive” said Lord Warner, the health
minister responsible for the project. It is the UK’s largest ever
IT investment and the world’s largest healthcare IT programme.
The long delayed report has been eagerly awaited, not least
because it is one of the first published, independent overviews of
this crucial project.
It commends Connecting for Health, an agency of the Department
of Health that is running the IT part of the programme, for its
strong management of the scheme.
It also lists the progress of the IT programme to April 2006 and
some of the successes in the deployment of new systems in NHS
trusts and GP practices.
The report looks at the programme’s origins, the support it has
in Westminster and Whitehall, its procurement processes and
preparations being made to roll out the core Connecting for Health
systems across the NHS, and it makes recommendations.
The National Audit Office said Connecting for Health had learnt
many lessons from previous public sector IT project failures and it
praised the “tight control” exerted over the NPfIT’s
contractors.
The report said, “The department and NHS Connecting for Health
have made substantial progress with the programme. They have
established management systems and structures to match the scale of
the challenge. They successfully placed contracts very quickly,
after securing large reductions in prices from bidders and contract
terms that include important safeguards to secure value for money
for the taxpayer.”
The National Audit Office said the programme had strong
ministerial and senior management support and had the potential to
deliver considerable benefits to patients and the NHS.
It praised the continuity in the leadership of the programme,
but noted, “National leadership of engagement with NHS
organisations and staff in implementing and making best use of the
systems has changed a number of times and resource constraints
limited the scale of early engagement efforts.”
While highlighting NHS staff support for the aims of the
programme, the National Audit Office also noted “significant
concerns among some staff that the programme is moving slower than
expected, that clarity is lacking as to when systems will be
delivered and what they will do”
The report noted that some parts of the programme have already
been delivered and highlighted a new NHS-wide directory with
500,000 entries and an e-mail system (NHSmail) with 80,000 active
users. It praised the progress of a new national broadband network.
It also reported good progress on electronic prescribing services
and the deployment of x-ray and diagnostic imaging systems and the
Choose and Book appointments booking system.
Delays to systems were also noted, including a 10-month delay in
the national data spine and up to two years’ delay in the delivery
of the fully integrated NHS Care Records. Slow take up of Choose
and Book and an electronic prescribing service was highlighted, but
the National Audit Office said, “Connecting for Health expects
ministerial targets for the later stages of deployment to be
achieved.”
The report praised Connecting for Health for adopting “the
highest security standards for access to patient information”.
Finally, the National Audit Office reported on the predicted
costs of the project, which it put at £12.4bn at 2004-2005 prices
over the 10 years of the main contracts to 2013-2014. This includes
an extra £3bn of central costs over the previously announced £6.2bn
contract price and an estimated £3.4bn costs to be borne by local
NHS organisations to implement nationally delivered systems.
The audit office said it was “satisfied that central expenditure
was being managed within budget”, adding, “Other organisations
could learn lessons from NHS Connecting for Health’s experience so
far, in particular… the swift procurement exercise, the incentives
and penalties included in the contracts and the robust management
of the suppliers.”
Significant challenges
The National Audit Office report pointed to “significant
challenges” for the Department of Health, NHS Connecting for Health
and the wider NHS:
- Ensuring that the IT suppliers continue to deliver systems that
meet the needs of the NHS, and to agreed timescales without further
slippage.
- Ensuring that NHS organisations play their part fully in
implementing the programme’s systems.
- Winning the support of NHS staff and the public in making the
best use of the systems to improve services.
In response to this warning Connecting for Health said, “We
accept that these are real challenges and have work under way to
meet them.”
Read:
The unanswered questions about NHS
IT