Lack of capacity among suppliers has led to things
“going wrong” with the £12.4bn NHS National Programme for IT, and
it is still a risk, senior officials told MPs last
week.
NHS acting chief executive Ian Carruthers, director of IT
implementation Richard Jeavons and Richard Granger, chief executive
of Connecting for Health, which runs the IT programme, were
questioned at the Commons Public Accounts Committee hearing to
examine the National Audit Office’s report on the NPfIT.
The MPs were sceptical of the “almost universally positive tone”
of the NAO report, described by MP Greg Clark as “easily the most
gushing” he had seen.
Pressed by committee chairman Edward Leigh, Carruthers said the
two-year delay in introducing a national clinical record service
was a decision taken because “some suppliers were having
difficulties meeting the timetable” and clinicians wanted to pilot
the scheme.
Granger said, “There is a shortage of capacity in the IT
industry and we have had to bring in a lot of resources, from India
and the US in particular, and some things have unfortunately gone
wrong as a consequence of that.”