More than 110 "major incidents" have hit hospitals
across England in the past four months, after parts of the health
service went live with systems supplied under the £12.4bn National
Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS.
Many of the incidents, which have been reported by Connecting
for Health, the body that oversees the NPfIT, involve the failure
of x-ray retrieval hardware and software, known as Pacs (picture
archiving and communications systems) which allow clinicians to
view digitised x-rays on screen.
When these systems fail, it can stop doctors viewing x-rays on
screens in wards and operating theatres.
The major incidents also involve hospital patient administration
systems, which hold patient details such as appointments and
planned treatments.
The specifications for services to be supplied under the NPfIT
built up an expectation among NHS staff and clinicians that they
would receive sub-second response times, and that equipment would
be available to them 99.99% of the time.
But the list of major incidents seen by Computer Weekly shows
that in some cases NHS staff and clinicians have lost access to
their main hospital systems. More than 20 major incidents have
affected multiple NHS sites.
This raises questions about whether the risks of failure after
go-live have been adequately assessed, and whether any independent
regulator has an overview of the riskiest implementations across
England.
An IT director who declined to be named for fear of
repercussions wrote to Computer Weekly about the problems. He said,
"Some NHS trusts that have implemented Connecting for Health
[centrally-bought] solutions are struggling to cope with poor
system performance and service availability issues.
"The local service provider is working flat out to resolve the
issues. However, a great deal of damage has been done in terms of
deteriorating end-user confidence and satisfaction with respect to
the systems."
The high number of incidents could be because the programme is
in its early stages and systems are bedding down - the 10-year
supplier contracts have run for less than three years.
However, the systems installed so far are basic early releases
which have only a small number of the planned features. Most
safety-related clinical systems, such as the e-ordering of test
results and the prescribing of drugs, which will generate the bulk
of transactions, have yet to be implemented.
Once they are, "major incidents" could potentially affect many
more patients than those that have hit the NHS this summer.
Some of the listed incidents were fixed quickly, though others
lasted much longer. The crash of a datacentre in Maidstone in July
which caused the loss of central services and systems to 80 trusts
in England for up to four days, is among those listed.
The Maidstone crash is described in the list of major incidents
simply as "North West and West Midlands Lorenzo users connecting
via Maidstone unable to access system due to datacentre power
failure". Lorenzo is a system supplied by CSC and its software
contractor iSoft.
Fujitsu, CSC and BT are shown as having been the main supplier
in most of the major incidents.
A spokesman for Connecting for Health, said, "The expression
'major incident' can be misinterpreted. For example, this could be
when a patient administration system is running slow, or there may
be problems with the local network."
The spokesman added, "We are open and transparent about service
availability. We believe we are unique among comparable
organisations in that we publish service availability updates on
our website showing the service levels achieved by suppliers.
Any interruption to service is unfortunate but trusts have tried
and trusted manual systems to provide continuity of care.
"Service availability is typically much higher than for systems
procured before the NPfIT."
However, information on major incidents is not readily available
on the Connecting for Health website.
Read article:
Was Audit Office report on NHS IT truly
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