Local ownership of the £12.4bn
National Programme for IT (NPfIT) has been
delayed as Strategic Health Authorities continue to negotiate
over how Connecting for Health, an agency of the
Department of Health, will hand over some responsibility for the
programme.
The handover was expected on April 1, but is now unlikely before
July. The Department of Health had committed to
developing greater local ownership of the
programme, which plans to create 50 million electronic records
for patients in England, following criticism from the National
Audit Office that the programme did not have support of local
staff.
Under an initiative called the NPfIT Local Ownership Programme,
SHAs were due to become more accountable for the programme.
However, they are now negotiating a now responsibility will be
transferred more than two weeks after the deadline. The Department
of Health first put forward the plan in August last year.
Although the DoH created a central agency to procure technology
for the national programme, contract five local service providers
and create national application contracts in 2003, NHS management
is largely devolved to a trust and health authority level. This
makes co-ordinating business change and technology development a
challenge.
Connecting for Health director of service implementation Richard
Jeavons said, “The transition to local ownership involves a lot of
detailed discussions between many parties. It’s important to get
these discussions right and they have taken longer than originally
planned. However, all parties are working together to complete them
successfully over the coming months.”
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