An investigation into the
NHS's national IT programme by MPs has found that the £12.4bn
scheme may fail to deliver what is required by the health
service.
Published today (17 April), the
Public Accounts Committee report is the most damning high-level
assessment of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) since its
inception in 2002. It marks the culmination of several years'
campaigning by Computer Weekly to highlight the
programme's risks and challenges, amid a background of secrecy
and little public acknowledgement in Whitehall of the scheme's
difficulties.
The committee reviewed the Department of Health's strongest
arguments in defence of the NPfIT and discounted most of them. In
compiling its report, the committee received expert advice from
public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (see below).
The report says the NPfIT has lost three key suppliers, is
running late, and is having difficulties meeting its objective.
This, it says, "raises doubts over whether the contracts will
deliver what is required".
The Labour-dominated committee concluded that at the present
rate of progress "it is unlikely that significant clinical benefits
will be delivered" by the end of the contracts, most of which are
due to run until 2014.
The
findings of the report undermine the main justification for
what is the world's largest civil IT programme, which is to
significantly improve the care and treatment of patients.
The 175-page report has little good to say about the work on the
programme. Key points include:
● Although more than £2bn has been spent, suppliers are "clearly
struggling to deliver".
● Four years into the programme, there is still much uncertainty
about the costs of the programme for the local NHS and the value of
the benefits it should achieve.
● Although patient administration systems are being deployed to
help trusts that urgently need new systems, this technology is "not
a substitute for the vision of a shared electronic patient clinical
record and no firm plans have been published for deploying software
to achieve this vision".
● The Department of Health has failed to carry an important body
of clinical opinion with it.
● The use of two main software suppliers may have inhibited
innovation, progress and competition.
● Some deployments have caused serious problems for trusts.
Questions by Richard Bacon, a Conservative MP on the Public
Accounts Committee, established that consultants on the programme
were earning up to £2,400 a day. At the end of July 2006, there
were 471 consultants/contractors engaged with NHS Connecting for
Health, the government agency running the NPfIT.
Bacon said it was difficult to avoid the conclusion from the
findings that the NPfIT has been a failure so far. He wants trusts
to be able to buy their main systems from a range of suppliers
whose technology conforms to national standards.
The Department of Health said that the technology to support
"most aspects" of the NPfIT had already been delivered. "The
remaining challenge is to utilise these systems fully at local
level," it said.
Path to publication: how MPs caught up with the
NPfIT
Behind the scenes, experts at the National Audit Office have
played a key role in helping to produce the Public Accounts
Committee's report.
Last June, the NAO produced
a report on the NHS National Programme for IT. MPs on the
Public Accounts Committee then questioned senior civil servants on
the NAO's findings.
The Department of Health subsequently provided papers to the
committee to answer specific points raised by the MPs. Independent
experts also submitted papers.
Several months later, the NAO produced a first draft of the
Public Accounts Committee's report, which was considered by the
committee's MPs.
The NAO then reviewed for credibility and accuracy any changes
to the first draft, and the final report was issued today (17
April).
MPs dissect NHS IT scheme's failings
More about the National Programme
Criticism and opportunity for NHS IT
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