The firstNHStrusts to upload medical details
to anational databaseas part of the
£12.4bnNational Programme for IT(NPfIT) were
pressured for political reasons to push ahead quickly despite the
immaturity of the technology, an independent report is set to
reveal.
A year-long study of the summary care record early adopter
programme - a key part of the NPfIT - will show how politics and
large, complex IT projects can be a toxic mix.
The study is expected to find that most users in the first
trusts to go live with the system were broadly enthusiastic about
giving doctors online access to medical records in an emergency and
out of hours.
But the researchers at University College London found that the
summary care record remains an immature technology which staff
describe as clunky, which interfaces poorly with other systems, and
which many staff have given up using until it works better.
UCL's report is also likely to reveal that IT executives in
early adopters were pressured to implement the system to redress
what had been described as a worrying lack of progress on the
NPfIT.
In public, government ministers have repeatedly defended the
progress and success of the NPfIT.
In February 2007, civil servants at the Department of Health
told the then prime minister, Tony Blair, that much of the NPfIT
was complete.
But the main deliverable of the NPfIT - a national system of
electronic health records to replace paper files, which are often
lost or unavailable when needed - is nowhere near ready.
The government promised a full national health record service
would be "accessible nationally for out-of-hours reference" by the
end of 2005. But plans are at least three years behind
schedule.
It is not known when, or if, the summary care record will be up
and running nationally because of uncertainties over the
technology, data security and whether NHS staff will want to use
the system.
The UCL study was paid for by NHS Connecting for Health, which
runs large parts of the NPfIT and was criticised by the independent
report. Connecting for Health executives said they felt under
pressure from the government, in part because of the NPfIT's high
profile.
The report evaluated live trials of the summary care record at
trusts in Bolton, Bury, South Birmingham and Dorset. The system
will take extracts of local medical records held by GPs. Any
medication or allergy information will be uploaded onto a national
database, called the "spine", which is run by BT.
The UCL research is expected to report resentment among
participating primary care trusts that Connecting for Health pushed
forward on a tightly managed, largely non-negotiable timetable for
implementing the summary care record despite the immaturity of
technical solutions.
There was further resentment from GP practices pushed
excessively by primary care trusts in turn.
The report also found that the public doubted whether the
summary care record system was worth the money being spent on
it.
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