Patients with suspected cancer have had urgent appointments with
specialists delayed after
Barts and The London NHS Trust went live with systems under the
£12.7bn national IT scheme, Computer Weekly has learned.
The delays breach the government's guarantee that patients with
suspected cancer will receive an appointment with a specialist
within two weeks.
Barts went live in April with the biggest implementation so far
of the
Care Records Service, which aims to provide patients with
electronic health records. The Care Records Service is a central
component in the
National Programme for IT [NPfIT].
But the introduction of the systems at Barts and The London NHS
Trust led to 11 patients with suspected cancer not being seen
within two weeks. The trust told Computer Weekly that the delays in
appointments ranged from two to 31 days.
The Trust Board of Barts was told this week that the impact of
the implementation of the Care Records Service across the hospital
trust presents the most significant new risk since the start of the
2008/9 financial year.