The
NHS National Programme for IT will be exposed to
more supplier competition and less centralised under a Conservative
government, the shadow secretary of state for health said at
the party conference today.
Andrew Lansley said the party would not consider scrapping the
£12bn programme, saying, "We cannot just walk away because
contracts have been awarded. We would end up paying a shed load of
money for nothing.
"I do not think people in the health service want it scrapped.
They want it to work for them."
He said the project needs to be more exposed to competition and
more "user-oriented".
"A central problem with a big computer project is that it is not
built around the needs of users," he said.
The Conservatives would aim to make the project less
centralised, he said. "The approach should be more bottom-up rather
than top-down, so the IT is owned more locally.
"Ideally, we want something based on common protocols and
standards, but where all the hardware and software was open to
competition."
But he added the changes would be difficult, because of how far
the programme has already gone. "The structure of the programme has
made opening up to competition more difficult. A lot of money has
been committed to central procurement."
His comments came the day after the Conservative party published
its plans for improving the NHS.
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