From David Cameron's speech this afternoon at the Conservative Party conference:
"Ten years on from a government that said '24 hours to save the NHS', billions spent and yet morale is so low, some hospitals still threatened with closure, departments shutting down, productivity so poor in the NHS, what's gone wrong? Again if we don't understand why Labour are failing we won't succeed.
"I think it's because the reform has been topped down. Targets imposed from above, endless re-organisation, nine in the last ten years, and an NHS computer costing billions of pounds that many professionals in the NHS can't really tell you what it's for, though they are worried its going to take away patient confidentiality, and I think they've demoralised the staff in the NHS and questioned their professionalism and their vocation."
Comment:
David Cameron knows that the National Programme for IT is more than a "computer".
On the other hand he probably couldn't have called it a project: too boring for the main speech of the Conservative Party conference. He could have called it a 'programme'. That's even worse.
I wouldn't be surprised if Cameron's speech-writer (s) originally wrote "NHS computer system" and perhaps Cameron deleted 'system' as unnecessary.
Life is so much simpler when you're in opposition.
Full text of Cameron speech - BBC Online
