Junior Treasury minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry, the Exchequer Secretary, has affirmed her Government's faith in iSoft's Lorenzo and the Cerner Millennium software, though she added that "challenges remain".
She was responding to MP Richard Bacon during a debate in the House of Commons on the work of the Public Accounts Committee. Bacon had expressed his concerns about the lateness of Lorenzo and the "havoc" caused by the Cerner systems at some hospitals.
Lorenzo and Cerner's Millennium are patient administration systems
which should help hospitals keep electronic records. They are due to be
the heart of the NPfIT Care Records Service.
McCarthy-Fry said: "We all acknowledge that the NHS IT project is hugely ambitious and that it is essential that we get it right. It is obvious to everybody that many challenges remain.
"We still believe that Cerner Millennium and Lorenzo will be able to support the NHS in the long term."
She expressed confidence in CSC, which is the local service provider to NHS trusts in England north of Oxford, but not quite as much overt confidence in BT, which is under contract to supply trusts in London and some in the south.
She said: "Local service providers have been set a deadline of the end of November to demonstrate significant progress in the acute sector.
"They will have to demonstrate that Lorenzo has been successfully deployed by Computer Sciences Corporation across a non-acute site and is on track to be deployed in an acute site by March 2010, and that there is a high degree of confidence in CSC's ability to deploy across the NME - north, midlands and east- area by January 2016.
"BT will have to have successfully deployed Cerner in an additional acute site, and there must be a high degree of confidence in its ability to deploy across London by October 2015...
"The Department of Health will provide a note on progress by the end of this year."
She said she would write in detail to Richard Bacon on the specific points he made about Cerner's Millennium and Lorenzo, and the value for money of the NPfIT.
Lorenzo - is the cost per user frightening? - IT Projects Blog
Health suppliers trafficking in patient data? - Health Care Renewal
iSoft to go directly to trusts in the south - Dominic Fallows
McCarthy-Fry said: "We all acknowledge that the NHS IT project is hugely ambitious and that it is essential that we get it right. It is obvious to everybody that many challenges remain.
"We still believe that Cerner Millennium and Lorenzo will be able to support the NHS in the long term."
She expressed confidence in CSC, which is the local service provider to NHS trusts in England north of Oxford, but not quite as much overt confidence in BT, which is under contract to supply trusts in London and some in the south.
She said: "Local service providers have been set a deadline of the end of November to demonstrate significant progress in the acute sector.
"They will have to demonstrate that Lorenzo has been successfully deployed by Computer Sciences Corporation across a non-acute site and is on track to be deployed in an acute site by March 2010, and that there is a high degree of confidence in CSC's ability to deploy across the NME - north, midlands and east- area by January 2016.
"BT will have to have successfully deployed Cerner in an additional acute site, and there must be a high degree of confidence in its ability to deploy across London by October 2015...
"The Department of Health will provide a note on progress by the end of this year."
She said she would write in detail to Richard Bacon on the specific points he made about Cerner's Millennium and Lorenzo, and the value for money of the NPfIT.
Lorenzo - is the cost per user frightening? - IT Projects Blog
Health suppliers trafficking in patient data? - Health Care Renewal
iSoft to go directly to trusts in the south - Dominic Fallows