Tony Collins's IT Projects Blog

When a producer at BBC's "Ten O'Clock News" contacted me about "another government computer project that has gone wrong" she was genuinely interested to know why failures cannot be prevented.

I gave the producer a choice of comments and she sent a cameraman to record them. This was the comment the Ten O'Clock News decided to broadcast on Friday evening [4 July 2008] in a short film on delays with school exam tests:

"You don't have the scrutiny in the public sector that you do need to have," I said. "There ought to be reports to Parliament about how these projects are going. Unfortunately the government is extraordinarily secretive about big IT projects."

Are poor communications contributing to Whitehall's IT failures?

Members of the House of Lords' Communications Committee took an interest today [16 July] in the quality of the Department of Health's communications over the NHS's National Programme for IT [NPfIT].

I was among several journalists who gave evidence to the committee on whether there has been any improvement in openness and trust between the media and government since the recommendations in a review report on government communications by Bob Phillis, former Chief Executive of the Guardian newspaper group. It's known as the Phillis Review.

The journalists questioned by the committee this morning included Nick Robinson, Chief Political Editor at the BBC; his equivalent at ITV Tom Bradby; Adam Boulton, Political Editor at Sky News; Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor at The Times; and Frank Gardner, Security Correspondent at the BBC.

Chris Lancelot, a GP in Lancashire and a columnist for HealthcareRepublic.com, says that England would benefit from a secure system allowing doctors to access patients' prescriptions, allergies and basic medical information.

But he says that "those in charge are spending colossal sums of money - £12.7 billion at the latest estimate - to deliver ... well, nothing very much".

He adds: "Is there really no one in the NHS with the wisdom and guts to stand up and say, 'Stop! Let's go about this more sensibly'?"

When the government awarded the contract to ETS to process and mark SATs, Whitehall's press release was, as to be expected, full of praise for the supplier and the procurement process.

But the press release showed how the government, in awarding multimillion contracts, can be not merely at arm's length but miles away.

And what was left out of UCL report on the Summary Care Record

Comment/analysis

A senior executive working for the NHS says that, for the National Programme for IT [NPfIT], the new health CIO Christine Connelly could be what cold water is to a man dying of thirst.

But her success will depend on her freedom of action and the frankness of the briefings she's given.

Serious problems cannot be tackled if they're not officially acknowledged to be serious; so one hopes that Connelly will be given the unadorned facts, and be allowed to acknowledge them publicly. This honesty at the top would be good for the NPfIT.

Are the effects on patients of NPfIT go-lives merely "teething"?

"All the risks are falling on patients," says Shadow Health spokesman 

Whenever the results of NPfIT go-lives are highlighted in the media, the official line is that all difficulties are teething.  Teething implies short-term, inconsequential pain. Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust went live with the Cerner R0 Millennium Care Records Service in July 2007 and is still not over the difficulties according to board papers dated July 2008.

Below we publish verbatim excerpts from some of the trust's board papers, and a paper from the local primary care trust at Enfield.

Aside from the possible effects on patients of cancelled operations, delayed treatments and appointments which were temporarily lost, there have been long-term financial consequences of the go-live.  This is from a paper, which is dated July 2008, to the trust's board:

After Elizabeth Dove saw her GP about suspected depression she was dismayed and angry to find that her sensitive NHS records were put on a database which was shared with staff at the local council.

But it was no mistake: Dove discovered that it is routine for the NHS to make medical information on some patients accessible to some employees of local councils.

Doctors have told Computer Weekly that GPs refer patients to the local Primary Care Trust which shares some medical information with the local council through joint computer systems. The data sharing is done in the name of "offering best care".

Now the Labour Party's conference, which was held in Manchester, is finished, I've looked at the lessons and what went wrong on 13 large, government IT-based projects and programmes:

• Magistrates' courts
• Schools
• Intelligence Services
• GCHQ
• Passport Service
• National Health Service
• Rural Payments Agency
• Criminal Records Bureau
• HM Revenue and Customs
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Department of Health
• Department for Innovation Universities Skills
• Ministry of Defence

The analysis is tied in with an analysis and comment, to be published in Computer Weekly this week, on Labour's track record on managing big IT-based projects and programmes.