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'Unworkable' NHS Records System May Have Wasted Millions, Commons Committee Claims

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First Posted: 03/08/11 07:54 BST Updated: 02/10/11 11:12 BST

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PRESS ASSOCIATION -- A plan to integrate NHS patient care records is not going to work and millions of pounds may have been wasted, according to a damning report from MPs.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said parts of the National Programme for IT - designed to create electronic patient records for use across the NHS in England - have proved unworkable.

Launched in 2002 with an estimated cost of more than £11 billion, the Department of Health has spent £6.4 billion on the programme so far, including £2.7 billion on patient records.

MPs said the intention of creating electronic records was a "worthwhile aim" but was one "that has proved beyond the capacity of the department to deliver".

The report said officials have accepted they are unable to deliver the planned system and are "now relying on individual NHS trusts to develop systems compatible with those in the programme". This means different parts of the country will have different systems.

The report also criticises the contracts between the department and suppliers - so far £1.8 billion has been paid out to them. "One supplier, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), has yet to deliver the bulk of the systems it is contracted to supply and has instead implemented a large number of interim systems as a stopgap," it said.

The Department of Health told MPs it may be more expensive to terminate the contract than see it through, while another provider, BT, "has also proved unable to deliver against its original contract".

In the report, MPs criticised the Department of Health's "weak programme management". They said: "We are concerned that, given his significant other responsibilities, (NHS chief executive) David Nicholson has not fully discharged his responsibilities as the Senior Responsible Owner for this project. This has resulted in poor accountability for project performance."

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "This is yet more evidence that Labour's botched approach to IT in the NHS failed taxpayers and failed patients.

"Their one-size-fits-all IT programme has once again been found unworkable. This Government is taking action where Labour failed. Already, we have reduced expenditure on Labour's costly IT schemes by £1.3 billion."

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PRESS ASSOCIATION -- A plan to integrate NHS patient care records is not going to work and millions of pounds may have been wasted, according to a damning report from MPs. The Commons Public Accoun...
PRESS ASSOCIATION -- A plan to integrate NHS patient care records is not going to work and millions of pounds may have been wasted, according to a damning report from MPs. The Commons Public Accoun...
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An Independent Woman
Honni soit que mal y pense
651 Fans
08:55 PM on 08/03/2011
I'm from California and I belong to Kaiser Permanente, the largest (I believe) HMO in the US. All medical records are digitalized. I can order a prescription, make an appointment, schedule minor procedures, view the outcome of tests, email my doc, complain to Patient Services (imagine!) all via the net. It saves lots of time and money (no co-pays when you email your doc). I can make appointments with specialists through my primary doc without waiting weeks for an appointment (my longest wait has been 4 days). But most importantly, all my medical records are at the fingertips of any doctor, therapist, pharmacist, etc. I feel I'm getting superior healthcare when all too often HMO's get a bad rap. (And no, I don't work for Kaiser.) Instead of reinventing the wheel, the National Health should look into Kaiser's system.
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lastpost
see biography
440 Fans
02:18 PM on 08/03/2011
"'Unworkable' NHS Records System May Have Wasted Millions,"
The best medicine to cure malpractice like this, is tincture of inquiry. Practiced by a specialist who can’t be struck off for dispensing unpalatable questions.

"another provider, BT, "has also proved unable to deliver against its original contract"."
Bl**dy Terrible service, guaranteed?

"Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "This is yet more evidence that Labour'"
couldn’t organise a high speed rail-link to save its life?

Already, we have reduced expenditure on Labour's costly IT schemes by £1.3 billion.
But how many weeks E.U. contributions will that cover?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mediumal57
Moderate Extremist
86 Fans
 
01:13 PM on 08/03/2011
Logic dictates that the Trusts themselves should have been allowed to digitalise their records using whatever system that works for them. What those involved in this mammoth plan didn't appreciate, I suspect, was just how damn difficult it is to design a catch-all one off all encompassing system capable of handling all the patient records accross the country. Time consuming as well. They should have broken it all down into manageable tasks.

What needs to be done now is for every NHS Trust to work on a system that gets all of it's own records sorted. When this has been achieved the problem of how to integrate them can be worked on. Databases are after all essentially very similar in architecture. What one needs is a programme or series of programmes that will allow data to eventually be readily transferred from one authority to another. And if I know anything about management you'll find that a lot of Trusts will use essentially the same software, especially adjacent ones. This will in time make it all the more easier to integrate the whole lot of them into a national database. My proection is about 20 years.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Jonatan Cruz
"socialism is not what it used to be ... XD "
7 Fans
01:00 PM on 08/03/2011
maybe they should use another countrys system.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2010/05/27/f-vp-strauss-spain-electronic-health-records.html
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eric14
1215 Fans
 
11:09 AM on 08/03/2011
In mid 1990'a I attended a meeting with Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell in Camberwell. The subject was reform of the NHS. I was asked to give my opinion.

I pointed out that in the 1980's in Saudi Arabia my local hospital and doctor's office were connected to each other on a mainframe computer holding all our medical records. Hospital appointments were made at doctors on-line, taking seconds.

The software package was American. It was impossible to fiddle with data entry as the data base was so rigidly constructed.

After treatment a printout to patient (and employer) detailed treatment and all costs.

I concluded by saying to the two M.P.'s that it would be much cheaper for UK to purchase this bespoke system on mainframe rather than develop a PC-Windows based system.

Now here we are.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Lawyer13
retired Lawyer, General and Psychiatric Nurse, wit
8343 Fans
 
10:43 AM on 08/03/2011
This comes as no surprise billions have been wasted on this scheme, and they will waste more money on a "local system", when will these people ever learn, NHS taken for a ride, but not in ambulance, no by BIG BUSINESS !!!
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RORY MCCLOSKEY
0 Fans
07:50 AM on 08/03/2011
Having worked with NHS on IT (as part of the civil service) this is not surprising. I thought I was gonna be working for the community but civil service was full of dead weight and people on jollies. The 3rd party IT contractors were just as bad. This quality of work would not be acceptable in the private section. I guess all the best IT people work for Google, Microsoft, etc. A disgraceful waste of tax payers money.
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