NHS IT scheme 'four years late'

An electronic system for patients' records will be introduced four years behind schedule, the government's spending watchdog has said.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has pointed to "serious" software delays, with the National Programme for IT in the NHS predicting that it will not be in every English NHS trust until 2014-2015.

The auditor's progress report said that while all elements of the £12.7bn programme are advancing and some are complete, the original timescales for the Care Records Service - one of the central processes - were "unachievable, raised unrealistic expectations, and put confidence in the programme at risk".

In particular, the software planned for the North, Midlands and East areas, called Lorenzo, has taken much longer than planned, forcing some trusts to adopt an interim system, the report found.

Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, warned that the new timescales "had better be realistic".

"The department can't afford further knocks to the programme's reputation or our confidence in it," he added.

Leigh also said: "The National Programme for IT was always going to be challenging. But, over time, the Department of Health has had its eyes opened to its enormous scale. And by building unrealistic expectations for delivery, confidence in the whole programme has been damaged."

The IT programme involves four main projects: a centralised electronic medical record system for 50 million patients; an online "choose and book" system for booking hospital appointments - deployment of which, according to the report, is nearly complete; electronic prescriptions; and fast network links between NHS organisations.

It is expected to link more than 30,000 GPs in England to almost 300 hospitals and the government hopes it will save the NHS £1.14bn by 2014.

Critics

But the project has come in for repeated criticism, including from committees of MPs, over the delays as well as fears over the security of patient information.

Due to contractual agreements meaning money would not be paid to suppliers until the systems are in place, the delays have not pushed up the estimated cost of £12.7bn, the NAO said.

Actual expenditure to the end of March 2008 was in fact lower than expected at £3.6bn because many trusts missed planned "go live" dates.

The report added that it was essential that NHS staff were convinced of the value of the programme in order for it to succeed.

According to a survey by the Department of Health last year, 67 per cent of nurses and 62 per cent of doctors expected the new systems to improve patient care.

Tim Burr, head of the NAO, said: "The scale of the challenge involved in delivering the National Programme for IT has proved to be far greater than envisaged at the start, with serious delays in delivering the new care records systems.

"Progress is being made, however, and financial savings and other benefits are beginning to emerge.

"The priority now is to finish developing and deploying care records systems that will help NHS Trusts to achieve the Programme's intended benefits of improved services and better patient care."