We track the NHS National Programme

People, processes, security and relationships with suppliers will be central to the success of health service IT modernisation, according to the members of Computing's NHS National Programme monitoring group.

Our committee has been created to track the progress of the various IT projects making up the £2.3bn National Programme.

The emphasis of the group will be on providing a constructive contribution and fuelling useful debate, drawing on lessons learned in other government projects and from members' experiences.

We invited experts from a range of backgrounds to join the committee. The monitoring group members are:

• Dr Grant Kelly - chairman of the British Medical Association IT committee
• Laurence Harrison - healthcare programme manager at supplier trade body Intellect
• Andy Burnham MP - Member of the House of Commons health select committee
• David Roberts - chief executive of blue-chip user group the Corporate IT Forum
• Peter Sommer - computer security expert and visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics
• Jim Norton - independent director and former head of the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit ecommerce team

The five-year National Programme is made up of four elements: electronic patient records systems (EPR), national electronic bookings and prescriptions applications, and a broadband NHSNet connecting GPs and hospitals.

People and processes will be central to the success of the programme, says Norton.

'A lot of the challenges will be how to change the behaviour of people and processes as much as the technology itself. What I would want to bring to this is: let's change the way in which the IT is thought of and used,' he said.

'I am also quite worried about the EPR proposals - there are one or two key core systems at the heart of this and if we don't get the security and confidentiality right then there will be the most god-awful backlash from the public,' said Norton.

Security will need to be a primary concern, says Sommer.

'People will expect security to be embedded in every procedure not tacked on as an afterthought. Security depends on the abilities of end users, in this case practice receptionists, and we need to ensure each design takes that fully into account. This isn't the only consideration, but it is useful in terms of getting the debate going,' he said.

And there will be major changes in the relationship between the NHS and suppliers, says Kelly.

'The rest will clunk its way along in a slow way but if we can see a change in the relationship with suppliers then even if we don't know what we're going to buy then at least we know we are going to buy it in a better way than before,' he said.