03 Aug 2011
Parliament has heavily criticised the Department of Health (DoH) for the failings of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in a new report released today by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The report, The National Programme for IT in the NHS, focuses on the electronic care records system, which has proved impossible to deliver as intended.
Originally designed to ensure that every patient had a single record that could be shared right across the NHS, the project is now late and over budget.
It is currently a more fragmented system than was intended, relying on individual NHS trusts to develop their own compatible systems, rather than the original single design.
The report recommended that the DoH consider scrapping the project altogether, rather than continue with the remaining multi-billion pound investment.
"The [DoH] should review whether to continue the programme and consider whether the remaining £4.3bn would be better spent elsewhere."
Further criticism was levelled at the DoH for failing to get value from its suppliers.
The report stated the two sub-contractors, CSC and BT, had been paid £1.8bn since 2002, but had yet to deliver much of the contracted work.
In BT's case, the PAC noted that the DoH is overpaying for its services.
"BT is paid £9m to implement systems at each NHS site, even though the same systems have been purchased for under £2m by NHS organisations outside the Programme."
From 2015-16, individual NHS trusts will assume control of the care records systems, but the report states that they do not have the costing information needed to manage them.
This problem will be exacerbated by the fact that the forthcoming health reforms are proposing to dissolve the organisations currently managing the NPfIT.
The report also highlighted the difficulty in reviewing the project, stating that the DoH had been slow to provide the necessary information.
"It is unacceptable that the [DoH] has neglected its duty to provide timely and reliable information to make Parliament's scrutiny of this project possible.
"Basic information provided by the Department to the NAO [National Audit Office] was late, inconsistent and contradictory."
It comes as no real surprise that Parliament has heavily criticised the DoH for its failings of the NHS IT programme. Indeed, there have been three fundamental issues from the outset which have contributed to its flaws. Firstly, there was next to no engagement with the stakeholders or potential end-users as to what goals they were aiming to achieve from the project, and secondly, as a consequence of this, the suppliers had insufficient direction as to precisely what end goal was required and being aimed for. Finally, the project has been so large that it has become unmanageable.
The three faults of the NHS programme could have been readily countered were an Agile development methodology applied from the start. Agile intrinsically requires a regular detailed engagement with the end-users, such that progress can be constantly assessed according to the specific need. Because of this process of ongoing assessment and revision, projects where requirements are unclear stand a greater chance of success as the accuracy of the end-goal is constantly examined and even changed if deemed appropriate. Provided the end result delivers real business value, it will be rightly deemed a success, even though it may not match the originally intended goal, sometimes a project may take a little longer to get there – but that is much better than a total and costly failure.
Andrew Wilcox
Civil Government Divisional Director
IPL
www.ipl.com
Posted by: Andrew Wilcox 05 Aug 2011
While NPfiT is perhaps the most significant example of poor procurement practices by the public sector, but it is by no means the only example. The procurement and management of software is another area in need of significant improvement in the public sector, and fixing it could save an estimated £50m a year.
I have found there to be a real disconnect between software stakeholders in both central and local government bodies – between those that want the software, those that deploy it, and those that pay for it. This inevitably leads to departments over-spending on software as they have no idea how many licenses they actually have, so they either fail to re-deploy the licenses they already own or fail to get the best price when new licenses are actually required.
By taking a joined-up approach to their software procurement, the government could make significant savings in the short and long-term.
Posted by: Sean Robinson, License Dashboard 03 Aug 2011
Have your say on this article
Newsletters
Latest stories from Health
You may also like
Health jobs
Technology Patent Wars
Case studies from large organisations across all sectors
... And rich media, and flexible working, and peaks in traffic ...
Upcoming Events
Join us for this Computing web seminar, in which the Head of BI at the Co-operative Group Nick Colebourn will be explaining just how he reigned in the Group’s sprawling database estate and how significant savings were realised and data quality improved as a result.
Date: 31 May 2012
Time: 11:00 AM
Live June 13th 11:00am: Register now. During this web seminar we will be looking at the sorts of incidents that can bring data centres grinding to a halt and what can be done about them.
Date: 13 Jun 2012
Time: 11:00 am
Receive the latest jobs direct to your inbox
Are you being paid what you are worth?
