NHS IT programme costs London hospital £7.2m

Other trusts are delaying care records system implementation while problems are sorted

Extra NHS staff have been called in

The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust has reported a £7.2m deficit due mainly to problems with the Cerner Millennium Care Records System – a key part of the £12.4bn NHS National Programme for IT.

The board report notes that problems with the software meant that many clinic and admission slots were not used - costing £1.3m - data was entered on the system incorrectly or not entered at all - costing £3.8m - and additional staff were required to mitigate the problems - costing £1.2m.

Issues with the stability of the system and the clunky workflows caused previous levels of clinical efficiency to fall, costing £0.9m.

The hopsital was the first organisation to take the London version of the Millennium software.

"It is a disgrace that ministerial incompetence is leading, once more, to hospitals losing money. This cash should be used for caring for patients - instead it is pouring into the black hole of the government's supercomputer," said shadow minister for health Stephen O'Brien.

The NHS recently admitted that another three trusts in London that had gone live with the software were having problems and that a joint decision had been taken with supplier BT to get these issues resolved before any more sites went live with the system.