Hospital boss apologises for NHS IT problems

Staff have been caused "heartache" and hospital has lost £10m due to botched rollout of summary care records

The Royal Free suffered extra paperwork

The head of one of the first hospitals to trial the new NHS summary care records system has apologised for the "heartache" the system has caused staff and said the disastrous implementation cost his hospital £10m.

Andrew Way, chief executive of London's Royal Free Hospital, said he still supported the concept of electronic records, but that his staff have been let down by what they were given.

"I think it is very disappointing that the work we had to do as a trust has caused our staff so much heartache and hard work," he said.

"I have personally apologised for the decision to implement the system before we were really clear about what we were going to receive. I had been led to believe it would all work."

The care records service is the most problematic part of the £12.7bn NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT). While some parts of the scheme have been carried out fairly smoothly, the records service is delayed by four years and a rollout in London was halted while the Royal Free's problems were addressed, alongside those of another early adopter hospital that had been suffering problems, Barts and the London.

Media reports have suggested that the programme in London has just been given the go-ahead to get back underway this week.

BT, which is responsible for delivery in the London region, yesterday reported disastrous results in its IT services division, with an operating loss of £501m, and is reported to be reviewing its position in the NHS programme.

Meanwhile, NPfIT has been slowed hugely in its southern region as the NHS searches for another supplier after Fujitsu Services pulled out last year.

The Royal Free, one of a number of early adopters of e-records, has been using the system since last summer.

Technical glitches meant outpatients' bookings were taking four times as long and the hospital had to employ another 40 administrative staff to handle the extra workload.

Overall, the hospital has spent an additional £4m to get the system working. On top of this, Way estimated the Royal Free has lost £6m because of a fall in admissions and faults in the system meaning it was unable to bill other parts of the NHS for work done.

Prime minister Gordon Brown defended the NHS IT project at a meeting of the Commons liaison committee yesterday.

"For all the problems that a huge project like that has created, you cannot say that it is not an advance," he said.

A Department of Health spokesperson said in a statement:

"Many elements of the Programme are complete, and patients and clinicians are now beginning to see the benefits these systems bring to improve patient care. We are learning lessons from the deployment at the Royal Free of Cerner Millennium, which now has an effective patient record system, and we expect these lessons to help us improve further deployments."

Andrew Way released a statement later in the day which said:

"Over the coming weeks and months we will be adapting [care records'] use to the way in which our staff want the system to work to enhance the services we provide to our patients."

"It should be emphasised that we now have the basics of one of the world's most highly regarded IT systems established at the Royal Free."