NHS IT faces second investigation

Another National Audit Office inquiry will follow this month's Public Accounts Committee report

NAO inquiry is to go ahead next year

The NHS faces a second investigation into its £12bn National IT Programme following a warning this month by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the programme may never succeed.

The National Audit Office (NAO) inquiry will take place next year, the committee’s chairman Edward Leigh told the House of Commons this week. The decision follows government claims that the NAO findings on which the stinging PAC report was based are out of date.

Leigh says the plan is the result of talks with Comptroller and Auditor General Sir John Bourne. ‘I am going to call the government’s bluff,’ he said. ‘On my encouragement, we are about to have another NAO report on the NHS computer in the next year.’

Leigh says the objective is ‘to check whether all the excellent recommendations of the NAO are being carried out’.

The PAC report questioned the benefits of the NHS IT programme, pointing to delays in developing electronic records and problems with suppliers.

The government countered that it has followed up many of the recommendations of the earlier NAO report and that PAC overlooked much of the past year’s considerable progress, including completion of the N3 broadband network and the roll out of electronic X-ray systems.

MPs are calling for an annual report on the costs and benefits of the programme, despite Department of Health assurances that costs have not risen.