The cyber disaster that is the National Programme for IT continues; Times Online reports on the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, who switched on their 'Millenium Care Records Service' some months ago and had to amend 12 000 patient records in the space of three weeks. Software crashes were a regular occurence and the trust had to bring in extra staff to cope with the disruption. The trust naturally wants compensation; they have had to spend a lot of money to compensate for the faults in the programme. And this is where the fun starts. The local service provider for their area is Cerner, who actually devised the system. However, the trust cannot sue them. That is because the actual contract is between BT and the Secretary of State for Health. If the trust wants compensation, it will have to appeal to the Health Minister. Will they get their money back? I wouldn't bet on it.
Accountability, or lack of it, has been a recurring theme in this saga. In April 2006,an open letter was sent to the Health Committee by leading IT experts, asking about the feasibility of the programme and complaining that there was a lack of information and transparency regarding the project.
The costs have gone up and up. Connecting for Health was originally pitched at £2.3 billion, went up to £12.4 billion, and estimates are now £20-30 billion. An unofficial estimate, said to be in a minute to the Treasury, puts the possible final cost at £50 billion.
Perhaps the most infamous episode in this escapade, was when Accenture, one of the companies involved in the implementation, withdrew its services in September 2006. It should have been fined £1 billion for breach of contract. It was actually fined £63 million by Richard Granger, the Director General of the programme. In a previous life, Richard Granger worked for Andersen Consulting. That company later re-named itself Accenture. You join the dots.
Now, I know what you're going to say. It's a big project, they always overrun, it's the NHS, it'll be alright in a few years, once they've sorted out the software. But it's not alright. We're talking about not millions,but billions of pounds. We're talking about a bail out on the kind of pegging level of the credit crunch. And at the end of it, we don't have a system that works. We cannot afford this as a country. The health minister Alan Johnston needs to get his seriously tackety boots on and tackle this. If that means taking BT to court, then so be it. 'Computer says no,' just isn't an option anymore..
Note: this post replaces an earlier post that I did on this subject that was somewhat rushed and lacking in accuracy as a result. After a nights sleep, some comment from Sean Brennan and a nice cup of tea, this resulted. Hope this is more to your taste, Sean.
